There is an interest that I forgot to express in my first post.
Manga.
For
those who don’t know, Manga is Japanese. It’s a style of drawing,
almost like comic books, and kind of like graphic novels. Manga drawings
are very specific to the artist, they can change dramatically in form
and style. They are different from US comics because they are rarely in
color, and are printed on different paper, more like normal book paper,
not magazine paper. In Japan, most mangas are published weekly in large
books containing chapters of several different series, each called a
Manga. (Shonin Jump)
There is a particular Manga series that I would like to show you.
Naruto
I will judge mangas, when I review them, in these catagories:
Story, Theme, Characters, Art, and Long-Term Interest.
Each has a five star system, so a perfect score will be both 25, and very rare.
Theme: Naruto,
(the manga) is about a teenage ninja, named Uzimaki Naruto. (if you
don’t know, the japanese family name comes first, but unless you are a
close friend of someone you just call them by their family name) He
starts out as a ten year-old, but he grows up, eventually. But not only
is he a ninja, he, and the rest of the ninjas, except one, have
magic-like powers, called Jitsu, which is powered by Chakra. It may
sound ridiculous, but it’s really quite cool, Magic Ninjas.
Theme: ★★★★
Story: The
story of Naruto, is a bit tragic. But it’s a bit complicated, which is
okay in a manga, because you have twenty pages to work with every week
and a simple story would be rather dull. Here it is: An orphan, cursed
to harbor a powerful devil-like energy being inside his body, is shunned
and avoided by the entire ninja village. But there is one of his school
teachers that believes in him, so as not to disappoint, Naruto does his
best and becomes a ninja. (passes the ninja test.) The story is on
going, following Naruto’s life through out. I can’t properly rate this,
but since I’ve liked it so much so far...
Story: ★★★
Characters: The
characters in this Manga are average, I’ve read better and worse. The
characters of a manga cannot be compared to that of a book. A novel has a
beginning, middle, one or two villains, one or two sub-plots, then it
ends. Popular mangas don’t, they last, they continue, they must have
many plots, many sub-plots, and most important, lots of characters.
Naruto is no exception, there’s about five regular characters now, but
there has been an almost totally different set of five in earlier
chapters. Only Naruto is a guaranteed character to be there, and not in
every chapter anyway. Where I am going with this is here: It is
extremely hard to perfectly characterize so many, so often and keep them
both consistent and developing.
Character: ★★★
Art: The
art of the Naruto manga is one of my favorites. It has smooth lines, it
isn’t too heavily inked, characters are easily distinguishable, and
those are the important things.
Art: ★★★★
Long-Term Interest: I
first heard of this manga from my japanophile older brother, who
downloaded like, thirty chapters of it off the Internet, a really long
time ago. I was like, 11. At least one of you readers are thinking,
*That was like, five years ago, Quinn, that’s not that long.* Well,
you’re right, but it’s also a third of my lifetime. So suck it. (it’s
actually less than a third, I know.) Anyway, I still read Naruto every
week, it’s still really good, a bit confusing, but it’s my favorite out
of the few I read often.
Long-Term Interest: ★★★★★
Total Score: ★19 Stars ★
Again, this is my favorite manga, it’s only natural that it has a high score.
Thank you for reading, bye.
You’ll see me next Friday.
Shonin jump
Naruto in particular
remember to search for a manga reading website.
