隠の王

NABARI NO OU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
14
RELEASE
August 18, 2010
CHAPTERS
72

DESCRIPTION

Apathetic schoolboy Miharu Rokujou is content to meander through life in the sleepy village of Banten. But his quiet existence is shattered when the Grey Wolves of Iga, a powerful ninja clan, attempt to kidnap him in broad daylight. Only then does Miharu discover that the ultimate power of the hidden ninja realm - a power that can do both great good and great harm - is sealed within his body. As battles erupt among rival ninja clans seeking to control him, Miharu must overcome his apathy and learn the ways of the ninja if he wants any shot at survival!

(Source: Yen Press)

CAST

Yoite
Miharu Rokujo
Raikou Shimizu
Kouichi Aizawa
Raimei Shimizu
Thobari Durandal Kumohira
Saraba
Kazuhiko Yukimi
Gau Meguro
Shijima Kurookano
Yae Oda
Shinrabanshou
Kotarou Fuuma
Hanabusa Seki
Juuji Minami
Kazuho Amatatsu
Kourin Shimizu
Tojuro Hattori
Soumei Shimizu
Ichiki
Sourou Katou
Tsukasa Koudou
Yoi

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO NABARI NO OU

ANIME ActionNabari no Ou

MANGA DramaOsanagokoro no Niwa

REVIEWS

phones
90/100
An underrated and overlooked gem of a manga about being LGBTQ+, grief, and finding community. And also they're ninjas
This is a review of one of my favorite manga, Nabari no Ou, which I am writing mostly because there are no reviews for Nabari no Ou, and most people have only seen its anime counterpart (assuming they’ve even heard of Nabari no Ou in the first place). __This is spoiler-free!__ This is Yuhki Kamatani’s first published work–they would later go on to write the much more popular Shimanami Tasogare. The seeds of what would later blossom into Shimanami Tasogare are definitely present in Nabari no Ou and I think people who like Yuhki Kamatani’s work need to go back and check this little hidden gem out. Nabari no Ou is a story about the hidden ninja world fighting over the Shinrabanshou, a hidden ninja art that can grant its user any kind of wish. Because of its power, the Shinrabanshou is forbidden to use–but of course there are always those who seek to use it for their own gain. This means that the Shinrabanshou has to be contained somehow, so it is sealed away into a person. Yeah, it’s kind of Naruto-core, I know we’re all thinking it. TLDR Nabari no Ou is about how apathetic teenager Miharu Rokujou, the current bearer of the Shinrabanshou (without knowing of it, of course) gets dragged into the ninja world and the ninja politics and the ninja way of doing things. Beyond this sort of generic premise, Nabari no Ou is ultimately about how people confront and handle trauma and how to build relationships despite bearing penultimate kinds of sadness and hardship. Enter the character Yoite who wishes to be erased from the world. This goes beyond a desire to kill himself; Yoite wants to entirely remove any trace of his existence, and this is something that can only be accomplished using the Shinrabanshou. After a series of unlikely events, Yoite and Miharu team up, with Miharu promising to use the Shinrabanshou to erase Yoite, and their relationship becomes the crux of the manga through which these themes are explored. Miharu wants to understand Yoite, and as the two grow closer, is forced to confront the fact that he is scared to learn more about Yoite and scared to understand why exactly Yoite wants to be erased. At the same time, Miharu, who has made ‘apathy’ his core personality trait and has never wished for anything in his life and has been determined to make it through life without caring about anything, is terrified to discover that he might actually want something, and that that ‘want’ might be for a person who is caught up in wishing he never existed and who is pursuing that wish, therefore erasing anyone’s memory of him. At the same time, Yoite is slowly dying from using another forbidden ninja art that whittles away at the user’s life every time they use it. Yoite will die. It’s just a matter of ‘when’ and ‘how.’ Being forced to confront and contend with that and wishing for more time together, trying to cherish the time you have, grieving in advance, being mad you have to grieve again–this is what drives Nabari no Ou’s relationships. If you’re reading this and you’re thinking wow, this manga sounds sad as hell, you’re right! Yuhki Kamatani is an LGBTQ+ author in Japan and as far as I know identifies as x-gender and something along the lines of aromantic. Shimanami Tasogare outwardly deals with being LGBTQ+ in Japan and the varying experiences people have there, but it’s clear that this theme of queer love is something Kamatani wanted to explore even back in Nabari no Ou. Nabari no Ou isn’t really a love story per se; make no mistake, Yoite and Miharu’s relationship is undeniably queer, but the story’s more about them trying to wrestle with the unwanted feelings that two very independent people experience when they realize they have to rely on one another, of the feelings that get dredged up as they realize they desperately want to save the other even though each person wants a thing that will ultimately hurt them (Yoite chasing his erasure and Miharu chasing his desire to be fully apathetic to the world). Over time they are forced to confront that they deeply care about someone–and that that is scary, hurts, and results in a lot of grief, but also ultimately they come to realize and reconcile with a kind of happiness in the time they can spend together amidst the hurt, finding beauty in small moments where they can. Watching Kamatani’s art evolve over the course of Nabari no Ou is extremely rewarding. Shimanami Tasogare is known for its magical realism spreads depicting characters’ inner worlds, and the later volumes of Nabari no Ou really showcase the beginnings of this beautiful paneling and artistic sensibilities. It’s a lot of fun to read Nabari no Ou knowing where their art and aesthetic inclinations will take them, especially since the beginning part of the story lacks pretty much any of the artistic direction that has come to define their later work. Reading Nabari no Ou elicits similar feelings reading Pandora Hearts did for me in terms of watching the art development–it goes from being a little lackluster to absolutely stunning. Give it some grace and be patient, if you’ve read any of Kamatani’s later works you know just how beautiful their art is. Admittedly some of the ‘plot’ elements of Nabari no Ou can be a little weak, at least in my opinion. I don’t remember much of the characters outside of the immediate cast. Yoite, Miharu, Thobari, Kouichi, Raimei (NNO’s Sasuke), Raikou (NNO’s Itachi), Gau, and Yukimi, are those characters, and I like pretty much all of them and find their respective arcs to be compelling (Kouichi especially)...but from there it’s undeniable that the cast gets pretty muddied in my brain. I don’t really remember the antagonists or their particular motivations, and I don’t remember a lot of the ninja world lore outside of the lore around the Shinrabanshou and the lore of Yoite’s own life-whittling ninja art. The pacing can be kind of sluggish when the characters get wrapped up in surrounding incidents pulling them from their main quest; there’s an arc surrounding the plight of a ninja academy and a teacher that I always manage to forget about until I go back to reread the manga. However, Nabari no Ou more than makes up for the pacing struggles with its depictions of character relationships and their inner worlds, so it’s easy for me at least to kind of wave away the pacing problems just because I generally like character-work driven stories more anyways. But this is no shounen so it’s important to remember that the characters are the driving force here, if you’re someone who likes big-moving plots and epic world-building and stuff like that, this is probably not gonna be the manga for you. But if you like stories with LGBTQ+ undertones, broken characters trying to find solace in a broken world, stories about coping with grief, and you enjoy the catharsis that comes with reading a sad story, you will probably like this manga. Just be patient with it and let it come into its own; Nabari no Ou is still Yuhki Kamatani’s first work and it certainly shows but that by no means undermines the power of the series. It’s worth mentioning I do not suggest watching the anime because the anime stops at the climax of the manga and by cutting out the last chunk of the story it loses a lot of what makes Nabari no Ou rise to its full height, but I get the impression they were planning on adapting the later part of the manga into a S2, it just wasn’t popular enough to justify it unfortunately. But definitely listen to the anime’s OP! [Crawl ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0WNZfoj7LE)is really really good.
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