One of many I'm registering for an upcoming graphic novel bookbox.

I hesitantly bought this one from a used bookstore in town. Since it's so... scarily popular with scary people, I was expecting something awful. However, it's not bad at all, and I can easily see why it would appeal to preteens, especially preteen boys. It quickly becomes cliched and predictable, but it's not the festering pile of donkey doo I feared it might be. The backgrounds are also well drawn. I may try to check out a few more volumes from the library to see where this one goes.

Put into AKSarah's Graphic Novel/Manga bookbox.

Received in my graphic novel/manga bookbox.

I'm leaving this book in AKSarah's graphic novel/manga bookbox, as I already have a copy. I enjoyed the humor and the team-building, even though the all-ninja-type stories aren't among my favorite sub-genre. I have enjoyed many episodes of the anime, so I have some idea where the characters are going; interesting to compare them to the beginnings.

This volume introduces the title character, a young boy without a family, who's an outcast in his village because of the Nine-Tailed Beast that was sealed inside him at his birth. He's also quite a rascal, cheerfully vandalizing the great carved faces of the previous Hokages and generally raising hell, all by way of trying to get some kind of attention. He - like pretty much everybody else in the village, as far as I can tell - is in training to become a ninja, but can't concentrate on studies very well, and is having a pretty tough time, until his teacher Iruka recognizes the lonely child inside the mischievous exterior and manages to connect with him.

This doesn't solve all of Naruto's problems with training, and in his eagerness to learn faster he falls prey to a devious scheme by an older ninja, from which Iruka's barely able to rescue him.

Later on he winds up partnered with Sakura, a young girl whose ninja skills are centered on healing arts at first, and Sasuke, a prodigy with a mysterious past and scornful demeanor. [This enrages Naruto, but makes all the girls in the village swoon. Of course. {grin}] The fledgling team is put under the training of Kakashi, a very skilled ninja whose face is always masked - and who expresses his disdain for his new charges' abilities by calmly continuing to read his favorite erotic novels while the young ninjas attack him.

Lots of wacky humor, some rather startling violence, hints of back-story and a peek at budding alliances, friendships, and rivalries...

[The series has been running for a long time, and has quite a presence on the entertaining TV Tropes site; see its main page here.]

When I read this in 2009, I wrote the following:

I have to admit, I never expected to like this comic. I knew my friend Andi totally digs the tv show, but I thought, "What a stupid looking manga. I bet I'll hate it." But like Hikaru no Go, I found myself laughing and quite happy reading the comic. Is it childish at times? Yes. But nothin' wrong with that!

I don't think I liked it enough that I'd buy it (not when I can pick up series like Nana or Red River) but Naruto is surprisingly fun. When Viz first started translating Dragonball, I thought it quite delightful, too. I guess my inner child appreciates "boy humor" much more than I ever expected.

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This book enjoyed a brief stop in San Jose, California before continuing its travels in AKSarah's Graphic Novel/Manga bookbox!

My Graphic Novel/Manga bookbox arrived back home many months ago and I forgot to journal the contents. This book was in it.