Nabari

It's really interesting how much the anime industry in America has changed over the past few years. It seems like just the other day when I was in high school that DVDs were about $30 and had five episodes per disc. However now you can get double the episodes for a similar price. This is the way that the show I'm reviewing, Nabari, is released.

Nabari is a 26 episode show that aired in the Spring of 2008. This release is part one of two collections. This first volume has 13 episodes and the second with have the latter. Nabari comes in a rather flimsy paper case with two slim DVD case inside. The cases each have reversible jackets for the covers which I thought was a very nice touch that I didn't expect.

The dub of this show was just your average dub. It's not bad, but not really actively good either. It should be noted that the subtitles for this show are just awful. They're an almost border-less white font that's just hard to read against the screen. Other than that, there's a few extras here. The usual text-less opening and ending, along with an episode 2 commentary. One that bothered me was that on the box it simply says episode 2 commentary and that's it. Instead it would have been nice if it said episode 2 commentary from the dub actors . Of course this release also has the obligatory trailers. Apparently one of the big things to do with these trailers lately has been to put the trailer for the DVD you have already bought on there... Just a curious thing that keeps happening.

Now on to the show itself... This is the sort of show I've found where you really do need to try and pay attention, otherwise things seem to spiral out of control and you will soon be unsure of what's going on. The protagonist of this show is a young rather effeminate boy known as Rokujou Miharu, who is just your average Japanese school boy. He soon quickly finds out that inside of his body is a forbidden ninja technique known as the Shinrabansho. The Shinrabansho is considered one of the most powerful ninja techniques ever, as it has the power to... well it's sort of vague. However it can be assumed that it can basically do anything that the plot demands, as is shown later on in the show.

Rokujou quickly finds out that there is another world aside from the everyday world of Japan. There is the world of ninjas which is known as Nabari. His classmate Koichi and his teacher Tobari soon make it their job to defend Rokujou from any rival ninja clans that may use the Shinrabansho. And to say any more would be potential spoilers for the show.

Nabari isn't the sort of show that has the best animation quality. Very often animation will seem stiff when characters are walking or moving. Thankfully though when it comes to fight scenes, the action is much more fluid. Oddly enough for a ninja show, there isn't too much ninja stuff going on. Most of the fighting is pretty straight forward fists and kicks fighting.

Honestly though this isn't the sort of show that you watch for the action scene. I would consider this instead much more of a character drama. All of the characters have a little bit of back story that shows their emotions and motivations much more actively. Even the protagonist Rokujou who seems to be lacking any real character develops and changes as the show goes on. It's a definite strong point of the show and makes up for the average animation.

Nabari isn't a bad show, in fact I liked it a good bit. However it definitely isn't for everyone. Other people may find it a bit slow for a ninja show, and it is rather dialogue heavy at times. There is definitely a solid story here along with many interesting characters. If you're wanting a good ninja show but don't want to watch several seasons worth of, say Naruto, Nabari is a good alternative.

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