By: Tatsuya Hiruta

The Story:

The manga follows the adventures of Kotaro Shindo, a high school aged karate expert who is descended from a long line of ninja. While he may be a fighting genius, he lacks common sense and any inhibitions whatsoever. He spends most of his time getting into trouble with school officials, and trying to steal girls' panties, especially Mayumi's. He is very protective of three things: his long hair, his panty collection, Mayumi and later his frenemies such as baldy Tenkoji.

My Thoughts:

There are some mangas that after the hundredth (and still didn't show any sign of ending) volume, you just wish that the mangaka would just STOP it already. Well, this manga is one of those. Practically listed (by a survey in Japan) as one of the longest running series so far, the story was one of my initial favorites when I first read it (back when I was in middle high school) and has a nice momentum to the development of the story. Slow, but steady. But after the 30th volume, I suddenly found myself hoping for it to end. But unfortunately I didn't get my wish so I decided to stop at the 49th volume cuz I kinda loose interest. The story is sorta charming and the action sequence in nicely drawn (considering that it started sometime in the 80s, hence the 80s fashion inside the manga). It's a story more focus towards the art of judo but it got draggy towards the later volumes and some of them has been repeated/recylced over and over again. Kinda like that neverending Naruto. Hmm, I think I'm getting my voodoo Naruto 'action figures' out right now...

The Ratings: * * *