Ch. 4 Summary: Shiina encounters Akira at her family’s restaurant. Akira shows Shiina her dragon child, and they become friends.

Ch. 5 Summary: Shiina and Akira go to investigate what is happening to Shiina’s father’s company. They are attacked by a mysterious boy.

Setting the Mood

I want to point out how, even while showing cutesy and peaceful scenes there’s a deeply disturbing undercurrent to Kitoh’s work.

First, consider the scene where Shiina is napping and Hoshimaru puts the blanket over her. An innocent, idyllic scene. Right?

Then Hoshimaru extends his arm and mercilessly squashes a mosquito. He doesn’t even blink an eye. Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 4-5 — New Friends and Enemies →

Ch. 3 Summary: Shiina makes breakfast for her father, and discusses what happened on the plane. Shiina hides everything about Hoshimaru and the fact that she saw Otohime. After breakfast, Shiina attends a sword-fighting class where she meets Akira, a shy and awkward girl. Akira doesn’t want to hit people, doesn’t want to win, and doesn’t want to lose. Shiina befriends Akira, but Akira runs away when she sees Hoshimaru after practice. At home, she puts a blade to her wrist but doesn’t cut herself. She opens a box that holds a creature similar to Hoshimaru.

Trust

While Shiina and her father are having their family pow-wow over breakfast, Shiina asks her dad if he believes her about the monster. He says that he does. Then he asks her if she saw the princess, and Shiina denies it. This denial is all the more pronounced because of what we see in the next frame:

Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 3 — Refusing to Play the Game →

Ch. 2 Summary: Shiina flies home from her vacation on the island, with two mysterious passengers on board. The plane is attacked by a creature similar to Hoshimaru. Shiina attempts to fight off the attacker, but fails and falls towards the ocean. She is caught by Otohime and her dragon, and returned to the plane. The two passengers have disappeared.

Narutaru has this bizarre thing going on with princesses, dragons and shadow dragons. I wasn’t sure what to make of it the first time I read the series. Hopefully in this series of posts we’ll be able to explore some ideas surrounding the dragons. A brief disclaimer: it’s been a while since I read this series, and my memory is pretty fuzzy. So please forgive me if some of my speculation is wildly off. Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 2 — The Princess and the Dragon →

Ch. 1 Summary: Shiina almost drowns and meets Hoshimaru.

We’re initially drawn into the manga with an exciting showdown: two fighter planes face off with some bizarre monster that looks like it came straight out of a five year old’s imagination. Continue reading Narutaru Ch. 1 — Surfing Through the Stars →

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been working on a secret project behind the scenes. Well, this is it!

If you couldn’t guess from my avatar picture, Narutaru is one of my favorite manga. To be precise, it’s my second favorite. First place goes to Oyasumi Punpun (which is next in line for blogging if this series of posts succeeds). I’ve been promising myself ever since I started this blog that I would write about Narutaru. And I always keep my promises (eventually).

For the past year, I’ve also been studying Japanese. So I figured I would combine these two pursuits. I would blog about Narutaru while reading the original Japanese version. Continue reading Shadow Star Narutaru: Introduction →