Before I begin the review, I’d like you to understand my initial biases. One of my favorite comics of all time is the black and white masterwork entitled Lone Wolf. I am vaguely aware that oriental culture is regimented and more complex than it might first appear. With No Need For Bushido, I was not sure whether to expect a strict cultural sort of story, a parody, a satire or some mix. I was hoping that it would lean towards something other than a pseudo-documentary about a culture I barely understand. I was really in the mood for something lighthearted.

Sometimes, my knack for looking up side information on a comic pays off. The cast page is very informative and helpful in setting me straight. It offers this to say about Cho Teko, for instance…”Cho Teko is a blind Taoist priest who often spews absurd proverbs. He wields multiple bo staves in combat. Cho is part of a prophecy involving a blind Taoist Priest, a Hindu, and a Christian Priest walking into a Japanese bar, heralding the end of the world. He maintains a calm demeanor that seems to stem from his expectations that the events around him are determined entirely by fate.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it didn’t sound too serious.

I also found this interview on Scienteers with the creators. NNFB was originally going to be an “outright parody of fighting based anime.” Clearly, NNFB is leaned towards parody and humor. Thank goodness.

As of this review, there are 343 pages of NNFB. It would be hard to distill that down other than to say that the characters are always heading north. Take it easy. I’m kidding! If you really, really want the nitty gritty details, check the timeline or the wiki. You don’t have to do all that, though. You can get a very good idea of what NNFB is about by looking at the characters.

There are a bunch of very diverse characters. Ina, the girl in the story, runs away when she finds out that her parents want to marry her off for political reasons. Yori is the samurai who is avoiding his own problems at home. He tries to save her and succeeds almost unintentionally. It’s an understatement to tell you that his father is causing a lot of trouble for Ina’s family. Of course, let’s not forget Ken - the Ronin with his three-times-his-height-giant-sword, is out to kill Yori’s father and ninjas that are constantly attacking for purposes unknown. Cho is the blind monk involved in the end-of-the-world-prophecy but is not really all that concerned with the end of the world. He might be the only character that doesn’t have some personal stake in what is going on. (And these are just the main…uh…heroes. There are bad guys, too.)

All of that gives a bit of story to work with. As you can see, all the characters have some fairly dramatic things going on with big consequences hanging over them. This acts nicely as a backdrop for the humor. It’s also worth mentioning that the foreshadowing is handled very well in NNFB.

What is especially scary is that the nonsense spouting Taoist Monk actually makes sense sometimes. I had to read this comic several times to make sure, but he actually makes sense if you pay attention. That’s also about the point where the art gets a little crisper and more fun to look at. It continues to improve and looks pretty good by the time you read up to this point. The backgrounds get better and the coloring and shading get better at showing forms. The layouts get easier to follow and become more interesting due to the framing of the panels. There are some very good fight scenes and you even get some improv Kabuki theater.

I liked the action scenes quite a lot, particularly those using “Standard Horizontal Slice Attack” and the “Flight of the White Lotus Attack” sorts of anime state-your-action traditions. (That second attack would have worked better with a full length katana, I’m sure. Yori looked pretty convincing that time.) All during the ninja fight scenes, I was reminded of the Tick’s words of wisdom…”Ninjas are more afraid of you than you are of them.” The tone of NNFB slides seamlessly between drama and comedy - not an easy thing to accomplish.

The jokes in NNFB are fun. Most of them are character humor bits and some others are anime parody. There are a few visual gags like this one that amused me as well. NNFB is consistently worth a chuckle. The visual sound effects were novel, too. Some of them were what you’d expect - ‘boooom’ and ‘ploosh.’ Others were exotic sounds like ‘kick’ and ‘kneed’ and, my personal favorite, ‘girlslap.

NNFB is proceeding along a fairly well defined storyline but refuses to take itself too seriously. I liked this comic a lot. It’s got some story, some humor, good art and interesting characters. It’s fun and not too simple, not too deep - NNFB is light entertainment done right. Five stars. Rating:

No Need For Bushido
http://www.noneedforbushido.com/
art by Alex Kolesar
written by Joe Kovell
review by Delos Woodruff
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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