is a comedy

ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series created by Sōbē Amako in 1986. The anime adaptation, ''

Nintama Rantarō is a Japanese anime series produced by Ajia-do Animation Works and Japanese broadcast on NHK since April 10, 1993. It is an adaptation of the manga series '' Rakudai Ninja Rantarō'', written and illustrated by Sōbe Amako. ''Nintama Rant ...

'', began broadcasting on

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

in 1993 and a side-story anime film ''Eiga Nintama Rantarō'' premiered in 1996. Several ''Nintama Rantarō'' video games have also been published since 1995.

Plot

The series is set near the end of the

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

. It is during the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

that the story takes place. By his father's recommendation, Rantarō enters the Ninjutsu Gakuen in order to study and become an elite ninja, but since joining and befriending Kirimaru and Shinbee, everything for him usually results in failure. Ninjutsu Gakuen is an educational institution established in the mountains of the

Kansai region The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropol ...

. Because it is a ninja school, the exact location is kept a secret (which is really because the author had not thought of one). Students attend in grades 1 through 6, which are divided up into three classes: I-gumi, Ro-gumi, and Ha-gumi, based on the old order of

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

(the

Iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The first record of its existence ...

). Male and female students attend separate classes. Despite its detail in historical accuracies, there are also a considerable amount of deliberate

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

s to provide humor, such as speech using

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

or the appearance of a

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or payment is otherwise m ...

, radio or a wristwatch. There are also many instances of breaking the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. ...

, in which a character will turn back or tear though a page to interrupt a scene or refer to specific volumes or pages, or sometimes interact with the author herself.

Characters

Many of the characters' names have been taken from names of places in the

, especially Amagasaki of the Hyogo prefecture, where the author lives, as well as the names of real people. The main characters are: ; :Age: 10, lives in

Settsu province was a province of Japan, which today comprises the southeastern part of Hyōgo Prefecture and the northern part of Osaka Prefecture. It was also referred to as or . Osaka and Osaka Castle were the main center of the province. Most of Settsu's ...

, Health Committee :An obedient and energetic boy with reddish hair and glasses. Despite being born into a line of poor, second-class ninjas, he is determined and constantly strives to be top of his class, though the opposite always tends to be the case. Although he has an awful

astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. The lens and cornea of an eye without astigmatism are nearly spherical, with only a single radius of curvature, and any refractive errors ...

and must wear glasses, he is an exceptionally swift runner, having been able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds. Being a member of the health committee, he is often called "Fuun Kozou" (lit. bad luck boy) since this committee in particular is deemed unlucky and any student in it, as a rule, is said to suffer constant mishaps. ; :Age 10, lives in

, Books Committee :One of Rantarō's friends, he is a boy obsessed with money, and will try to gain any amount, no matter how small. This often results in his amassing as many part-time jobs as he possibly can, which are sometimes more than he can handle and has to have Doi-sensei help him, with less than favorable results. He's also very thrifty because of this. He dislikes words such as "give" and "pay". One of the reasons for this is that he is an orphan, having lost his parents after his village burned down, leaving him with no other living relatives. He managed to pay his entrance fees with money earned selling

bento A is a Japanese-style single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, often for lunch, typically including rice and packaged in a box with a lid (often a segmented box with different parts of the meal placed in different sections). Outside Japa ...

boxes. He lives with Doi-sensei during breaks. ; :Age 10, lives in

Sakai is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its '' kofun'', keyhole-shaped burial mounds dating from the fifth century. The ''kofun ...

, Tools Committee :Another one of Rantarō's friends, he is a short, pudgy boy with a constantly runny nose who loves to eat. In fact, his weight seems to increase after every break. In the beginning, he started out as a crybaby, but gradually grew accustomed to the lifestyle. He is not good at schoolwork. The reason he was made to attend Ninjutsu Gakuen was to help with his success as an heir, being the son of a rich merchant, but he does have advantageous qualities. In addition to being unusually strong, his sense of smell is greater than that of any dog. Under certain circumstances, his hair stands up straight and is stiff and sharp enough to be used as a lethal weapon.

Publication history

''Rakudai Ninja Rantaro'' started its serialization in the children's magazine ''Asahi Shogakusei Shinbun'' in April 1986. The series ended with the 65th compiled ''

tankōbon A is a standard publishing format for books in Japan, alongside other formats such as ''shinsho'' (17x11 cm paperback books) and ''bunkobon''. Used as a loanword in English, the term specifically refers to a printed collection of a manga that w ...

'' volume in November 2019 and last appeared in ''Asahi Shogakusei Shinbun'' the following December due to the author, Sōbē Amako, suffering a stroke in January of that year.

JManga JManga was an American website and international online community focused on the promotion, distribution, and monetization of digital comics as well as the development of other manga related services. Founded in December 2010 and backed by the ...

released an English-language version of the manga online.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rakudai Ninja Rantaro 1986 manga Children's manga Comedy anime and manga Historical anime and manga Ninja in anime and manga