The lack of fair (meaning unbiased) review on this show gives me headache. Let me tackle this, and see if I can produce a review I wanted read.

Nabari no Ou is certainly not a bad series, but not one worthy of overpraise either. Do not be fooled by the mindless hype floating around. In fact, the premise of Nabari (a hidden ninja world) is admittedly silly. Ninjas in a modern setting. Which fool came up with that brilliant idea? Even worse is the storyline in which the protagonist—who happens to have hidden powers—gets pulled into affairs from this other world. Now, does this really sound new? No. We experienced plenty of such storyline. Nabari no Ou is merely another anime.

So that is the word of caution. Surely, the series has points making it a worthwhile watch too. Such as Miharu, the only sane character. It is good change to a typical gung-ho protagonist would have jumped in joy about a secret ninja world. That would have doubled my headache from this show. Also, there is no way to avoid mentioning what a sly demon Miharu is. You know what I mean. The ones we get yaoi vibes from. Then there is Kugimiya Rie actually voicing a male character. A sign of miracle for me. For once, I was not cringing at her voice. I would gladly watch any anime she is casted in if she regularly used a voice that is not whiny and high-pitched.

Another topic of concern is the type of backgrounds used in Nabari no Ou. Good example of what I am referring to is pictured above. JC Staff pulled out this interesting method of slapping animated characters on top of still-backgrounds. It can probably go either way. On one side, it can minimize costs without looking too bad. On the other hand, using too much still-backgrounds will lead to obvious trouble. Fine example for that is when Kouichi uses his escaping ninjutsu. There were wind flowing all around, yet it does not affect the background. Lacking dynamics in the background is as bad as using an out-of-place CG in an animation. Personally, I do not like them all—the backgrounds are too detached. Do not take my word for it though. I am very (visually) detail-oriented (over useless stuff), and not everyone is like that. Use your own judgment.

Damn, Sanada Kouichi. Get out of my ninja anime!

This…

…is so…

…wrong.

So the first episode was decent. It did not create a strong following, but proved (entertaining) enough to justify watching further. We will see how it turns out. I still do not understand why people go overboard with the show though. Well, no use pondering about that. They lack maturity and a sense of acquired taste I suppose. Also, this episode was really fast-paced to make me question: “Is Nabari no Ou really this harebrained, or did they pull this to get all the questionable aspects out of the way?” Following episodes will only answer? And finally, someone please get Hino Satoshi off the cast. Make him go away. His voice does not suit a megane-kun in the first place.

P.S. What kind of ninja goes by the name of Kumahira Thobari Durandal?