Nabari No Ou Series 1 - Part 2   Starring (voice): Mitsuki Saiga, Rie Kugimiya, Akeno Watanabe and Akio Suyama Manga Entertainment RRP: £24.99 MANG3111 Certificate: 15 Available 05 September 2011

Miharu Rokujo is a bit of an apathetic slacker, with little interest in the world around him. Even though he is invited to clubs and others seem to take an interest in him, he seems oblivious to the attention until one day when he is attacked by ninjas. Following the initial attack, and having got over his fear and surprise, Miharu discovers that he is carrying the Shinra Banshō, a powerful ninja weapon and he is being both hunted and protected by different ninja factions. None of this changes his apathetic outlook...

Nabari No Ou (2008) is an anime show based on an original manga by Yuhki Kamatani. The twenty-six episode anime adaptation was directed by Kunihisa Sugishima.

What started as a pretty intriguing show had by the half-way point lost some of it impetus. The juxtaposition of a traditional ninja story placed in a modern setting certainly set the show apart from Naruto and its imitators. Initially care had been given to character development and story elements, but a level of repetitive ennui seems to have pervaded the show in its second half.

The two disc DVD set contains episodes fourteen to twenty-six - The Depths of Night, A Morning of Partings, Visitor From Afar, Moment of Collapse, A Voice Calling Out, Profile of an Angel of Death, To Togakushi, Ambitions, Chaos, Activation, Engetsurin, Two and Heart to Heart.

The discs have a soft 1.78:1 anamorphic picture, with options for either a DD 5.1 English or DD 2.0 Japanese track, with subtitles. There are extras in the form of textless credits, and a fluffy commentary for episode seventeen, with Brina Palencia (Miharu) and Joel McDonald (Yoite), the two main characters.

What gains the show made in the first half of the series, seem to have been wantonly squandered by the midway point, possibly because the show only ended up with a single gag, which the opening song “I don’t care” placed centre stage, after this, the show found it difficult to add sufficient layers to sustain the whole twenty-six episodes.

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Charles Packer