I have finally decided to implement something that has been rumbling around in my mind for a while and that is book reviews. This is mainly for my own personal reflection, but if it's of any use to someone else, then that's cool by me. It's easy to forget reading a book after a few years, so it will be nice to look back on in years to come. I've decided to link this in to the Amazon associates programme, which means I get a small cut out of any click-throughs that result in a sale. Yes, I have no shame ;) Anyways onto my first book. Naruto - Issue 1. Naruto has been one of those Mangas (and Anime's) that I've heared of for a couple of years now, but never bothered to read. A friend of mine showed me a fan-subbed version of the japanese release a year or so ago, which really did impress me. I thought, 'great, I'll buy the anime when it gets licensed in the uk'. Lo and behold, it got licensed, but I decided to go for the manga instead. I tend to go by the rule with manga and anime that I go for the one released first. In this case the manga, which has a few benefits in this case, in that it's already at issue 13 in the UK and it's cheaper than the DVDs :) What can I say? I'm impressed. It's fairly similar to the anime plot-wise. The story starts out with Naruto, who is at a ninja academy in his small rural Japanese village, wanting to become a ninja. Naruto has a love of 'instant ramen', that I later learned was the Japanese name for instant noodles, then later of the passing of it's creator. I practise aikido, and as such, it's nice to see some Japanese culture in this area in a traditional sense. Perhaps, the most important thing about the story is that I have that feeling that one gets when reading a compelling in story in that the pages fly by and you think 'I've read all of it. I want more!' My verdict: 9/10 - Great light-hearted and easily digestable manga that's compelling to read and will have a little of a lot of things that will appeal to the typical otaku :)