Manga Review: Naru Taru

Title: Naru Taru
Author: Mohiroh Kitoh
Release: Monthly
Status: FInished
Genre: Sci-Fi, Psychological, Horror
Art: B
Originality: S+
Story: S
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Oh dear god, never has there been a manga that fits the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” more than this. Seriously, the cover is a sweet, sweet, sweet LIE! What’s more, the anime OP is ridiculously deceitful on so many many levels and that’s before the manga even finished. This manga COMPLETELY owns the mind-screwiness of Neon Genesis Evangelion and has enough of it leftover to outmindscrew several other titles at the same time. The fact that I actually wrote that first speaks volumes about how disturbing this can be! And the funny thing is that I loved every single page of it. This is a story about Shiina, a girl who encounters a cute starfish alien thing on a trip to her grandmother's at some island off the coast of Japan's mainland. As she tries to get along with the aptly named Hoshimaru, she becomes more and more involved with incidents surrounding the mysterious UMA called Dragons that Hoshimaru is a member of. The downer factor of this story is the highest I've ever encountered and it is not safe for the easily influenced to read lest they become emo. I'd recommend Bokurano to happy people as a prank but to recommend this to a happy person would be too cruel a joke. With the exception of a couple of unclear motivations and events, Naru Taru is a masterpiece of a story that deserves a place in the manga world's history books. It is a horribly powerful story with very mature themes involving children that anyone that finds the word "fart" funny should stay away as from as much as possible. I digress, THE CAKE IS A LIE.