The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke

What's It About? 

A classic character of Japanese literature is reimagined as a mischievous, shapeshifting adventurer in this zany, Pop Art–flavored gag manga by a titan of the genre.

Ninja! Samurai! Cowboys! Aliens! Amoebas! Join Japan's favorite ninja, Sarutobi Sasuke, on this psychedelic romp across a land beyond time by the legendary manga author and Pop Art pioneer Sugiura Shigeru.

In this 1969 take on the beloved ninja, the carefree young Sasuke pranks his way through a radically reimagined old Japan, opening wormholes to America's Wild West and outer space as he goes. This wild adventure overflows with eye-popping sights: UFOs, absurd monsters, Hollywood stars, gun-toting outlaws, submarines, towering mushroom clouds, and much more.

Available for the first time in English and with an essay by Ryan Holmberg, Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is a must-read for its trippy visuals and outrageous storytelling.

Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke has a story and art by Shigeru Sugiura, with English translation and introduction by Ryan Holmberg. This volume was lettered by Vikki Chu. Published by New York Review Comics (September 10, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

It hasn't always been easy to get classic manga in English translation. There have been efforts over the years – I'm still lamenting that neither Swan nor Bride of Deimos are likely to finish being translated – but things are improving. One example of that is in the release of this book, which dates to 1969 and is an example of a style of manga we don't often see in English: 1960s pop art. Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is a gleefully unhinged absurdist romp through both manga history and history itself, and I can promise you that you're unlikely to have seen anything quite like it before. Honestly, the closest example I can think of is Pop Team Epic, and that's still not a great comparison.

With that said, I highly suggest beginning with reading translator Ryan Holmberg's excellent essay. Not only does he give us background information on the creator, but he also explains who Sarutobi Sasuke is in Japan's literary history, as well as the evolution of the ninja subgenre of historical fiction, beginning in the 18th century with a peak in the 1920s. (And later in again in the 1970s, albeit in a less kiddy-oriented form.) Putting the story in these contexts is important because it gives us an understanding of its brand of absurdity, which is multi-layered based on both its creator's lifetime and the overall history of the subgenre. Plus, Holmberg is simply a very good essayist, which is imperative when you're sticking an academic treatise on a comic book, historically valuable or otherwise.

The manga itself is an example of its time. With a cartoony style more familiar to English language readers from Osamu Tezuka (who was a fan of this), the plot is utterly absurd, filled with references to the 1960s despite being set several centuries before, as well as a few older references. Characters break into song lyrics (replaced with English songs of the period, like The Beatles' “Get Back”), anachronistic outfits and technology abound, and there's plenty of lowbrow humor, like using fart clouds as smoke bombs and someone accidentally worshipping an animal's butt. It's fun, but also a lot to absorb, although the translation is excellent. This is probably going to be most appealing to manga historians, but even if that's not your favorite subject, it's an interesting book to look at to see where some of today's absurd comedies come from.

I'm not sure this manga will hold the interest of any younger anime fan looking for a fun new read. Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is a museum piece. Everything about it, from its 60s-era art style to the constant cut-aways to old-fashioned Cowboy Western vistas to even the little references to era-appropriate songs like If You Want to be Happy from Jimmy Soul (transliterated from the original Japanese choices which I imagine would be truly inscrutable to any reader in America) is dated. Not “dated” in the sense of a lack of quality, but speaking to an older era of entertainment. This is not how comedy is written and how manga is drawn. This manga is the equivalent of dredging up old horror serials drawn by Jack Kirby.

Like reading old Jack Kirby, the wealth on display is masterful—if you're willing to appreciate it. Sugiura's art defines old Japanese “Pop” style, willing to go from colorful blobby men wandering around to bizarre and grotesque alien vistas at a moment's notice; if these vistas appear out-of-place, it's because they are (an essay at the end of the book explains Sugiura would draw them separately and glue them onto his pages). One minute, a gaggle of Tokugawa's men is chasing after Sasuke to nab the secrets from Yukimura Sanada. The next, these men face grotesque aliens that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Ultraman. Then they're dealing with Billy the Kid and a herd of buffalo—all before their boss walks in and scolds them for wasting time while Sasuke, brilliant shapeshifter and illusionist that he is, makes his getaway.

This is a manga of another era, speaking another language. The cultural points are not stars or pop culture as modern readers know them; they're Jean-Paul Belmondo and Ray Bradbury and Jerry Sohl's The Time Dissolver. This is something that I'm sure only weird old fogeys who like old stuff will enjoy—but what a trip to the museum this is, what a wealth of lovingly-preserved storytelling from an era long before I was born, what a snapshot of the foundations of manga that led to our modern-day stories of ninja and daring-do. For all interested in a glimpse at the past—strongly recommended. Minor warning, there are some old slurs for Native Americans used in the dialogue.