Neru: Way of the Martial Artist — Myriad Misadventures

My initial foray into the martial arts (as I must have mentioned before) was precipitated when I stumbled onto an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers as a kid. I was instantly captivated and needed to start learning martial arts. Some other early influences after Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers were Jackie Chan films and Dragon Ball Z. And in the years since I’ve consumed plenty of martial arts or action oriented media; video games, comics and comics, anime and cartoons, television shows, and movies.

And there’s a brand new martial arts manga in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and it’s being serialized online by Viz in English. It’s called Neru: Way of the Martial Artist. Needless to say I was pretty excited to see a martial arts focused series. There are plenty of series with fighting. One-Punch Man is incredible for example. But Neru is specifically focused on martial arts. And since it seems a little more grounded in reality (high school kids doing martial arts in high school) it’ll hopefully avoid the pitfalls of series like Dragon Ball that start with some really good martial arts before power creep renders them all but moot.

So far they’ve released 8 chapters and I’m quite enjoying it. The main character, Neruma Isami, lives alone far away from town and spends all his time practicing martial arts. He walks around barefoot and always finds a way to turn things into training sessions but he’s sort of become bored with how rote life is. Things turn around when he meets a mysterious girl who takes him to a martial arts high school that he becomes determined to get accepted at. The story then continues with his entrance exam and later acceptance into the school.

Alright so it’s got tropes. The mysterious girl (at least when she’s introduced) and a high school for martial artists. And it takes some creative liberties in the name of being exciting. For example Neru catches a spear with his incredibly strong toes. But honestly who cares? It’s full of action and cool fight scenes and that’s pretty much all I’m looking for in a martial arts manga. It’s not breaking any new ground but so far I’ve enjoyed it a lot. And it’s still less than a dozen chapters into its story so it could go anywhere from here. You can check out the three most recent chapters on Viz’s site for free and a month subscription only costs 2 or 3 dollars if you decide you want to read the rest of the series (or any other ones).

**All photos from www.viz.com

I’m pretty excited for a martial arts focused series and can’t wait to see where the story goes. Hopefully it sticks around for a little while. If you’ve got a favorite martial arts series, or at least a series with some cool fights, leave me a comment so I can check it out!

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