Ninku (Manga)

For the anime, see Ninku (Anime) Ninku is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Kōji Kiriyama and was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1993 to 1995. The manga would span 9 tankōban volumes, 70 chapters and 5 compiled volumes.

The first 6 volumes of Ninku are labelled as the story's First Stage, while volumes 7 through 9 are referred to as Second Stage; A prequel that tells the origins of Fuusuke. Second Stage would later spawn a sequel: Ninku 2nd Stage: Stories of Etonins that ran from 2005 to 2011 in ''Ultra Jump. ''

History
Kōji Kiriyama was inspired by the long running sports manga Dokaben in which led him into creating the manga known as Sengoku Koshien: Legend of the Nine Dogs in 1991 for ''Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday Comics. Kiriyama would later join Shueisha ''and would begin creating a new manga. With the design of his character Sosuke Inukawa, he would create Fuusuke as he began making Ninku, One of Shonen Jump's first notable Ninja manga after Masami Kurumada's Fuma no Kojirou in 1982''. Ninku'' was a hit, running for two years in Weekly Shonen Jump's circulation. During the series run in second stage, it went on a lengthy hiatus before returning to Shonen Jump's Ultra Jump magazine in 2005 to 2011.

Ninku has sold 9 million copies as of September 2011, received a 55 episode anime series along with several video games and has created a legacy, inspiring many of manga artists, most notably Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of the Naruto series.

First Stage
50 years ago, the world had been plunged into a time of endless war, until everything had soon become peaceful. This peace would be known as the era of EDO, but it is believe that this era is small prologue into another time of chaotic warfare. During the war, a small group known as the Ninku were targeted by an evil empire and were forced to combat the menace to face an unknown defeat as the Ninku had disbanded by their master Reishu at the end of the war and has since been vilified by the army as the surviving remnants of the Ninku were targeted to be eliminated.

In the third year of EDO, Fuusuke, an odd faced, 12 year old boy sets off on a quest to find medicine to cure an elderly lady from a disease but along the way passes out from starvation. He later awakens to local villagers: Shuri and Yuka who he quickly befriends after feeding him. Suddenly, a villainous group using Ninku abilities of their own ransack Shuri and Yuka's farm until Fuusuke arrives and stops them. He then reveals that he is a former Ninku captain and begins a journey to find the surviving Ninku captains and take down a new group of Ninku users called the "Ninku Wolves", a rebel group that is ordered to eliminated the entire Ninku unit of the past war.

Second Stage
In the 155th year of the era of MUROMACHI, Fuusuke loses his parents in the middle of a war and escapes by flowing down a river to safety. He eventually meets Touji, a flippant and very flatulent martial artist who saves and quickly befriends him. Two years later, Fuusuke is carried off by a dragon and drops him into a chance meeting with the master of all 12 Ninku abiilities, Reishu.