Nurarihyon no Mago
Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan

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Nurarihyon no Mago had a really bumpy start in my opinion. The first couple chapters were generic, the lead was boring, way too many characters to care about, and it was pretty boring. The whole "youkai" angle just seemed like a cheap gimmick to cover up how utterly bland and mediocre it felt. However despite that, I continued because I thought it had some potential and man oh man did it really become something else. The beginning is EASILY the worst part of the manga. Unlike most shounen, where strong beginnings are the norm, Mago plays it completely differently and does the opposite. It starts ... off with a rather weak beginning, picks up steam after the first couple of volumes than it really takes off and becomes amazing. A true diamond in the rough.

The story revolves around a quarter blooded Youkai/Ayakashi named Rikuo who has to come to terms with becoming the leader of his youkai clan. Its a pretty cliched premise and it even comes with the whole "dark alter ego" spiel ,who serves as the true leader of the clan and has a ridiculous hair style. I can't say I liked that annoying "Yami Rikuo" thing that the mangaka had going but thankfully it was done away with and the personality became the same for both egos eventually. Of course this happens over a period of time and is subtly implemented which is one of the manga's strong points. While in some of earlier arcs, small bits of interesting information are scattered here and there, only to be brought up later. Its obvious that a lot of time and effort went into making the story good and it really begins to show later on. It especially gets good after chapter 50, when the main villain gets introduced and a concise goal is finally presented to the lead. This manga borrows heavily from a lot of old Japanese myths and legends, so it has some really rich material to work with. At its best, the story can get really interesting especially during the major flashback arc.

Mago shoves A LOT of characters into the readers face at the beginning. Its almost guaranteed that you won't remember any of the youkai that hang around Rikuo all the time. However as the manga goes on, many of the youkai get some time to shine and they get reintroduced to the audience. Their past/youkai quirk all go a long way in creating a really memorable cast of characters. As I'm writing this review, a lot of characters that got introduced in chapter 1 are getting some much deserved time in the spotlight for themselves in the recent chapters. The truth is, the beginning might have felt kinda off because the mangaka was trying to lay the foundation quickly. Get all the necessary exposition out of the way so that everything that comes after has more focus and better writing. It might not have been the best method, but everything in the past couple of arcs have been rock-steady in quality.

The art is phenomenal, especially considering the fact that it's a weekly manga. Not one youkai design is alike, and that's saying a lot since there's literally hundreds of unnamed youkai designs in the manga. Never mind the main cast, who all have really unique designs that range from quirky to down right badass. It has a paint-brush like quality to it which really looks amazing sometimes, not to mention there's nothing quite like it in Jump at the moment. The artstyle in this manga is just dripping with imagination, just like One Piece in that regard. The fights range from forgettable to really awesome. However this factor fluctuates a lot more than the other elements but most of time, they're all solid.

Mago does a lot to separate itself from the standard shounen fare. Sure it has its share of cliches and archetypes, but everything just works together so well. Its definitely more than the sum of its parts, a real pleasure to read each week. For me its definitely the most consistent out of all the mangas in Jump. Its probably gonna turn into a long running shounen, but it has the advantage of having a near limitless scope. I'm not to worried about it in this case since it could go anywhere after this arc and it'd still work. Its still in its early stages but it has something a lot of other long running shounen don't: focus and pacing. So if you're still reading this review, than go pick up Mago. Bear with the beginning because it'll pay off tenfolds later.

I decided to write this review because all other people that wrote the reviews here haven't finished the manga....

So first I need to say that I watched both seasons of the anime, and after that I decided to read the manga (started on chapter 134 until 210 and then read the 5 omakes that come after)

I will be sincere, the story starts slow, but after a while it gets really good.
The second main arc (with Hagoromo Gitsune) is the best for me... after that the manga gets a little bit slow again, but then it get's better, SO DON'T GIVE UP

The manga got axed by ... Jump, which is not a novelty (Jump does that with most mangas =//), so we have the final battle in a differente magazine (~60 pages per chapter and coloured pages!!) - that's a plus. And 5 omakes in the end that explain some stuff that didn't get explanation before...

So, even though it got axed, we still got a good story with a nice end.

I recommend everyone that like shounen in the style of KHR, Ao No Exorcist, Noragami to take a look at this manga.

The art style is great! The author draws really well, love the art style.

The story is quite nice about youkais and different kind of powers. Also, it talks about gods and myths in Japan, which is a plus for me.

I am a girl, and even though this a shounen, for me matters a lot if there are strong girls as characters, and there are!! So another plus!

Solid 8's all around (minus the art, which gets a 9 from me).

Story: Nurarihyon no Mago (or Mago for short since I never remember how to spell the Nurarihyon part) is the perfect example of a story that takes time to get really good. It begins with an introduction of our main protagonist, Rikuo Nura, who is a demon...or kinda. He's human, but 1/4 of him is part youkai (/ayakashi/demon). The beginning of the manga really tends to focus on his human life which sort of makes the series boring. I don't know about you, but when I read a series in WSJ, I ... expect a lot of action (unless of course it's one of those ecchi/romance/school settings which this clearly isn't just by looking at the cover xD). As the story goes on, Rikuo learns about what it takes to truly take over the Nura clan from his grandfather. He starts to meet more youkai and they grow to respect and follow him. As the manga goes on, the human aspect of Rikuo's life takes a back seat to his inner demon. We get more battles, more in-depth training sessions, and tons of new characters.

Art: Personally, I love the art for this series...especially towards where it currently is when I'm writing this (chapter 96). The demons are very well detailed and the settings are extremely well done. I'm not one to be picky on art, but I really like the backgrounds this story has.

Character: Well, there are many characters in this series. The great part is that you do get back story on them as the manga continues. Sure, with so many characters not everyone has been covered yet, but as I said before, this series really has improved.

Enjoyment: Towards the beginning, my enjoyment for this series wasn't that high. However, it really has become a good shounen series and I'm really enjoying it. If you aren't aware of the way Weekly Shounen Jump does things, they rank their series in the Table of Contents. Ever since the current arc of this series has started, Mago has been ranking high and getting color pages here and there. It's amazing and really nice to see.

If you enjoy a good shounen series that progresses nicely in time, then try out this series. It's a weekly series and it IS scanlated weekly so you don't have to wait long. Hell, there's even an anime adaptation coming this July. So look out for that!

Overall: 8/10

Nurarihyon no Mago was an underrated manga I had picked up early 2009 which amalgamates all your typical yakuza/supernatural stories you may have read in the pass and crossing them over to give you an interesting tale about yokai chivalry (which is not always written or portrayed about as we always see yokai/demons as being the bad guys).

The story is about Rikuo Nura(part human/part demon) and his trials to taking over his grandfathers clan the Hyakki Yako. A clan of demons known for their 'fear'.

As your looking at this story from a yokai's perspective, the concept of gauging fear as a level up is what ... I had found to be interesting as it had never been used in manga/anime before(none that I've known anyways).

Artwork is great as they depict a lot of Japanese culture, heritage and supernatural folklore as visually possible whilst keeping it to the manga/anime style you'd normally get(big eyes and kawaii girls)

Character development is minimal in the beginning and at times seem to be one sided from the protagonist point of view, but keeping it that way can sometimes be original in itself as most manga/anime these days give you character developments for nearly every character(even the antagonist, that your left not knowing who to really root for and can also drag you from getting interested on the main story). Of course, bear in mind that this is pure shonén so you do get fights that drag on from chapter to chapter but not long enough to get you bored.

There are many reasons why I like this manga and recommend it to anyone, whether it be the epic battles, the time-skips to Rikuo's father & grandfathers history or the camaraderie with the yokai who support Rikuo

Through the 100+ chapters I've read thus far,you grow to like Rikuo, as well as the characters who support him and will find the world of Nurarihyon no Mago an interesting read!

This manga was a change from the repetitive plots of the usual shonen supernatural. Nurarihyon no Mago looks at the story from the point of a half yokai and shows you the chivalry of the demon world. This manga is recomended if you like supernatural, demons, good plots or something thats not quite like the average seinen manga.

Nurarihyon no Mago is a manga about a quarter youkai but otherwise normal human kid. His grandfather is Nurarihyon, commander of youkai. Although at first he dislikes the fact that he is a youkai because they do bad things to people, he later accepts this side of him and gets more involved with the youkai world, aiming to succeed his grandfather as leader.

The story is interesting because it includes a righteous main character changing the traditional youkai code; he seeks to help humans instead of scaring them. There is also a strong sense of "nakama" which I liked.

Characters are very fun. There are many different ... types of youkai that appear in the story, so it's interesting for Western readers to encounter creatures they aren't familiar with.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this manga, and I recommend it to anyone interested in supernatural themed mangas. Or if you like fighting of course.

It's quite a bit to unpack and all this 210 chapter series. Not really wanting to go an exposition, unless I really like the series I could go on for ages talking about the series. It's not that the series was bad or uninteresting it's just for some reason the last 10 chapters took me about 2 weeks to read, that's why it took me a month to read all this. Either I would fall asleep while reading the chapters or I would fall asleep with my phone in my hand right before I opened up the app to read. I would be at work ... and it would be too busy so I couldn't read during work. there was just a whole bunch of things that got in the way of me actually finishing this series and it pissed me off.

~SPOILERS~

Now that I'm done the damn series here's my feelings on it, it's a good series I said in the previous paragraph not bad at all it seems a little basic to me I mean the grandchild inherits the leadership of the clan, he's a quarter Yokai, so his grandpa fell in love with a human, his dad had to fall in love with a human not that he wanted to and not that it was his first love like it was for his grandfather but circumstances in the series prevented him from actually mating with another Yokai(by way of a curse). So to actually have any children he had to fuck a human otherwise it wouldn't have worked. He eventually comes to accept his Yokai form or his Yokai side and realize it's not a bad thing to be two different things at once. He starts fighting other Yokai trying to get them in line getting his clan back to the way it used to be, prove that he's a good third head of the clan. He learns the limits of his power, get in a big fight with old enemies. Then he trains to get more powerful I believe it's called motai where he wears Yokai almost like a garment increases his power and gains a little bit of their speciality (e.g., he'll wear Yuki-Onna he gains an ice slash). Now this actually proves pretty cool, and pretty useful but it in no way actually turns any of the battles except for maybe the last one . because he wears fucking Ninetales / Vulpix on his shoulders and it uses it tails to distract the bad guy from some sort of bullshit, fuck it stupid. The very end was very bad the resolution was horrible, good guy wins, bad guy loses, everybody's happy, and nobody dies, technically. Hell even his grandpa who was supposed to fucking die cuz he used up almost all his fucking power fucking lives cuz reasons, Jesus, plot armor.

Looks like I went into a mini rant here's the TL:DR; read once, put it down, set on fire, done.

1-History:The story revolves around a character who seeks to become the leader of the "Nura clan", clan that covers 10,000 youkai, this character lives (at least at the beginning) in an impasse between living as a human or in his "ayakashi" way (he is 1/4 youkai), obviously I couldn’t focus on just that, the work itself is very vast and well built, the plot is well interwoven, requiring a certain intelligence to understand it as a whole (which I admire), in addition a person who started the work "of middle "(as many do) would have difficulty understanding what was going on, this work is a ... butterfly effect, an act in the first episode influences the last.
The story covers several historical periods, and so it ends up teaching us interesting things about those periods, in addition to showing us some interesting thoughts and facts about human (or ayakashis) nature, so I can also say that Nurarihyon no Mago is a work very deep at that point, and very interesting.]
2-Art:very beautiful, a trait that I liked a lot. It's a bit heavy (the black shading just creates this feeling), it doesn't have constant anatomical errors and it has very well-designed action scenes (which surprised me), I really liked the characters' traits, they are very pretty (although not really like the trait of human Rikuo, what big eye is that?)
3-characters:very fine built; Nurarihyon no Mago impresses with the gigantic size of the cast, and it impresses me even more that most are important and we can see a good development, the evolution of Rikuo is commendable, as well as that of Tsurara, the scenes from the past arches show how Kurotabou, Ao and Cia evolved, changed. This manga made me abandon the belief that "humans don't change" (not that ayakashis are humans) for a while, I was really able to examine each character in a very pleasant way, from Rikuo to Abe No Seimei.
4-Enjoyment: this work pleased me very much, it is very original and impressive in several points, a work that captivated me, enough for me to finish everything in about three days, if it was bad I would be reading for weeks, it won me over, simply
5-Overall:Nurarihyon no Mago is a very well-built work, with a well-thought-out story, well-made features and well-developed characters, summing up, it has everything that most works do not have, even though this work is not able to enter between my animes and favorite manga, it sure goes into a "TOP 15", it's a shame that it's not popular, I definitely recommend it, if you're reading this and will read the manga, "welcome and have a great read", if you already I read, "buddy, really, I want a third season"

One of the better new ear shonen but its ending forces it to get knocked down a bit.

The main feature of this manga was its art, which was done beautifully. I like the character designs which felt with the main art style. It was gritty yet at times beautiful. The villains were bizarre but not over the top. Some of them had depth while others were a bit lacking especially the rat youkais.

I give the author props for not dragging the story on but I felt like the ending was gone too quickly which makes it feel empty. The ending is similar to ... the one in Hitman! Reborn.


I could see this manga getting a sequel but it's highly doubtful now.

Nurarihyon no Mago

Watched the anime many years ago, which unfortunately ended with season 2 ( that ended at chapter 134). I had relatively positive memories of the anime and rewatched it to get into the manga better.

Well, what was my conclusion? Simple. My interest was completely wasted.

Although Nuarhyon no Mago has a very interesting concept with some relatively decent power systems that even had some charm. This whole manga is just hot air. No matter what the author did, he was unable to build even the slightest hype. No matter how many times he presents "This demon is so strong!!!" it doesn't change ... the fact that there wasn't a single real hype moment.

The everyday episodes at the beginning and smaller orders were by far better than what came and than what the manga showed us. In that sense, it's even good that the anime ended after 2 seasons. Everything from then on has been far below average. And by far one of the worst shounen you can find.
Weak story, empty characters, monotonous fights, and no consequences. In this world, anyone can create a bloodbath without anyone really caring. So much for the system and the protagonist.

[Story 4]

The Japanese demon stories are a reality in this world and the protagonist, as the son of one of the most powerful demons, is bound directly into this world. He is a quarter demon and is trying to find himself, which is his role. And ultimately to create peace between man and demon. However, on this path, he must defeat many (unnecessarily boring) opponents and in the end become the king of the night.

There were almost no relevant moments story-wise, apart from the minimal background of Abe no Semei (Nûe) or the background of Hagoromo.
And this barely scratched the average of storytelling.

Everything else was some slice of life, training chapter, or fights against "important" opponents that have screentime of 1-2 minutes (fight length) and were mostly not shown before.

Not to mention that it didn't matter who did what in this story. Even if a demon ate 100 people, he could have just switched sides and that was it. Although the protagonist talks about humans so much, I don't think he's as angry in that regard once they've been digested.

Likewise, the constant momentous fights tortured me until the end. A new group always appeared with some elite opponents, stronger than before, and there were various individual fights again. I already thought that "Bleach" had a problem with this, but here I found a greater comparison material.

And then we have the finale... one of the worst final arcs I've seen/read so far and with one of the most disappointing final fights. What an embarrassment that I even read this far.

[Characters 4]

In the beginning, I was impressed that we had a large handful of many diverse personalities and also some decent humorous moments. However, from about chapters 30-40 on, the plot became more serious and you could see what the manga was really about. Only the main 2 demons on the protagonist's side had a normal background and were irrelevant from then on. Almost no character really had screentime, dialogue, or important moments. Only the protagonist was boundlessly in focus. Which makes it impossible to remember any character, let alone understand them at all. Instead of throwing in so many meaningless enemies, he should have given the characters more attention.

But while I'm on the subject of "meaningless opponents". NO, single opponent except maybe Tsuchigumo, who was just the usual "fighting is fun" character and a boundless berserker. Other than that, there were just a lot of empty shells fighting.


[Drawings/Displays 6]

The environments were above average and the drawing style was relatively refreshing and individual. Dynamic choreography was, unfortunately, lacking here, making the fights look like just a slap fight no matter where you look.


[Conclusion]

The beginning of the series is definitely still kind of entertaining. But the further you go to the end, the more unbearable it becomes. Gokadoin Arcs (the final ones) were by far the biggest disappointment. When the beginning is average, the middle slips and the end is unbearable. It means that they failed in this project.

[Enjoyment 3]

Well, as you can see. I kinda like characters like Rikuo when they have split personalities one at night and the day xD So, if you guys like something like that you should really read this because that is kinda the whole purpose of this manga but not exactly the whole purpose but for me it is. Dun worry ^_^ there is a storyline in it so chill, this is not onlu related to psychological problem or stuff xP
And I have rewatch the anime three times, so trust me. ;)

ENGLISH:
I definitely don’t recommend Nura to 90% of the audience. Let me explain why. The manga is very good, I had a lot of fun reading it, but the series has a terrible start. It takes a LONG time to get engaging, way too long. Like, it only really picks up around volume 7, basically chapter 50. After that, you’ll love it. But reading 49 chapters that feel just "meh" is really discouraging. Nura has great characters and fantastic art. The story arcs connect REALLY well. But it fails by having too many characters, where it only kills villains and makes sure every hero survives. ... This ends up destroying any real sense of danger. Overall, Nura has 4 parts. Volumes 1-6 are pretty weak, to the point where I’d even say some arcs in this first saga are horrible. The second part, volumes 7-16, is amazing, no complaints, it’s phenomenal. The third part, from volumes 17-21, has some boring moments and forced plot points to keep character X from dying. The final part, volumes 22-25, starts off very well. Between chapters 185-207, it works great and is excellent. But in chapters 208-210, there are some issues. The manga was removed from Shonen Jump because it wasn’t popular in the magazine, but it was selling REALLY well. So Jump wanted to publish Nura in another magazine to wrap up the story and boost that other publication. But the author decided to finish the story in three chapters, each with 60 pages. Clearly, this was out of spite because articles from 2012 said it would end, but it wasn’t canceled. This manga was never canceled. The author even put many important events as extras in the bonus chapters. And let’s not forget that important pages showing the fate of certain characters were only included in the tankobon, not because of a lack of time, but because he just wanted to wrap things up. I own all 25 physical volumes, and Jump didn’t cancel it; the author just wanted to end it that way, and I didn’t like it. But the reason for this was that he didn’t want to continue. Honestly, he should’ve just taken a hiatus rather than closing the manga like that. The ending was good, but many important events were left implied. That was poorly handled. If you haven’t read many manga series, Nura will be good. But if you’re already used to masterpieces, Nura will be disappointing.

PT-BR:
Eu definitivamente não recomendo Nura para 90% do públiico.
Vou dizer o porquê. O mangá é muito bom, me diiverti muito lendo, mas a obra tem um péssimo inicio. E ela demora MUITO para engajar, até demais. Tipo, ela engaja lá para o volume 7, no capítulo 50 basicamente. Depois disso você vai amar a obra. Mas ler 49 capítulos que você acha +- é muito broxante.
Nura tem ótimos personagens, uma ótima arte. Os arcos se conectam MUITO bem. Mas ele falha em ter muito personagem, onde ele só mata viilão, e faz qualquer mocinho sobreviver. Logo destruindo qualquer sensação de perigo.
Ao todo, Nura tem 4 partes. Volume 1-6 que é bem fraco, ao ponto de eu até achar alguns arcos dessa primeira saga horríveis. A segunda que é do 7-16 que é muito boa, não tem o que reclamar, é fenomenal. A terceira parte que é do 17-21, tem uns momentos chatos e com roteiro forçado para personagem X não morrer.
E a última que é do 22-25. começa muito bem. Ela entre os capítulos 185-207 funciona muito bem e é ótima. Mas no capítulo 208-210 tem uns problemas. O mangá foi retirado da Shonen Jump por motivos que na revista ela não era popular, mas vendia MUITO bem. Logo a Jump queria publicar Nura em outra revista para fechar a historia e impulsionar aquela revista. Mas o autor ele só decidiu fechar a história em 3 capítulos de 60 páginas cada. Claramente foi por birra, pois os artigos de 2012 falavam que seria finalizado, não que foi cancelado, nunca foi cancelado esse mangá. Tanto que o autor fez muito evento importante aparecer como extra nos capítulos extra, e sem dizer que página importante que mostrava destino de personagens ele só botou no tankobon, e não foi por falta de tempo, ele só queria fechar a história. Eu tenho os 25 volumes físicos, a jump não cancelou, foi o autor que quis fechar assim, eu não curti.
Mas o motivo disso foi porque ele não queria continuar. Sinceramente, fizesse um hiato, mas não fechasse o mangá assim. O final foi bom, mas muitos acontecimentos importante ficaram sub-entendidos. Ficou ruim isso.
Mas se você não leu muitos mangás, Nura será bom, mas se você já ta acostumado com obras primas, Nura será ruim.