No Need for Bushido
Original review author: huntress earth Yaoi Huntress Earth
Webcomic name: No Need for Bushido
Author: Alex Kolsar and Joseph Kovell
Start Date 2006
End Date Ongoing
Genre Adventure-Comedy
Defining flaw Unoriginality.
Things that are fucking terrible about this webcomic: This webcomic is blatant in its unoriginality that its boring.
Things that aren't terrible but could use improvement: The art has gotten better.
Summary: NNfB is just trying so hard to be so many different things at one time that it feels like a mass of cliches.

Ratings summary:

Background

I've seen the banner ads for this one for a while and finally decided to check it out.

Story and Plot

The story starts out with Ina, a screaming uber-bitch daughter of a Japanese noble who runs away from home after she finds out she's going to be betrothed and, in the tradition of hundreds of rebellious princesses before her, runs away from home. When her own stupidity gets her into trouble her butt is saved by Yori who's like a lot of shounen manga\anime heroes by being happy-go-lucky, dimwitted, yet somehow stronger and more competent than he lets on. Being the honorable warrior who is somehow able to supress the urge to punch her in the face no matter how rude or obnoxious she gets, he agrees to let her tag along. Along the way their motley crew gets bigger with various arcetypes ranging from a dime-a-dozen blind warrior who likes to talk about the power of Tao to a vengeful wandering warrior with the dumbest-looking sword in existence.

In true anime comedy fashion it's later revealed that Yori is the guy that Ina was arranged to marry and surprise, surprise they're starting to fall for each other despite Ina's best efforts. Also that Yori is on a quest to stop his power-hungry father from taking over Japan while a rival ninja clan has kidnapped Ina's father. So if you saw it in some fuedal Japan era anime, you'll probably see it in NNfB.

Downfall

The comic was pretty annoying and unimaginative from the start, but it got really stupid when a time-hopping warrior named Matrix appeared. Here is a girl who should be in some bad cyberpunk or science-fantasy novel and she sticks out more than Ice-T in a Woody Allen film (but without the fun or awesomeness the latter would produce.) I don't know if the creators were trying to be cool\wacky with her, but she makes them look like they're just throwing stuff together to see if it sticks and the whole series look even dumber as a result. To make matters worse, a Morpheus clone named Lex has been thrown in later on.

Author biography

I don't know too much about them so they could be decent guys despite their lack of an imagination.

Art review

The art as of late has really improved since its early days and the fight scenes flow fairly well, though the artist has the occassional habit of making the faces look a little weird at times.

Writing review

No Need for Bushido is one of those fake manga-style webcomics that really wishes it was a real manga, and that copies aspects from various animes that the creators have seen and toss it all together while doing nothing new or interesting with it. They've got sexy blonde lady ninjas, not one but TWO blind warriors (with the second one acting like your sterotypical blind warrior), a calm and clever uncle who seems to not take anything seriously (like Avatar: The Last Air Bender) and a bad guy who pretty much stole Kakashi's (Naruto) eye power. For a while I was kind of interested in Masuhiro’s (Ina’s father) attempt to escape that rival ninja clan, but after his third attempt that once again failed due to being distracted by the lady ninja’s “assets”, I gave up.

Before I get to the characters, just let me say one thing: give it a rest with the fucking blind warriors! It was cool when I first saw one in Ninja Scroll, still interesting when I saw it the next few times, and now that nearly every martial arts series and their grandma has to have one, it’s totally lost its novelty. First of all, I don’t care about anybody in the story because everyone is nothing more than an archetype. They try to give some "differences" like Kenta the vengence-filled warrior's love of kabuki and the goofy blind warrior's mysterious past, but it doesn't feel like enough to break them out of their molds. Though Ina has gotten a little nicer and proved that she has some talent as millitary strategist (due to all the games of Go she use to play with her uncle), she's got a lot of work to do for me to like her. For someone who for most of the comic has proved herself absolutely useless, that all she is good at is nagging, yelling, being rude, and getting captured about twice, maybe it's just me that this sudden turn at being a competent leader (in the current story arc) who can organize a simple village to defend themselves against the bad guys is a little hard to swallow.

Another thing I should warn you about the series is if you are in any way a historical purist, you will be throwing a fit. You got blonde ninjas, jokes about Canada, and hot dog vendors. Since it’s a comedy, I can sort of let it off. The problem is that some of the stuff is little too out there for my tastes like Kenta's sword. The damn thing is longer than a car and only held up by what looks like a broom handle. I know big swords are in, but this is ridiculous. The thing would be nearly impossible to maneuver due to the weight, not to mention the blade would snap off the handle the second you picked it up. And your own allies would have to be a good a ten to thirty feet away to avoid accidently getting hit by the thing so they can't really watch your back.

Conclusion

The saddest thing about this is that NNfB it's trying so hard to be something else that it feels like a shallow copy of what it's ripping off.

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