Timmy McAllister's a 5th grader with typical 5th grade problems: Annoying, brown-nosing little sister. Bullies that steal his Pokemon cards. Snobby rich girl that dominates the school.
Then he enters a sweepstakes and wins kickass ninja Yoshida Jiro, inspiration for Timmy's favorite manga, and now he's on top of the heap. He has the services of an expert spy to get dirt on his sister. An incredible fighter to deal with bullies. A status symbol to give his popularity a nitro-boost up the ass so he can overthrow the rich girl's stranglehold. All for the low, low price of a grown man's indentured servitude.
OK, the actual manner in which Jiro agreed to this sweepstakes arrangement is never disclosed. We know he lost his voice due to a poison blade used by his arch-rival ninja, Nobunaga (who naturally enters the fray at the behest of the rich girl when she moves to regain control of the town) but other than Jiro's an excellent dancer, that's about it.
The first volume is Timmy's ascension on Jiro's coattails. The second volume is Timmy learning to stand up for himself, as he has to rally the other kids to free Jiro and the town from the rich girl, who used her dad's money to smuggle powerful and ancient mystical artifacts out of China for Show and Tell.
Owen's art has obvious manga influences, but still its own distinct style. He keeps the character designs simple and exaggerates for broad comic effect to match the mostly broad humor of Elder's story. The rich girl arrives at school almost on a parade float, and when her personal photographer temporarily blinds her with the flash, her coterie of yes-girls batter him in your typical cartoon smoke cloud of fists and anguished faces. That sort of thing.
I think I bought both volumes of this on the recommendation of Dave's Long Box. I know Ken at the comic store looked at me funny when I did. In his defense, I hadn't shown any interest in manga or things aping the style up to that point. Maybe he thought I'd hit my head.
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