The Worst Client – Tired of menial tasks, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura ask for a tougher assignment. But you should always be careful what you wish for! Along with their sensei, Kakashi, the trio must now guard a cranky old man from the Land of Waves. But Tazuna the bridge builder is in more danger than anyone could have imagined. And now the young ninja are too!
Volume 2 of Masashi Kishimoto’s smash hit Naruto continues where the first left off, with the result of the gruelling test young Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura just endured through finally announced. These new genin ninja are now officially a team and so need to undertake missions given to them by the village, in order for it to stay alive.
However, as you can imagine, the missions granted to low level ninja are pretty mundane and pretty soon Naruto can’t take this complete lack of serious action – which of course always means trouble for whoever is meant to be reigning him in.
His actions do however result in a new mission being assigned to the team, a slightly higher level task but still one that should fall well within the young team’s capabilities. A simple escort mission back to the Land of Waves.
Unfortunately, the problem with people is that they lie, and one such person just happens to be the cranky old man they and Kakashi have been hired to escort – with rather dire consequences.
Because quite frankly, the man who wants to stop the old man wants him dead. And will use whatever force he can lay his hands on to achieve this!
As you can tell from the synopsis, Volume 2 is for much of its page count a complete and utter knuckle sandwich of a fight, pitting our young and very inexperienced ninjas against some truly fearsome foes. Of course at this early point in their careers, Kakashi has to deal with most of the violence while the youngsters need to find it in themselves as to whether or not they are capable of taking part in real, life on the line combat.
Of course, blended in with all of this is Kishimoto’s trademark humour and as such the story never gets overwhelmingly dark, yet it handles some fantastic character development as it progresses, making for an absolutely thrilling and meaningful journey from start to finish.
As per usual Kishimoto’s pencils are absolutely fantastic as he easily plows through varying degrees of action, comedy and drama, bringing in loads of tone to the story being told. His characters and backgrounds are all beautifully detailed and he manages to masterfully mix the super deformed silly moments with the gut wrenching action that seems to keep one glued to the pages.
In summary, this is the perfect volume to follow up what was a great first volume in the series, and well, well worth picking up if you enjoy your action, comedy and all things over the top ninja!
Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto