Currently I am going through Ninku. Ninku is very obscure in the West, in spite of being a shounen jump property which tends to lend itself to popularity. It was very popular over in Japan, heavily influencing many aspects of Naruto including the shuriken technique as well as the (in?)famous running style and a whole host of other smaller things. The anime and manga are basically seperate continuities and have nothing to with each other. Yet despite this, it didn't receive a fansub until some 30 years after the fact by Saizen back in 2020.
A big part of why I picked it up is because it carries over a lot of the staff from Yu Yu Hakusho, which released some 3 years prior. Among some of the notable carry-over staff include Abe Noriyuki (Director for both shows), Hiroyuki Kanbe (Animation Director for Ninku, Key Animator for YYH), as well as several other storyboarders and animators. The production quality is excellent; the animation, fight choreography, and visuals are right there with Yu Yu's. The direction isn't particularly artsy, but that sort of style does not lend itself very well to battle shounen anyway.
In a lot of ways the show itself reminds me of the Red Ribbon Army arc of Dragon Ball; you can very much tell that it is aimed towards the younger side of the Shounen demographic. The humour is very low brow and juvenile; though admittedly, I am an immature sod so it has made me smile a few times. The protagonist is lovably naive and very purehearted with a big appetite, and he's on a quest to find his mother often coming into contact with the Empire which is basically a large army corps. As someone who isn't the biggest fan of the Red Ribbon arc (outside of Mercenary Tao, of course), I do think so far that this show has done it better.
One thing that this series does which I find intriguing is how it operates in an almost episodic format. While one could argue that the earlier bits of Rurouni Kenshin are similar, this feels a bit different to me in that a lot of the episodes are not necessarily villain of the week but rather the 4 protagonists going around and solving problems for people in the world.
It does seem like the show is building up towards a longer running arc/villain, but as of episode 18 we aren't quite there yet. If you aren't a fan of episodic stories and gag comedy, definitely stay away from this one. I would say that if you're a big fan of the original Dragon Ball, this show will probably appeal to you quite a bit.
As I said before though, this is very much aimed towards a younger audience. There are several themes it could explore that it simply chooses not to, such as how the victors write the history books (with respect to how the Ninku are so viruently demonized everywhere in the nation) as well as the morality of killing (unlike Rurouni Kenshin which accurately conveys Himura's pacifism as a limitation, something he himself acknowledges, our characters here seem much more naive in comparison). There's certainly no real confusion over who the "bad" and "good" guys are, but if you want a good laid back battle shounen then I'd say it's a fairly solid option.
