Rakudai Ninja Rantarō (落第忍者乱太郎) is a comedy ninja manga series created by Sōbē Amako in 1986. The anime adaptation, Nintama Rantarō, began broadcasting on NHK in 1993 and a side-story anime film Eiga Nintama Rantarō premiered in 1996. Several Nintama Rantarō video games have also been published since 1995.

Plot

The series is set near the end of the Muromachi period. It is during the Sengoku period that the story takes place. By his father's recommendation, Rantarō enters the Ninjutsu Gakuen in order to study and become an elite ninja, but since joining and befriending Kirimaru and Shinbee, everything for him usually results in failure. Ninjutsu Gakuen is an educational institution established in the mountains of the Kansai region. Because it is a ninja school, the exact location is kept a secret (which is really because the author had not thought of one). Students attend in grades 1 through 6, which are divided up into three classes: I-gumi, Ro-gumi, and Ha-gumi, based on the old order of kana (the Iroha). Male and female students attend separate classes. Despite its detail in historical accuracies, there are also a considerable amount of deliberate anachronisms to provide humor, such as speech using katakana or the appearance of a vending machine, radio or a wristwatch. There are also many instances of breaking the fourth wall, in which a character will turn back or tear though a page to interrupt a scene or refer to specific volumes or pages, or sometimes interact with the author herself.

Characters

Many of the characters' names have been taken from names of places in the Kansai region, especially Amagasaki of the Hyogo prefecture, where the author lives, as well as the names of real people. The main characters are:

Publication history

Rakudai Ninja Rantaro started its serialization in the children's magazine Asahi Shogakusei Shinbun in April 1986. The series ended with the 65th compiled tankōbon volume in November 2019 and last appeared in Asahi Shogakusei Shinbun the following December due to the author, Sōbē Amako, suffering a stroke in January of that year. JManga released an English-language version of the manga online.