A Brief Review of the Manga 'Karakuri'- Kishimoto's First Work

Before the invention of Naruto, I always imagined Masashi Kishimoto to be chilling on his bean bag chair, still living with his mom and maybe working for some cheap otaku magazine or heck even working at McDonald’s.  Just a couple of years ago, during my exams I had decided that it was the perfect time to be unproductive and did a bit of irrelevant research and discovered Karakuri, which is said to be a one-shot manga Masashi Kishimoto submitted to Shueisha in 1995.

While Karakuri was his first publication as a manga artist, it had earned him the monthly “Hot Step Award” hosted by the Shonen Weekly Jump in 1996.

Karakuri literally means ‘mechanism’ and the plot revolves around an outbreak of a viral disease in Japan, to which the Ministry of Health and Welfare had developed a possible cure with the purpose to fight against the disease.

 However, some dipshits in the Ministry re-developed the cure and made a deal with some capitalists to be used as military purposes. The methodology, though, caused a horrible side effect on the human test subjects and made them all go ape-shit to the point that they became destructive weapons, and were no longer human. They are referred to as ‘Androits’. 

Upon the rising of this scandal, the Defense Agency gathered a group to fight against the Androits and named them Karakuri. The main lead of the manga is a boy named Kiru, who is a member of the Karakuri team. On that note, he also looks like a defected Sasuke Uchiha. Just see below.

Let's just thank the heavens that Kishi took some drawing lessons after this.

Correction: The main lead is that guy and the rat standing next to him which is supposed to his partner. Each member of Karakuri would have an animal as their partner, because, you know, why the fuck not? Kiru is your average Shonen dumbass  hero who doesn't know shit but later shows power when one of his friends are in trouble. His weakness is that he literally has no sense of direction. Which means that he doesn't know where he is going. Even with a map.

When his friend Colon-chan had gotten kidnapped by the president who had wanted to cure his own disease by feasting on her blood, Kiru had fought the Androits of the president and saved his friend. The best part about this manga is that while it has its comedy side, Kishimoto has highlighted the scientific background of the plot which is very, very appealing. 

Kishimoto also was desperate to draw a sex scene in here but his Editor told him to fuck off.

This manga is a must-read and you can read it on here, here, and  here. And also here and here. You have nothing better to do anyway.

Written by: Micha