Ninja High School - Publication History

Publication History

NHS started out as a miniseries that mainly parodied famous anime and manga conventions (Urusei Yatsura appears to be the main influence, although the title "Ninja High School" was commonly used in the 1980s to refer to the series Sasuga no Sarutobi, which was actually about a high school for ninja students). The story centers on Jeremy Feeple, an ordinary student at Quagmire High, living an ordinary life. Shortly into the story, a beautiful female ninja named Itchy Koo (real name Ichikun Ichinohei) and an alien princess named Asrial appear. The earlier stories focus on the girls' comedic attempts to marry this seemingly plain, ordinary high school boy.

As the series progressed, more backstory was given to the main characters, and a rather large and unwieldy cast was created. Most of the cast are manga archetypes of varying degrees. The book originally featured mostly slapstick humor, but later story arcs became more serious, delving into murder, drugs, and other more mature subjects.

While not reaching great heights in critical or financial success, Ninja High School is one of few successful, long running manga-styled comics produced in America. It has contributed greatly to their continuing saturation of the American comics market.

More recently the background has been reground and re-presented. Antarctic published a 12-issue Volume 2 miniseries focussing on Jeremy's younger brother, Ricky. Issue #74 of the original series closed off the Jeremy storylines, and from issue #75, the Volume 2 cast were carried over to populate the ongoing series (though there are still ninja princesses, alien girls, and associated weirdnesses to be encountered on a daily basis).

From #101–126, the comic was written and drawn by Katie Bair (with assists from Robby Bevard), had a title change (shortened) to just "NHS", returned to black and white, and the setting changes to Hawaii. The only major character who carries over from the previous cast is Yumei Katana. This run was later collected into individual volumes under the new title, Ninja High School: Hawaii.

From #127-129, the comic was cooperatively developed by Fred Perry and Ben Dunn to transition from the Hawaii storyline back to the Quagmire location. The focus returned to the Volume 2 cast.

In #130, Ricky Feeple returns to the spotlight, in what, after the events of the second "Quagmire US" miniseries, may or may not be an alternate timeline. From here the version is dubbed Shidoshi by Antarctic Press to separate it from the original series.

Recently it was announced that the Shidoshi series will close out and a new version of NHS is currently being planned focusing on a new batch of characters.

• The V2 spinoff has little to do with the actual storyline, although several main characters are used in the plot. It was created by Ben Dunn because it gave him the ability to tell stories he never got a chance to do with the original cast of characters. Further, it allowed him to update the NHS timeline a bit.
• Between issues 75 to 100, the storyline departed from the main line and started focusing on Rickey Feeple and his temporal trips to alternate timelines on a bid to save the universe from being destroyed. In this time, Asrial had been seen to have left Earth for Salusia on important yet unknown business at that time. Eventually the universe is saved.
• Asrial's return to Earth following her trip came included with two children named Kassy and Lexus. Their age at introduction places them as at least 6 to 8 years old. Further, they refer to Jeremy as "daddy" and Asrial admits to the children's genetic parenting being both hers and his. It is then assumed that the reason Asrial left was because Jeremy impregnated her and thought it safer to raise them on Salusia in a more stable environment. Likewise, this time gap could be explained by the temporal hopping Rickey did in his efforts to save the universe. This is the first time that the connection between Jeremy and Asrial has been confirmed as mutually romantic although there may be earlier evidence of this romantic and violent interest in earlier issues.
• Jeremy gets involved at least twice in Salusian affairs, one time by accident, in which he manages to uncover some secret plots to bring the Salusian Conglomerate to ruin. Information of this is sketchy at best.