The Pokémon anime has had numerous clones, imitators and rip-offs over the years, with most of them trying and failing to reach even half of the success of Nintendo’s Pocket Monsters. One of the more unique takes on this monster-raising subgenre in anime is Shadow Star, a.k.a. Narutaru. Adapting a manga that ended the year the anime began, Narutaru is a very different version of the quest to catch ’em all and be the very best.
Featuring a young girl who bonds with an alien star-shaped “dragon,” Narutaru quickly evolves into a dark series that completely deconstructs monster-raising anime like Pokémon. However, this level of graphic content is likely part of why it failed to achieve much mainstream recognition in the grand scheme of things. Here’s a look back at the series and why people who grew up with Pokémon should give this neo-classic a chance.
Narutaru was a 13-episode anime adaptation of the manga of the same name. It was created by Mohiro Kitoh, who also later created the similarly deconstructive mecha manga series Bokurano: Ours. The heroine is Tamai Shiina, a young girl who discovers a strange creature while on vacation. Dubbing him Hoshimaru, the two become friends, with Tamai being highly amused by her strange, alien companion.
Upon returning to school, she realizes that several other people have also bonded with creatures similar to Hoshimaru. Unfortunately, not all of these creatures or their partners are benevolent, and eventually, violent conflicts begin to break out among the many star dragons. Although this may sound like a recipe for the typical Pokémon formula, what results is anything but a walk through National Park.
Narutaru and its anime adaptation are best known for a notorious scene toward the series’ climax in which members of the cast, middle schoolers no less, are sexually assaulted. This scene cements that the series is not a kid’s show about battling with cute monsters, but the anime beforehand is very good and perhaps almost tarnished by this controversial segment.
Narutaru contains several powerful themes throughout its apocalyptic narrative, chief among them being the dueling interests of greedy, cynical adults and the wide-eyed, impressionable children who must inherit their world. The trauma and desires of the unheard youth are represented by none other than the Shadow Dragons, who achieve their full strength only through the sacrifice of their child partners.
This more idealistic take on children is contrasted by the manipulation of adults, including a woman who becomes engaged to a disabled man just to swear off other emotional connections. The world of adults is shown as one where people are interchangeable and not individuals, having long since become accustomed to stymieing their own desires to fit into society. Likewise, the more disgusted the human partners become with the world at large, the more the Shadow Dragons begin to take on powerful and violent forms. This represents the true power of rebellion and shows how it can be used for either restorative or destructive purposes. All of this symbolism and deconstruction makes it to kid and monster shows what Madoka Magica was to magical girl anime.
Sadly, Narutaru has become fairly obscure, with the controversy of some of its most notable scenes doing little to even make it infamous. It’s currently unavailable on any streaming platform, although the episodes have been uploaded to Youtube. However, the DVD collections are available through Amazon and some other retailers, so it’s not entirely impossible to finally check out this forgotten but highly underrated series.
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