I enjoyed Shinobi Life so much when Tokyopop published it that I finished reading it in French when they went under. That makes it particularly nice that this little time-travel romance about a girl and her ninja holds up quite well – the story doesn’t feel dated by the passage of time, and in romance, a genre where what’s acceptable changes fairly quickly, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Kagetora is nothing but respectful of Beni, and while part of that is the fact that as a ninja he is not supposed to fall in love with his charge, it’s also doubtless intended to represent that he comes from a more refined age. Contrast him with the guy who tries to kidnap Beni in the early chapters; despite being the more “modern” man, he’s clearly much less concerned with what Beni wants than Kagetora.

That Beni is no one’s doormat also helps this story to maintain its appeal. She’s not a particularly happy person when we meet her, resenting aspects of her purportedly pampered life, but mostly she simply doesn’t have anyone she feels close to. That changes when Kagetora falls out of a lake on top of a building and into her life – although he initially mistakes her for Benihime, his mistress in the past, he quickly values her for who she is, and that’s worth a lot to modern-day Beni.

The time-travel conceit is of course part of the appeal of this shoujo romance, and Shoko Conami does her best to use it in an interesting way. Rather than staying put, Beni and Kagetora go back to his original time period in the second half of the book before returning to her present, and later in the series the time travel becomes a much more integral part of their story. The fact that in the past characters jump off a cliff into a lake while in the present they jump off the roof of a building is interesting as well. Was the lake filled in and the building erected in its dry bed? Or is that just the easiest equivalent, seeing as either should result in death by jumping? While that’s never made entirely clear, it does add an element of danger to the time travel, because you have to take it on faith that you’ll actually warp through time rather than die horribly.

With its delicate art and story that’s both romantic and kind of exciting, Shinobi Life isn’t breaking any new shoujo romance ground, but it is a lot of fun. If you liked it before, or if you’re just like your romance heroes to be ninja, this is a good time.