Pranks and Attacks! by Laurent Richard is the first in the Tao, the Little Samurai series. Essentially it's an omnibus of short panel comics that relate to Tao's time at the dojo.

What's missing here is some basic background. Why are Tao and the other kids learning to become samurai? Where do they live? How do they know each other?

I suppose it shouldn't matter since the humor is all situational but I never really felt I got to know anything about Tao. Not entirely true; he seems to be very bad at being a samurai. He's also lazy with his chores and his homework.

But if this is such an exclusive school, why do they keep him in? The "ho-ho Tao's goofed up again" style of humor loses its punch pretty quickly. But there's nothing else here to fill in the gaps. ( )