Is No. 5 Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Quick facts
Format	Manga, 37 chapters, 8 volumes
Run	2000–2005 · completed
Community score	AniList 7.6
Where to read	Viz Media — official

Overview

In a world where most of the earth has become desert wasteland, the Rainbow Council — a team of superpowered global peacekeepers — faces a crisis: one of their own, the sharpshooting No. 5, has gone rogue alongside a mysterious companion named Matryoshka. The rest of the Council has to track him down, but Taiyo Matsumoto's manga isn't especially interested in a clean hunt narrative. Instead, it drops readers into the middle of this fractured world and lets them wander through it.

That disorientation is deliberate. No. 5 asks readers to give up the expectation of clear exposition and let its surreal, jazz-like rhythm of storytelling do the work instead.

What it does well

Matsumoto's art is the clearest reason to read this: he cuts between sprawling desert landscapes, sudden bursts of violence, and small mundane details — a yawn, water being poured — with a rhythm that feels closer to musical composition than conventional paneling. That approach extends to the cast: every member of the Rainbow Council comes across as a distinct individual with their own priorities, quirks, and small rebellions, rather than existing purely to advance a plot.

Underneath the eccentricity, the story has real thematic weight — it's fundamentally about systems of control and the people who break under them or slip through their cracks, using its cyclical, crumbling world as a lens for ideas about freedom and futility. Matsumoto commits fully to this vision rather than smoothing it out for easier consumption, which gives the manga a genuinely distinct identity.

Where it falls short

The opening stretch is disorienting in a way that will test some readers' patience — there's minimal handholding about who these numbered warriors are or what's actually at stake, and it can take real time before the pieces start to click into place. The story's rejection of linear plotting is a feature for readers willing to meet it on its own terms, but a real obstacle for anyone wanting clean answers along the way.

No. 5 himself is deliberately aloof and hard to read, which keeps him from being an easy character to latch onto even as the nominal protagonist. And because the manga leans so heavily on mood and fragmented imagery over narrative momentum, it's the kind of book some readers will bounce off entirely before reaching the volumes where its ideas fully pay off.

Verdict

No. 5 is a strange, artistically ambitious sci-fi manga that rewards patience with genuinely striking visuals and ideas about freedom and control — but it demands real surrender from readers used to more conventional storytelling. Worth seeking out if you want something that reads more like a puzzle or a piece of music than a typical action manga.