Anime: Ninja Kamui

Ninja Kamui is a series about a former, well, ninja assassin, who left his previous organization to live a happy life with his wife and kid but swears revenge on them after his family is killed by them. So basically, it stands in a middle point between Ninja Slayer and John Wick, using very similar plot elements as the latter but without the weird mix of attempt at drama, over the top comedy and shitpost crappily animated action from the former.

It was also mixing it up with FBI agents, buddy cops developments and Mission Impossible-like technology, but since it was clearly made with a western idea of what an anime is supposed to be in mind, it also featured ninjas, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and eventually robot suits. So it was combining western and eastern action aesthetics in a way that didn’t make any sense but was still cool to watch as a style over substance series.

A rule of cool type of product rarely has a good plot, but it can have a good story, and Ninja Kamui seemed to have it with it mix of ninja assassins fighting all over the streets and FBI agents investigating a corrupt corporation slowly taking over the governments and people’s lives with its technology and stuff.

Not that the writing was any good, since fights were taking place out in the open in the streets with no repercussion whatsoever, and revelations were somehow both obvious and still unexpected because they were coming without any anticipation nor build up.

Another good thing it initially had was top notch production values that made you think it was going to be one of the best animated anime ever. Great artwork, good backgrounds, detailed motions, great directing and battle choreography, dynamic camera movements, and character designs that stand somewhere between realistic and similar to those of Gundam Thunderbolt. The only bad thing in it were some weaker special effects for the ninja techniques.

Unfortunately as the series went on it lost everything that was making it a good rule of cool type of show. It kept piling up action clichés, it kept mixing some silly jokes with an overly serious tone for the backstories and plot, all the while slowing down the initially fast and engaging pacing, it kept presenting boring and very simple characters on every side, and it didn’t go anywhere with any of its plot elements. On top of that the plot structure had the protagonist fighting enemy minions one by one in a way that felt more and more like a typical fighting shounen.

The best and worst aspect simultaneously was the character Emma, who on one hand was the only one getting fleshed out, thus the only one worth following, but at the same time she was accumulating more and more roles and being more and more involved with every important aspect in the story and having more and more relations with the main characters, in ways that weren’t anticipated nor built upon in any way and never felt plausible, she was playing behind everyone’s backs in ways that simply could not be possible.

The others didn’t matter one bit, they were one dimensional, or overly serious and boring, or weren’t fleshed out until they were about to die, with their backdrop stories even slowing down the pacing.

And on top of that, the production values became way worse as they initially were, the artwork began to suffer, the character figures going off model, the weak CGI becoming more and more prominent thanks to the fights of the Kamui robot suits taking over the ninja battles and techniques, and the motions going to shit. The directing was still good for a while but near the end not even that was left.

Strangely enough, what kept its level of quality from beginning to end was the audio department, which was never that good. The music is clearly western inspired with its combo of pop, rock, rap and more stuff, everything in English, expanding to even the opening by Coldrain, so it was never something amazing by still fine and fitting. The sound effects on the other hand could be awesome at some moments and lacking on others, and the voice acting was clearly done after the English one, since the seiyuus sometimes wouldn’t even match their lines with the mouth movements of the characters.

In the end, I think that if you don’t expect for stellar animation and you’re a fan of action, you can enjoy this title, I did in fact, but it’s undeniable that there was very little story and characterization and the initial hook was eventually lost to call it a worth watching series. In my opinion, this could have benefit from being a movie, shortening its length and keeping the good visuals and fast pacing, excusing itself for any possible lack of substance and common sense, think of the anime and live action movies you know that fit that description, but as it is, it’s better to just watch John Wick and consume some other ninja entertainment that you know of.