During the first episode of Shinobi no Ittoki, future ninja clan leader Ittoki is approached by a female classmate named Tsubaki and asked out on a date, which culminates in him being invited up to her room where she dresses scantily and tries to seduce him (keep in mind, they’re in middle school). When Ittoki rebukes her attempts, he plays it off like some kind of joke and nervously chuckles as he checks under her bed to see ninjas lying in wait to kill him. They attack and cut his face, but even with this having just happened, he asks what kind of prank she’s pulling. It turns out that she was indeed on a mission to end him, and after being rescued by childhood friend Kousetsu and his uncle Tokisada, Ittoki is told by his mother Yumika that he is to be the next legitimate heir of the Iga Clan of ninjas. This, by every odds-defying and implausible circumstance, catches Ittoki off-guard.

Shinobi no Ittoki is a masterclass in how to ruthlessly tank the viability of a main character, or a series as a whole, in the first twenty-four minutes. The show’s universe establishes that the way of the ninja has lasted all the way through to the modern day, and that they have managed to weave themselves into companies and other corporate megastructures in order to blend more seamlessly into everyday life. For a layperson who does not know any better, this is certainly very surprising information to learn and opens the door to an entire underworld they never knew of.

The catch is that as presented within the show, the expositing of information clashes horribly. To begin with, there is no justifiable reason for Ittoki to not be privy to this information his mother tells him about. Gymnastics is evidently something that Ittoki is gifted for, although the various stunts that he pulls when trying to get to cram school and dodge a truck that nearly hits him certainly seem on par with ninjutsu instead of the parallel bars or pommel horse. As far as his physical dexterity is concerned, there is no cause for alarm. But as far as his place within the Iga Clan, what logic could there possibly be in Yumika leaving your son, the legitimate heir to your Clan, in the dark as to what is happening?

Even if the narrative wanted to operate under the assumption that Ittoki’s father and Yumika were doing their best to keep Ittoki “protected” from the Iga Clan lifestyle, the fact that the rival Clan that tried to kill Ittoki (the Kouga) had been causing problems “recently” should have raised an alarm somehow. Rather than actually keep her son protected by telling him earlier of his secret lineage (instead insisting that Ittoki not go out with Tsubaki without adequately explaining why), she waited until he nearly got killed and he was shocked at the numerous revelations. Instead, by having the first episode waffling around with the “crush” going on between Ittoki and Tsubaki, it only succeeds in making Ittoki seem too woefully out of his element. It’s to such an extent that one could reasonably call him “inept.” This inability to handle worldbuilding, character building, and expositing is a recurring problem that Shinobi no Ittoki never properly rectifies.

This problem also unfortunately weaves its way into Ittoki being a pallidly conceived and developed main character, which manifests in the anime’s primary throughline in two ways; firstly, the show tracks Ittoki’s growth by sending him and Kousetsu to Ninja Academy. From here, the show adopts an approach most-similar to schooltime slice-of-life, meeting friends and going to class. Considering that the Kouga’s presence and influence in the school is already widespread, Ittoki’s allies are few and is left alone even-moreso than he might have been otherwise to learn about ninjutsu training. Because of his character nature as a well-intentioned bumbler, he reads as incompetent-at-best and stupid-at-worst, especially when everyone else already knows many of the basics of ninjutsu.

Not helping is that his biggest ally, Kousetsu, seems to spend more time chastising him than earnestly helping him. This shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise; Ittoki’s family did an abysmal job of introducing him to the world of ninjutsu, so to expect their son who has a target on his back to all of a sudden “get with the program” is laughable. If Ittoki’s survival is so important, it begs the question of why they would send him to a ninja school full of strangers and where the Kouga are more entrenched. Considering that the Iga Clan’s village is not exactly the smallest location, and that the members most likely need to keep their skills honed, was there no alternative to the school option? Ittoki’s inability to understand the basics of what’s going on, coupled with the Clan’s decision to ship him off to a more-unsafe location, makes following him as an outsider terribly unengaging at the fundamental level.

If there is one feature of this show’s universe that exacerbates this problem, it’s Ninja Gear. Part of what makes ninjutsu an intriguing form of martial arts is the ability to train one’s body to the point where quickness and espionage are the dominating factors rather than the sheer brawn of other arts. Shinobi no Ittoki, in its effort to make ninjutsu more relevant to the modern day, opts to give every one of its major characters science-fiction oriented Ninja Gear. Naturally, Ittoki does not know what this is, and Kousetsu curtly insults him and leaves him stuck with his Ninja Gear motionless in their first real exam.

As a result, Ninja Gear’s inclusion actually impedes itself into the sense of drama that the show is attempting to convey. Tension during the course of the “Academy Arc” is less about physical and mental dexterity against your opponent because it now has to involve hoping that the Ninja Gear worn by Ittoki does not malfunction or get damaged. The consequence is that ninjutsu as a martial art feels stunningly demystified, something that’s portrayed as quaint and that just about anybody could learn if they shill out enough money for Ninja Gear and train their bodies a little. Compounding the problem is that Ninja Gear is not merely present here, but makes appearances throughout the rest of the show. Nearly everyone has one.

But Ninja Gear’s inclusion does help bring the other characters and the larger-overarching plot into the fold, which transitions to the second way Ittoki’s character doesn’t work; the cast of characters and story he surrounds himself with or gets involved in are not interesting on their own either. He therefore has nothing that he can earnestly bounce off of to contribute to his growth. Each student comes to the Ninja Academy for their own purposes, whether it be for revenge or otherwise, but none progresses in a way that’s gradual or meaningful. Events in the plot happen with little buildup or substantive foreshadowing (if not downright-flimsy logic), leaving larger events devoid of characterization or gripping implication. Whether it involves betrayal, reconciliations, or revelations that are supposed to change the status quo, the characters undergo change because the story says or claims that they have done so, mostly (since Kisegawa is an exception) in lieu of being able to witness and experience that change for ourselves.

And Ittoki embodies this aspect the worst of all. By the time the series is over, Ittoki’s self-assuredness in himself and his own potential feels completely undeserved. His growth is spurned more by the power of friendship rather than truly undertaking the journey of coming into his own as a ninja and joining the Iga Clan proper. Given the extent of battle or actions sequences that occur in the show starting from the “Academy Arc” onwards, this undeserved sensation rings pointedly true. Ittoki, by the time the series is over and the climax has arrived, inspires no confidence either as a ninja or as a thoughtful, calculating leader. The reason being that it’s as though the narrative suddenly decided that he was a completely new character altogether from how he was first presented, capable and shouldering the burdens placed upon him. We see the endpoints, but not the trail. The exposition from episode one never properly oriented Ittoki in the story, and the result is that it makes his moments of rising up read as vaporous.

Perhaps all of this could be forgiven if the aesthetic of the series was adequate, but it cannot succeed there, either. There are a handful of decent explosions or uses of set pieces, yet the color palette employed is oddly washed-out, and the attempts to be darker and brooding as it leans more into the science-fiction conspiratorial technology plot don’t work. Between being musically unadventurous and not succeeding in either or its dramatic or comedic portrayals due to the weak characterization, Shinobi no Ittoki feels devoid of an identity. The series does not know what it wants to be, but the writing makes the mistake of thinking that doing a little of everything translates to a grand story.

I know that I have been particularly critical of this series, but I do not want to be completely cruel to it, either. I surmise that the ultimate fault with the series comes down to one factor more than any other: the series composition was handled by Takano Minato, and this was their very first credit for working on an anime. Make no mistake; writing for television is hard, and especially considering that Shinobi no Ittoki is an original work as opposed to an adaptation of a larger-scale work, they were, to use a phrase, essentially thrown into the lion’s den. It’s impossible to know how much of what transpired in the writing was their idea versus someone else involved in production insisting on working certain element in. Alas, the writing as presented is awash with abysmal character and worldbuilding, a slumbering exercise that moves through plot moments without strong thread to connect them all.

I hope Minato gets a better chance soon, because Shinobi no Ittoki is a mess.