Ninja Kamui
a review by Adolheid
a review by Adolheid
I started off watching this anime, fully expecting to get to the point where I would be saying,
"Oh my LORD, I have to wait a whole week for the next episode!?"
It was a mild curiosity off the synopsis, but the first episode truly captivated me.
After a very specific point, I lost all interest and just finished the anime due to sunk-cost fallacy...
With all the fight scenes we had at the start of the anime, I was excited to see our main character, have to overcome both his mental and physical traumas in order to move forward. Alas, it felt like the start was just a tease... An excuse to get to the "real meat and potatoes"
The scene begins to a businessman fleeing for his life from someone or something.
He makes it to an alley where we see ninjas emerging from the many nooks and crannies surrounding the area.
One makes a move to kill the business man, we cut to black.
In the very next scene, we see this business man not just being able to go toe-to-toe with this ninja, but in fact he fends off and kills several others.
The fight choreography is well-paced. The business man unfortunately does get overwhelmed and is decapitated, the leader of this little platoon of ninjas pulls out a device and it is able to identify the true identity of this man, who had a completely different face.
I'm a big fan of this beginning. My expectations were subverted; I expected a normal civilian to be running away, yet when cornered, his true nature is revealed. So we're already aware that somehow this faction of ninja is hunting down ninjas who presumably defected. We don't know how, or why, but the turn of events has so many things going on, I want to know more.
Next scene we focus on a family of 3.
Husband, Wife, and a child.
We later learn the identities of these individuals to be 2 other ninjas who have defected.
We also learn that they become aware of the previous ninja that was assassinated, someone they knew.
Shortly after, they are attacked and everyone, including the child, is killed.
(this is really the only part of the anime I can genuinely care about so I won't go into detail, I would advise at least enjoying episode 1 if you're truly curious)Our main protagonist however, isn't dead, and wakes up on an autopsy table (at least I'm assuming that's the case).
We're then introduced to 2 more characters in this story. Members of the FBI.
It isn't really established if these 2 were going to be reoccurring characters, or just minor characters to highlight how well our, "Joe Logan" is disguised, considering we're meant to understand that these defected ninja presumably have successfully integrated into society with their secrets unknown, yet with this family being targeted so soon, we now have another question, how are they being discovered so easily and quickly?
Our main character is targeted again, and we're able to see that his only goal at this point in time is revenge.
We can see this illustrated through his executions as they are overkill in some cases.
We even see him use a unique ability that allows him to overcome the odds against him and even defeats the leader of the group that was sent to kill him.
With this, we now discover what his true identity is,
Higan
After a bit of dialogue from our introduced villain, Yamagi.
We have the basic outline of this story.
Overall this is a solid premise and I was intrigued by this, Higan would seemingly have to single-handedly take down a corporation & the current head of ninja.
I wondered how they would approach this, maybe the FBI characters can work on taking down the tech giant while Higan works behind the shadows and takes on the ninja through collaborative effort?
Up until episode 3 we see Higan fight several notable ninjas sent after him, so the stakes are increasing.
At this point I'm curious at the different type of ninjas we'll be facing and what their abilities will be!
Episode 5 or 6...
We get to a point where Higan faces off his line up of enemies...
From Megaman 8...
Ok but this part isn't so bad, we see the protagonist get absolutely ragdolled across the screen, so surely he'll have to figure out a method to overcome this, as we were immediately shown his secret art couldn't keep up. I was inhaling a huge amount of copium at this point... I mean... we're like halfway through the season after all...Episode 7 confirmed my worst fears...
Yea the majority of the rest of the fights will be mech on mech.
Listen, if you wanted to make a ninja-mech anime, have that premise be noted on episode 1 or 2... don't wait until halfway through to slot this in.
I've been so disillusioned, the rest of the anime is just a blur.
It becomes a standard rise to the top, honestly the fight choreography felt wasted since you can't experience that since you're stuck watching mechs clank together.
He has an intense fight with Zai, a fellow friend who is considered to be on equal footing with him but yet still part of the organization.
After a (subjective) boring fight with mechs, they get removed and its back to normal hand-to-hand combat.
These 2, eventually, stand up to the Villain and Higan awakens his
This is a mech anime. First half of this show is baiting you into thinking it'll be normal hand-to-hand combat, before it plunges you into the mecha deep-end.
I'm not a mech fan. There are animes that have mechs in them, that I've rated highly, but I found the narrative in those to be so compelling, that the mechs feel like a backdrop to the plot rather than a focal point. Or at least the characters distracted me enough to not even notice the mechs.
Story had a solid premise, though I feel with the introduction of the mechs, so many plot points were just... dropped. Opportunities missed, that it felt like a generic storyline in the end.
35 out of 37 users liked this review
