Ninja Kamui, An example how to waste an anime's potential.

The first episode whilst wholesome, it was obvious how it was going to end and foreshadows the show and what will come. The animation is impressive and the fight sequences are a beauty to look at however I cant help but feel maybe their needed to be a little more build up to the fighting. This is proven that whilst wholesome there isn't enough time spent on his family for you to really get how important they are but at least this is built on slightly later on, key word here being slightly as his son is barely ever mentioned apart from in the final episode.
In episode 2 the shootout at the restaurant is stupid there's no way a little table is stopping all those bullets. Now I get he is being hunted and all but at this point they are still trying to stay hidden are they not? like that's what ninja do right fight in the shadows? so why in the hell did they casually light up a public restaurant in the dead of night where no doubt everyone in the vicinity would have heard the gunfire.
Then they proceed to force another emotional moment for the FBI Agent Mike when we've not really got much knowledge of him apart from that he has this family supposedly so it leads you to not caring as much as there's been no built up to it. Like sure its horrible to have lost your child noone deserves that but we haven't even seen him act remotely like a parent at all until later interactions with Emma, shock horror I'm sure you can all see where this is going.
Its also glaringly obvious that this Auza company is behind the tech and right from the start it just feels like a rip off of Arasaka from cyberpunk except Arasaka at least stood on its own two feet meanwhile the owner of Auza is probably the most irritating character this anime has given that he is a literal man child that considering its his Genius that makes this tech you would thing he'd be smarter than how he actually acts instead its like all his plans were created by a moron thus nullifying the fact that he's this Genius and he breaks down at even the slightest hindrances even when its rather easy to recover from them at least in the final episode he's shown in the correct light as the pathetic worm of a man that he is, arrogant from his genius and a coward when even remotely threatened (how Dilly thought he was the light of the worlds future ill never know).
Also another issue i have is whilst the action scenes are amazing, to have the alarm go off because a drops worth a sweat fell on a laser is stupid. Most of the twists are predictable and thus are very lacklustre.
Also for a concept such as ninja doesn't that require them to be hidden, instead their fighting in the street with giant metal suits and breaking buildings ah yes totally unnoticeable as I mentioned with the restaurant shootout scene. By this point your likely already bored like I was but wait still a third of the anime to go you unlucky sod.
The Anime took so long to explain why we should care for Higan's family and their past that by the time its explained your already bored out of your mind, this as a result makes its impact a lot less powerful especially when we replay the same deaths from episode 1 over and over and over and goddamn over again, we get it he's traumatised but do you really have to waste close to a full episodes worth a time repeating this scene the only time it should have been replayed should have been in the finale when it matters most.
It picks up towards the end at least at episode 9 Thank god given by this point you've watched around 6 -7 episodes of pure boring slop which they will pretend is all important and powerful due to the 'high octane fight scenes' spoiler alert they are just as bland and dreary as before.
In episode 10 its stupid how Higan and Zai clashing fists makes all their high power suits come off and shatter like I'm not sure if this is meant to represent them still wearing them and being symbolic of what's under the suits or whether it genuinely was the suits shattering, this shows consistency makes both paths feasible.
Episode 11's fighting finally returns to the good stuff we got at the start. However the Auza President is the biggest depiction of a man child I have ever witnessed as I mentioned above and as a result you end up hating any moment he is onscreen, Episode 12 wasn't even memorable to me so lets move on to the finale.
Episode 13, what the actual hell is a tiny car doing somehow pushing over an entire massive cargo plane that in reality would be far larger than it and pretty much unmovable unless the wheels were damaged but nope he aimed for the bulk of the plane not the wheels as if this show of super high tech ninja suits couldn't get any more ridiculous. Keep in mind this is Mike and his busted Junker of a car as mentioned in the beginning of the show so there's no way that piece of scrap can take on a plane.
Finally in Episode 13 we face the ultimate showdown Yamagi and Higan, but guess what its the same boring CGI as before which left me utterly bored as its not like we haven't seen this stuff before, having Zai intervene and try to kill Higan made sense this was the first sign that just maybe we could salvage this finale but nope he casually turns on Yamagi because of the power of friendship (lets be honest that's pretty much what happened) and yet Zai does little to nothing aside from stop Yamagi from stabbing Higan (yes that's his only contribution to the final battle), then they try to make Yamagi more threatening by having his suit absorb all that power (wow budget Raiden from Mortal Kombat) and despite this nonsense Higan is still more than capable of cutting him down and yet instead of it being a brilliant cinematic scene of them being face to face without the suits and it having some sort of meaning he just slash's at his suit using some new found power that magically came to him (ah yes the protagonists plot armour at play) and then Yamagi falls, no blood, no powerful symbol of vengeance he just falls and begins exposition of how other will take his place, ah we've all heard this before right how original. The only good scene in this finale is when Zai attempts to take his own life and Higan stops him by grabbing the blade showing his care for a brother in arms, except even than Higan doesn't bleed despite grabbing the BLADE, like excuse me he hasn't even go gloves on. The show ends foreshadowing of course a sequel which by some miracle this show got the next 2 seasons greenlit, which I no doubt will be writing bad review for as well when they are aired but hey we can hold out hope they learned something from this right?.

The show is Majority blood splatter and violence when it could have been so much more instead it focused more on CGI Robo suit fights than actually story, if they had ditched the stupid high tech suits the fights would have been better as proven at the beginning compared to the fights at the end and don't get me started on the ending where after all that cinematic nonsense its just slashing and then suddenly the villain falls so what was the point of all these suits if they magically shatter like paper and somehow swords made of the same metal can sometimes not pierce them and other times cut through like butter, there's so much inconsistency with this anime and its driving me nuts. The best part of Ninja Kamui is the first Episode and the opening theme.