It opens with a gradeschooler sword-sparring in grandpa’s trapdoor-laden ninja house. An explosion blows a hole in the clay-tiled roof, revealing the skyline of the fictional American city of “Brad”, and perfectly sets expectations for the level of anime pulp one can expect from Blackfox by studio “3Hz”. Though created largely by different people, the vibe is similar to their previous Princess Principal TV series. Being a tightly packed 90-minute actioneer, Blackfox also evokes pulp action OVAs from decades past and sidesteps the pitfalls of a longer format. For a certain generation of otaku, there’s nostalgic fun to be found in this action romp.

A suspect hangs from a city rooftop as the ninja-clad avenger squeezes him for the location of the villain’s secret hideout. She then zips away by grappling hook into the dark night. If there wasn’t already an anime called Ninja Batman…

Blackfox, in its gleeful cribbing of pop culture, lives or dies by its kitsch value. But it's the type of kitsch that transcends its unoriginality through clean, charismatic execution. The action kicks with an intelligible choreography that is rare in the effects-crazed webgen age. The heroes are charming without being overbearing. The villain, however, is deliciously over-the-top. It never oversells its tropes with long-winded explainers — it knows exactly what each is worth, and it shows more than tells.

Why anime originals get made is often a mystery. Blackfox, simultaneously debuting in Japanese theaters and to western viewers via Crunchyroll, seems like a tailor-made export product. Anime girls, ninjas, robots, superpowers… What more could a hypothetical westerner want? Perhaps the amusement of a portrait of America through the eyes of anime?

Stepping off the plane after two weeks of touring major Japanese cities, impeccably clean jungles of concrete, I saw urban America through such eyes myself. The thoroughly hand-painted backgrounds of Blackfox capture my reverse culture-shock in visceral detail. Grime cakes every surface. Weeds punch through the cracks of concrete. No coat of paint is left unchipped; no wallpaper untorn.

But the dilapidated hellhole in which I apparently live has some perks: the grassy front lawns and sidewalks of suburbia, the tall ceilings, the spacious kitchens equipped with gas-powered stovetops, the navigable regularity of a street grid, and the coherent urban architecture that follows. One cannot help but continually pause the frame to take in its uncanny world of cutesy anime girls adorned in modern Japanese fashions living in a cartoon of urban America, adding yet another layer of kitsch. And like the best anime films, Blackfox is carried by its production design, though in a somewhat unintended fashion.

Though Blackfox is far from a great anime, it’s the perfect length at 90 minutes. Its cliché, paper-thin premise would not reliably support any extension and that’s just fine. Sometimes a spell of ninja action is just the thing for a lazy afternoon.