A highly skilled assassin living in anonymity with his wife. A retirement cut tragically short by a deadly ambush. A journey of bloody revenge that reveals a hidden world of professional killers and the massively connected organization to which they belong. These are the basic building blocks of John Wick, but they could also describe Ninja Kamui. When it’s firing on all cylinders, the Adult Swim series (which recently concluded its first season) is anime’s answer to the Keanu Reeves-led franchise. The saga of former ninja Higan boasts a stunning premiere and some of the finest animated action sequences in recent memory, but it’s undone by a batch of disappointing episodes, a dull plot, and some uninspiring CG.
Unsurprisingly, the star of the show is the action. Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1 director Sunghoo Park and his studio E&H Production deliver some incredible fight scenes. Stunning choreography makes the fights feel like you’re watching actual pros with years of experience. What’s more, the combat packs an incredible amount of weight: every punch hits hard, every body slam feels like it hurts like hell. Aided by dynamic camera movements and POV shots, the action in Ninja Kamui is fresh and awe-inspiring. And that’s before we get to the stunning imagery depicting the ninjas’ secret arts and techniques. When Higan begins to use his, it rules: He moves so fast, he grows multiple shadow arms. The fights themselves are otherwise relatively grounded, and thus elevated by this kind of impossible visual.
One of the best things the anime does is show that Higan’s decision to leave his ninja clan was not rash or in the name of love, but rather the result of a slow deprogramming process . It also wasn’t his choice, as we see Higan, his wife, Mari, and other allies changing their convictions and slowly challenging what the ninja code means to them, all before opting not to stand idly by and let fate take the reins of their lives. And even then, they have plenty of doubts and second-thoughts. This is the most nuanced and poignant aspect of the story;it means so much that the core of Ninja Kamui is more than “seasoned warrior who walked away from his order.”
Higan’s rivalry with his friend-turned-adversary Zai stands out as well. This type of relationship is a staple of action anime, and it works just as well here. The more we learn about Zai, his own doubts about the ninja, and his relationship to Higan and his friends, the more weight it adds to every confrontation between the two – the years of history, of friendship, and ultimately of resentment. No wonder their fights are Ninja Kamui’s best, culminating with an all-timer of aclimactic duel in episode 11.
As great as Ninja Kamui’s action and the imagery is, the middle chunk of episodes drastically slows down Season 1’s momentum. As the world and mythology of the series start to expand, it focuses too much on side characters whose arcs come across as rushed and don’t really lead anywhere. The story itself, of the secret alliance between ninja and a tech manchild named Joseph, is paper-thin and derivative. Most of the character development and motivations are wrapped up in big reveals, deployed just after they stop being interesting.
Then there are the mech suits. The idea of ninjas taking over the world by leaving the shadows and using robots is a cool, and much of Ninja Kamui explores how these warriors have evolved throughout the years. It even makes some thematic sense to use CG animation for the mechs, to represent how their ninja pilots abandoned their ideals and strayed from their true path. However, in execution, it’s clear that CG doesn’t play well into Park’s strengths as a director. He gives it his all, and the choreography is still there, but it’s a noticeable drop in quality following the initial promise of the 2D ninja action.
In the end, Ninja Kamui’s strengths are the same as John Wick’s. There’s awe-inspiring action and an intriguing premise set in a world that’s bigger than it initially lets on. But a paper thin story and a pivot to uninteresting side characters ultimately overwhelm the goodwill generated from an incredible first chapter.
