Name(s): Ninja Scroll / Juubee Ninpuuchou / Wind Ninja Chronicles / Juubei Ninpucho / 獣兵衛忍風帖
Format: Movie (94 minutes)
Release Date(s): June 5, 1993
Studio(s): Madhouse

While browsing for anime to watch, I came upon Ninja Scroll and immediately recognized it as an anime I’d seen advertised a lot and always sat in my video rental store that I always overlooked somehow. On reuniting with this anime, I felt obliged to watch it, as if it were a possible piece of my childhood that just happened to slip away. A pleasant surprise was that my intuition turned out to be more accurate than I thought, as Ninja Scroll is a very fun action movie that reminds me of the classic battle shonen/seinen I enjoyed as a kid first getting into anime, and many elements of which I occasionally discover I still love today.

Any appeal Ninja Scroll has is at face value. It’s a simple, easy-to-follow ninja action/adventure plot where an enticingly cool wanderer is forcefully roped into an evil plot to control Japan where his involvement may turn out to be more along the lines of fate. Albeit simple caricatures that you’d expect from a dedicated action movie, the cast are immediately understandable and their “reluctant ally” banter is fun to watch. Kagero is an abnormally tough female lead, and Dakuan is clever and humorous.

The villains also have distinct designs, and equally unique abilities that make each of their fight scenes stand out from one another. As I said earlier, I’m reminded of my favorite fight anime when I see the Ninja Scroll heroes have to defeat their stronger opponents not only through strength but craftiness as well.

I’m also reminded of how much I tend to like feudal Japan settings in general. I can’t help but think of Rurouni Kenshin, a samurai series that also balanced accuracy to the setting design and supernatural fighting powers, though Ninja Scroll quite clearly tips the balance much more towards the supernatural end.

The animation is quite nice, every bit as swift as the swords swung in each fight, and the action scenes are well choreographed, always making it easy to spot what’s going on even as it unfolds in the blink of an eye. This is another one of many traits that make Ninja Scroll an easy, fun watch.

That said, it feels its age a bit when succumbing to seinen tropes of the time. Occasionally, Ninja Scroll‘s attempts at maturity fall into hyperbole when it’s trying to make them seem serious, and this can be a little off-putting when you recognize the stylistic cliches. There’s a lot of gore, but enough that’s acceptable for an action movie. It’s really only the sexual parts that’ll come across as plain creepy to anyone that isn’t already used to the darker side of late ’80s/early ’90s seinen. Fortunately, these are light touches and don’t cover Ninja Scroll in repulsion like a lot of its contemporaries would do to themselves.

Before I conclude, I also have to say I really like the realistic art style, as always with similar-looking older anime. Character designs are, again, good, particularly the outfit design (Zakuro being the coolest). A dark, heavy tone to the entire movie matched with frequently pale skin tones reminds me of a sort of gothic style, and that’s usually good for me.

All in all, that’s Ninja Scroll. Nothing to ponder heavily on, but one of the most simply enjoyable animated action movies I’ve seen—and maybe outside of animation as well.