Ninja Slayer From Animation

Episode 8

Recently there's just been one issue with Ninja Slayer From Animation. The sleek ninja car carrying the plot forward-- you know the one, it's got a giant tanto sword on top-- has been getting low on gas, and it's kept on missing the turnoff to the nearest Ancient Secrets of the Ninja gas station. Episode seven featured several excruciating minutes of talking-- just talking, man, with not a “Yeeart!” to be found. I'm happy to report that episode 8 has gotten us back to a full tank of dark karate iaido ninja action.

The nefarious Soukai syndicate has its tentacles into a number of businesses, one of them being an evil pharmaceuticals plant. Disguised as a humble rice cracker factory, this structure instead grows super-powered, green-blooded clones for the Yakuza and police alike. (You can tell which vatgrown clones are policemen, because they wear the police hat, even in the tank.) This is very apropos, because the idea of manufactured ninja, organic beings grown in a vat, is one that dates back to William Gibson's seminal 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. You'd have to think that this facility is just working its way up to cloned ninja-- that is, until Ninja Slayer interrupts the proceedings, yanking the door with such intense ninja energy that the knob snaps right off.

As foreshadowed in the previous episode, Ninja Slayer and Nancy-san are now working together, sharing intelligence. There are a few occasions where her gun complements his martial skills in combat, and one lavish sequence of her opening her jumpsuit to produce a crucial USB drive, then putting it back. The animation staff accomplishes this feat by showing the first half of the sequence, then running it backwards. It's absolutely amazing, and completely hilarious. Then, it's time to fight the bad guys!

At first, it seems like there's just one more freak for Ninja Slayer to deal with-- a gent called Forest Sawatari, who carries several bamboo swords in holes in his very body, and wears a sugegasa hat with a slit cut into the front, just like Ninja Scroll's Jubei Kibagami. (Note: Jubei is also a ninja.) He's a haunted, ruthless Vietnam veteran, just like the evil Cobra-kai sensei from the Karate Kid movies. Before Ninja Slayer can inevitably slay him, they're interrupted by a ninja amphibian (not quite turtly enough to be a ninja turtle, but a frog's not bad!), a freak who practices bio-iaido, and the character Goro from Mortal Kombat, who refers to himself as Notorious.

Is there a big fight? Yes there is, but that alone is not what makes this installment of Ninja Slayer From Animation good. It's the fact that Ninja Slayer's adversaries aren't Soukai stooges, but a different faction with their own goals. This is what the series has badly needed-- something beyond the unstoppable good guy (and a couple of allies) and the comically nefarious bad guy. We now have a rich ninja tapestry of multiple overlapping fighters and subplots. Whether Ninja Slayer will keep working through the next two thirds of its run will hinge on how well the show puts it all together.

With episode three's airing this past Wednesday, the Ninja Slayer dub has become not merely fun, but possibly the best reason to get a Funimation subscription if you like dubbed anime and want to get in on the ground floor of new dubs. “Oh my Buddha, what a surprise!” exhorts the narrator as we meet delinquent ninja Shogo, whose ninja spirit has a cartoonish London accent. At the behest of Sonic Boom of the Soukai Six Gates, Shogo's got to kill Yamoto, a fellow ninja high schooler. Once again, the English version is a perfect excuse to revisit the earlier episodes.

At this point, I have to ask: is anyone still watching the live action segment for this series? You can only see it if you have a Japanese Nico account, and I don't. (Having a Japanese IP address isn't enough-- I've tried.) I doubt there's anything compelling there (the first episode is on YouTube, and it's seriously just a weird little interview bit), but I remain curious. As for the show, it's taken a big step forward this time-- with the Soukai syndicate still pulling the strings behind the scenes, the show promises plenty more action, comedy, and cool music.

Grade: B+

Ninja Slayer From Animation is currently streaming on Funimation.