Shinobi no Ittoki

Episode 7

This is one of those episodes that is hard to write a review about.

To be blunt: not a lot happens in this episode. Sure, there are some noteworthy events: Yumika is taken into custody and removed as chief of the Iga clan so Ittoki now has to lead in her stead, and the chief investigator is assassinated on the cusp of figuring out the secret plot. Those are some big shakeups and they've been adequately set up to create a lot of momentum for the rest of the season. No complaints there.

The issue is that this episode is also very, very slow. It's a Ninja Council meeting where they discuss Ninja Infractions and make Ninja Points of Order to determine the best Ninja Resolutions for events. I mean, I get that these are ninjas so there's an inherent cool factor to what is going on, but simply adding the word Ninja in front of something can't fully disguise how dull this is. It's a boardroom meeting where a lot of characters have high-level discussions that the audience can't fully appreciate.

There is some appreciable tension here and there: the other clans stepping up to help outline Koga's bullying is great, and there's the shocking reveal that gets Yumika taken away. But otherwise it's just a lot of mundanities and talking about procedure that we have no context for. I think if we had perhaps had some kind of setup or gameplan regarding the meeting it might have felt different. But this meeting basically gets dropped in the viewer's lap and proceeds to take up three-quarters of the episode. It's sort of a Phantom Menace situation where even though you have sick warrior dudes with sick weapons doing flips sometimes, it's still a bunch of rote conversations about protocol and blockades.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Shinobi no Ittoki is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.