Ninja Kamui

Since I followed episode 1 to episode 13, I never got bored. The story is so interesting that it makes me curious like a roller coaster. Dark. Emotions. Everything is combined well. Every fight that shows up can make me hype. I really like fights that are full of gore. What I like the most is when Higan-san uses ninpo or ougi. (I forgot what it's called). It gives me goosebump. Even though in the end it uses the mecha concept, I don't feel bored. Because I feel that it has become a distinctive feature in this anime. (Besides, I still listen to the songs Vengeance and Legend begin.) Eventhough it was complete, I felt very satisfied. Moreover, because I get a lot of inspiration as a writer.

Ninja Kamui, the latest offering from action animation extraordinaire, Sunghoo Park, promises intense, gritty close-quarters combat to the forefront. This comes as no surprise, as action of this nature is Park's forte. You may know Park as the director of both the first season and movie of Jujutsu Kaisen, as well as God of Highschool and Garo: Vanishing Line. Action runs in his veins, alongside the immense drugs he must be taking, because he seemingly shoulders single-handedly for almost every episode of this show. Produced by E&H Productions, a studio founded by Park himself, the core team appears relatively small, with Park at the creativehelm. Park's contribution to this show is mind boggling to me, as he's responsible for most of the action from both a directorial and animation perspective, in the ENTIRE SHOW. Remember those jaw dropping fights from episode one? Yep, all him. I could sing praises of the animation from just that episode alone all day, but there are numerous issues with the show, including the fights, which I'm about to get into. The first few episodes, let's be clear, showcase some of the finest sakuga I've seen, but therein lies the problem. "The first few episodes"... so, what about the others? Well... Episode one boasted a high level of polish that gradually diminished. What went wrong? Well, to answer that, Ninja Kamui, an action anime, suffers from a lack of action animators. There was essentially one besides the 3D team and Park himself. Ninja Kamui essentially became a test to see how much one man could handle, and while Park can produce an astonishing amount in such little time, it's not without its drawbacks. There's a clear discrepancy in quality between the storyboard and animation departments. Meanwhile the level of polish steadily decreased, as is often the case with modern anime. In short, Ninja Kamui went from being a spectacle of action animation to an average-looking show with above-average action. You may wonder if the mechs, which shifted the show from a sakuga fest to a CGI fest, eventually disappeared. Well, sort of... Near the end of one of the final episodes the mechs finally broke, leaving our two characters to engage in a fully 2D fight. What could wrong you ask? The execution was severely lacking, with rough rotoscoping and inconsistent character designs. The choreography was present, but the implementation fell short, added on by the obnoxious motion blurring. As well as, the show blatantly stealing an impact frame from One Piece, which made no sense in the context of the fight itself. At this point, you might be thinking, "What about the story?" Well let me tell you, there is no story to Ninja Kamui. And if there is one, it's the most generic, boring revenge story ever. Half the time, our protagonist doesn't even seem to pursue his revenge, which is, you know, THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW. As for the terrible dub, if you didn't know, this show airs on Toonami, known for pioneering dubs in the past. Yeah no, this dub doesn't live up to that legacy; it's subpar and unnecessarily adds content. All in all, what began as a showcase for sakuga and Park's unrestricted creativity devolved into one of the most lackluster shows I've seen in recent memory. If E&H were to produce another show in the future, count me out. Sunghoo Park's involvement isn't enough to draw me in anymore, especially if the man fails to show his full potential.

I understand why the score started at 8 and then dropped to 7 and will drop even further. Because this anime just a scam. In the first 2-3 episodes: the action, art drawing, animation, fight choreography is excellent. But after that... The story starts as a nice revenge job, but as continues the episodes progress, the mediocre side characters, the empty story that just bad filled, and most importantly, the animation becomes terrible. The anime suddenly turns into mecha after 3-4 episodes and the animation art drawing, fighting, etc. are also very poorly done. All the money was spent on the first 2-3 episodes,the rest is bad and unwatchable. I finished it thanks to the forward button. my overall score is 4/10

What a weird show, what a weird story, what a weird conflict. So much effort was wasted on this show, and it feels so boring. We have ninjas who moved from Japan to join up with some evil global elites in order to help them to achieve global domination (because who really cares why), and they produce high tech equipment for their "ninjas" including mecha armor, while doing random corpo political bs in the background. OG ninjas had a beef with new ninjas, so new ninjas want to kill OG ninjas who are exiles. MC is one of these OG ninjas, and he wants revenge, becausefamily. Apparently being a ninja means being in the open, double jumping in the air with a sword, blowing stuff up while wearing a NEON (I kid you not) bright armor. Also being a ninja means being not capable to overcome even a single f-ing obstacle without tripping alarms. Ninjas is when you crowd up with 20 other ninjas in a hallway visible to your enemy. But really, once you figure it out, it's just a gore version of Naruto, but without any of the fun parts Naruto had. All the "special" skills you see in the beginning disappear from the show half way in, getting replaced by mecha fighting and more generic bad guys being one shot in the background. Clarity gives way to lots of smoke, probably to draw fewer scenes and backgrounds. The evil guys do their pointless one liners that don't affect the flow of the show or the story and disappear. MC growls about revenge, and his sidekicks discuss another stupid plan that will, of course, FAIL, because their opponents always beat them to it. Let's crack into their servers because if we have EVIDENCE and.... Ehm.. Upload it somewhere? Surely it will bring down the large corporation that controls politicians globally and influences Agencies of countries. It's such naive nonsense honestly. It feels like half the story and events are only there to bloat the show to fill it to the whole length of a season. Otherwise it could be an average watchable 1.5 hour movie if we drop the rest of bs. It's so boring to watch. Incredible how all this production was wasted on this half-assed sad excuse of a story. Maybe I should start doing goddamn scripts for shows as it feels like the overall media industry is filled with hacks who can't write to save their lives. But wtf do I expect, The guy was involved with Jujutsu Kaisen, which is also braindead in terms of story telling.

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