KAKANLen09
December 23, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Ninja vs. Gokudo — A killing fest that's an exercise in both skill and presentation. Do you find that anime can be quite boring if you watch the same things over and over again? It can be quite the taxing challenge if you're so used to whatever the times charts and outputs are, and it's slop like the poison that never quite ends its drop. In the same way, work being cliche in and of itself can also cause much bigger frustration than most because it too is slop from the inside out. But what about works that serve a niche and do so well fortheir target audience that "they're so bad, they're good"? If you find yourself wanting an all-out brawl where blood trickles with heads flying around, you're in good hands, because mangaka Shinsuke Kondou is here to serve up the "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" ultimatum of a work that's all business and where violence goes hand-in-hand with it. This is Ninja vs. Gokudo, the yin to the yang, and the epitome of all things good and bad.
Meet Shinoha Tanaka and Kiwami Kimura: two young men, one a student and the other a businessman, who look fairly typical from the outside but hide quite the secret identity from each other. The story goes that the Imperial Ninja, the background heroes of justice, who were once an icon in infamy, are now playing the hero role, taking down evildoers on their own accord, and despite the higher-ups knowing of them, no one knows who they really are, due to the Shinobi rule. On the other hand, you have the yakuza, the typical gangsters who raid on the streets with their brawls of violence and destruction, because they're just immoral citizens who kill for the sake of their organization. Yet, with the two sides at loggerheads against one another for centuries, will Shinoha and Kiwami finally break the mould that their own professions have called them to at the cusp of their interests...in PreCure, ahem...sorry, Princess Flash? Will the Power of Friendship triumph over history's precedence of bloodbath between the two?
For a show that for quite a while now has had the Japanese clamouring for an anime adaptation that has been mentioned throughout the many recommended lists of guidebooks and polls, I think it's safe to say that the series has got quite the cult following within its home country that wouldn't fare well otherwise everywhere else. The reason being that Ninja vs. Gokudo is essentially a "boss rush" violence act where anyone and everyone gets persecuted no matter the cost, unless members can identify themselves as taking on either side and let the war between the Imperial Ninja and the Gokudo of Destruction go literally ham. The thing is, the anime kind of succeeded and not at the same time.
For one, learning of Shinoha and Kiwami's camaraderie is quite the bromance moment of action in the midst of comedy within a bleak environment. The two men who get caught up by the influences of Princess Flash as their otaku identity—it's seriously whack for the sake of whack, but for bad men to love strong young female girls and identify their counterparts within them, this is a dynamic that is essentially whiplash, but surprisingly, I don't find it repulsive, if it means for two gangsters to commune together watching young'uns fight evil with their good. But alas, the setting is what it is, so let's move on...to the boss fights of which feature the Imperial Ninja and their Gokudo of Destruction counterparts, because there's always the long-standing tradition for both the ninja and the yakuza to not avert their fate against each other. All of them have their quirks at best, with powers that seem otherworldly for playing police-and-thief, which contributes back to society in respective ways. Still, with such a huge cast of characters, the overall show's tone can feel rather off at times, just not knowing where the plot will go and how its intended effect aims to be.
And going off the rails, is what Studio Deen exactly has done here. Everyone likes to clown or crap on the studio, because even with their long history, they aren't exactly quality maestros when it comes to their work, which, at best, is even surpassed by studios with better work quality. The joke being which of their animations is PowerPoint-ish with still frames, it's just embarrassing for a studio that continues to get its wholly deserved bad reputation to begin with, and the show here truly suffers for it. Even the pacing of the show feels odd after a certain arc that truly speedruns the manga source material, so it's just truly bizarre.
The music is very appropriate for the show itself, being in its violent nature and all, and it wouldn't be surprising to pair this with quite the devilish OST...which is rather tame and kind of fine. I always had faith that MIYAVI would create quality songs, and his "Sweet Disaster" of a banging OP is a good one. As for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's ED, it's just gibberish on the cusp of pushing hype that never existed to begin with.
There's no one to attest to it other than yourself if you think that the works are intentionally bad to begin with. And while Ninja vs. Gokudo certainly overpromised and underdelivered on its premise and setting, the "so bad it's good" rhetoric will certainly prove your enjoyability with this show over time. So, have that whatever way you will, and enjoy the lashing against mediocrity for a show that you will love to hate, but it has its small redeeming points as well.
