I'm not someone who reviews films online, but this was so pitifully done that it deserves some criticism.
Given that anime is a visually-focused story telling medium, it can be expected that dialogue will rarely be taken seriously. Unlike western animation, scripts are usually only developed after the animation is complete. For this reason, WB allowed for the English language version to develop independently from the Japanese, expecting that doing so would ensure that the film was authentically Batman while allowing the animation team in Japan to focus on making an authentically anime creation of their own. However, the result is the most mindless Batman script ever created in an animated film. The animation has its moments, but is completely overshadowed by the dumbest and least observant Batman ever created. For the world's greatest detective to ask who a group of samurai wearing Joker masks are working for is just lazy storytelling. This Batman has none of the characteristics that make him an attractive character and the voice acting feals forced and overdone.
I never trust these types of crossover endeavors because they rarely allow for either medium's strengths to fully materialize. Reading that this was to be scripted independently in English made me curious to see if there would be some more substance to the story to go along with the flashy animation, but it's a hard pass. There's some chance that the Japanese version might make a little more sense, but I don't see how this poorly constructed story allows for much improvement. A hard pass.
