Ninja Kamui

"Ninja Kamui" definitely won me over with the trailer a few months ago.

You could already see that the animation and choreography of the fights would be fantastic - I could only guess how much more would come in the course of the anime and was almost certain that this anime would be relatively high up at the top of the animes from 2024.

The anime starts off very promisingly, as promised by the trailer - the fights in the first episodes are choreographed fantastically and are breathtakingly well animated.

The story and the characters are rather simple and not particularly innovative, but that hardly bothered me - as long as the implementation of this simple story maintained this level, I would have been happy.

But unfortunately it didn't...

Before I could admire the dark style and simple character design of the main character, who was initially only wearing a black hoodie, enough, he slips into a bright mecha suit with all sorts of bells and whistles on it. I personally found that a shame because I think the anime would have worked much better if they had stuck to traditional fighting techniques and weapons.

All the sci-fi stuff just takes away all the charm of the previously simple aesthetic...

If they really wanted to include mechas, I would have thought it was a better decision not to give the main character a suit and thus contrast ultra-modern fighting machines with old-fashioned ninja techniques.

It's a shame that they decided to go in this direction...

It was amazing at the start. Great concept, decent story, great fight scenes and simply beautiful animation. I gave it 10/10

Then, I don't know what happened. They got tired? Ran out of budget or lost interest? But the characters weren't properly developed. I couldn't bring myself to care about the cop, the main character got flatter as the story progressed and they killed off the one character I cared about.

Worst part? The animation and fight scenes that were one of the major selling points got worse. It became a nauseating, fake-looking CGI fest. I quit halfway through episode 13 because I just couldn't stand it anymore.

The 7/10 rating is entirely due to the first few episodes, the rest deserve a 5 at best and 3 if I continue watching it. I hope they fix up.

I can't stand when anime is rated differently from movie or TV shows, why do basic standards get lowered just because it's anime? I had really high hopes that it would be a really cool show about an assassin, it's visually beautiful, but everything else is such a let down. Here's why:

1. The storyline is so basic and slow. I'm 7 episodes in and nothing has any real purpose. It's just a guy looking for revenge in the most boring way possible, sprinkled in the typical dumb cop that thinks his gun will eventually work against ninjas running at 200mph.

2. The main character is boring. You cant connect with him. There's nothing about him that's interesting, he just wants revenge. He's too much of the teenage silent, but edgy trope.

3. The other characters are just there. They offer nothing of worth to the show. They don't have any personality that makes you route for or against them. Some flashbacks are meant to be sentimental, but, again, there's isn't a character worth putting emotion into.

What made people like John Wick were the fight scenes. There are some cool fight scenes, but more talking about nothing than fighting or interesting background information.

The anime is very promising and it's interesting that HBO is producing it but the story falls very flat and the plot is nothing new: vengeance and lots of action. Basically a John Wick anime ripoff. This is not entirely a bad thing if well executed but so far it does not impress: the animation is top notch but the voice acting is ATROCIOUS. It definitely breaks the immersion. Also, the characters are kinda flat, we are 5-6 episodes in and I simply do not care for any of them, the vendetta motive of the main character is just not enough to make me excited. Hopefully this series will improve with the next episodes.

This ninja anime is ideal for fans of action and fights, but if you're looking for anything else... you won't find it here.

Simple, classic, and predictable story. Well-animated battles, but with a total lack of explanations and arguments about their techniques.

Basically, this anime wants to ignore or simplify any lore to the maximum. It relies entirely on introducing characters you know nothing about, but who have some striking aesthetic feature, so the protagonists can smash them (or not).

Excessively simple and straightforward for my taste, but with decent production and a very clear understanding of its target audience.

Those who like it will think it's amazing, while others might even find it bad. I've decided to stay in the middle; in the end, it entertained me.