Batman Ninja

This movie runs like the cut scenes from a game like 'Justice League, gods among us' or the likes. The plot was good but dialog very poor and only used to string fight scenes together. In many ways it felt like an advert for all the various Anime formats crammed into one movie based on a popular western brand. In short I loved what the movie tried to do but the end result missed the mark. 4/10

Though voices are in good American English, this anime is done by the Japanese. I was expecting the usual high quality that I get from even average Japanese anime, but here I was disappointed.

What I felt was, the Japanese were instructed by the American DC people to make it salable globally, and so they created this anime with assumptions on what a global audience thinks like. And its a total mess.

Please don't see this. You have too many good anime and films out there that you can't finish in your lifetime.

I love Batman. I love anime. I love cheesy anime conversations. But I hate an emptied character and script despite a huge potential.

Batman is NEVER about his gadgets. Look at the Arkham Knight game, Red Hood thinks Batman is all about his gadgets and nothing without them, but Batman proves him wrong with his gigantic intellect and training. Granted, he relies on his gadgets on his day-to-day operations. However he never despairs when he loses any of them. On the contrary, he willingly sacrifice his gadgets and tools like they are nothing, because he is the weapon.

If anyone says "its's an interpretation of Batman" an interpretation is about nuances, settings, surroundings; not the main subject. If you take what makes Batman out of Batman, it's not an interpretation, it's Dark Knight Rises...

Decent artwork though...

Batman Ninja has quite weak plotting and terrible direction. It relies so much on action and it never becomes anything deeper than its initial concept on paper. But it's fun in well executed action scenes, the characters are solid, the score is cool and it's worth seeing for its animation alone which is absolutely impressive in its artistry, cool designs and anime style. It's literally a concept art brought to life which was intriguing to witness.

Batman Ninja is an incredibly stylish and original anime that just so happens to feature Batman and co. While the animation occasionally falters and the English dub can best be described as 'serviceable', it succeeds at delivering an excellent and decidedly different animated Batman feature. I truly hope that DC will continue to deliver more animated features like Batman Ninja.

8/10

• Many of the lowest reviews on IMDB seem to take issue with the Japanese influences and the departure from the usual 'grounded' Batman universe(s). If you dislike Japanese media and/or can't handle a film that will greatly differ from popular Batman movies & source material, then this is not for you.