Yôtôden

The animation is good, but not too good. Not bad either, but a little grainy. The plot is complex, but not really thought through, and it is not conveyed in an edible manner. Things happen too fast, characters all look alike and you don't know where they came from and why people care when they die. The fighting scenes are decent, but I think they used too much of that "slow motion after the sword hits" which actually doesn't show anything, just the spurts of blood.

Watch it if you want to be sure you see all Japanese anime with ninjas :) but other than that, don't bother if you have something good to watch.

After having spent a lot of my youth watching such movies, I found this one very easy to follow in both the unedited and cut versions, (Although the story has much more to hold it together in the unedited version. Unlike Ninja Scroll this movie hit a much more serious note and i think that's where it hit me. The animation while grainy is very original, and I just love the way artists in that year stressed shadows to show different emotions. I think the story is perfect. The beginning of the movie really hits hard and as the movie progresses you get the feeling that you're going along in this adventure with the characters. As they meet, become allies and find out the their greatest strengths, a lot of heart was put into this.

This movie stinks majorly. The only reason I gave it a 3 was because the graphics were semi charming. It's total disregard for a plot and the lack of even insubstantial surface character development made it seem like just a bunch of nice drawings. This is by far THE worse anime that came out of Japan. I can't believe they actually put their names on this garbage. What a rip off selling this thing for $20. If you haven't seen this don't bother. If you have, I pity you.

I'd have to agree with the previous reviewer: This film has awesome animation, but has problems throughout the rest of the movie.

Plot holes are huge, dialog barely explains the concepts of the plot--the MAIN PLOT POINTS aren't even fully explained until the last five minutes of the film. The characters state the obvious, while failing to explain the more confusing points of the film. There are characters that pop up and have importance in the storyline that are never explained--most of them have names that are only mentioned *once*, and it is exceedingly confusing to a viewer.

Don't waste your time with this movie. Unless you are in it for a good laugh and how DUMB it is.

After reading more than my fair share of reviews for a vast number of different movies I have noticed a certain trend, people judge to harshly on what the expected to see. I figure if you go into a movie open-minded not expecting anything certain than you will have better feelings towards it then if you try and watch but have pre-created standards you want it to reach.

Since I try not to be hypocritical I watched this movie with a very clean slate and open-mind, and was very much pleased. Since it is not a mainstream title or award winning for that matter I did not know quite what to expect, but in all truth I enjoyed it a good deal more than Ninja Scroll. Lovely animation, deep story, and the always joyful ninja hack-n-slashing combined extremely well to one of my personal favorite animes ever made.

I am not promising that you will enjoy it, but just give it a chance and you may come out with a pleasant surprise.

• "Before speaking, be sure of what you will say will be more beautiful than the silence" - Chinese proverb