Writer: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Studio: Animate Film
First watched: 29/07/2025
Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Ninja Scroll
Ratings:
Ninja Scroll. Kinda cool but sadly over-hyped. I wouldn't necessarily say that Ninja scroll is a bad film but it's certainly not deserving of too much high praise. The main thing about it is that it absolutely has so much of that aesthetic, thematic and stylistic character of dope 80s/90s anime and undoubtedly is one of the big contributors to making that whole sub-genre what it was (and still is). However, although it's very visually appealing, the film itself, i.e. its story and characters, lacks substance and any kind of direction. So while it's a pretty cool nostalgic memory, it's not actually a great film.
Frustratingly, I have to kick this off with noting that the role of women in the film is absolutely atrocious. Every single woman character (which is a grand total of 3) had personality traits and story beats that revolved exclusively around sex or sexualisation, usually in a terrible way. They also had barely any impact on the plot for the most part.
First, you have the 2 female members of the '9 monsters': Benisato and Zakuro. Benisato is the first to appear, when she strips naked in the bathouse to show off her tattoos and activiate her snake technique. She then of course has the snakes glide around her breasts before she attacks. She later on appears completely naked again in the temple (meaning the context of being in a bathhouse was irrelevant the last time, apparently), to use the snake attack again; however, this time when she gets cornered, she has a snack pop out of her pussy for a sneak attack (not joking). The only other aspect of her character that we learn about is that Gemma (the main antagonis) regularly "makes love to her". That's it. You then get Zakuro, whose first lines of dialogue are her confessing her love to the leader of the 9 monsters, then trying it on with him. Her character story then concludes with her killing him for rejecting her advances. She has no other elements to her character.
Then we finally get to Kagero, the main female character of the film. She does actively participate in and influence the story, however it's all through insane or pathetic misogynistic means. Firstly, her 'power' is that she is immune to poison but also that any man she sleeps with will then die by poisoning. This is conveniently exploited by Dakuan (a government official), as the poison he uses on Jubei (the main man character) will be neutralised if she shags him. And as the story plays out, since he's the only man who views her as a person and not a tool, she ironically falls in love with him and wants to shag him for both reasons. This is the kind of role for women that you can only come up with when you genuinely do no view them as actual people and instead think they're just sex toys and romantic prizes. But the thing that really solidifies the mistreatment of women characters is for her troubles, we see Kagero get sexually assaulted not once but twice on screen. The first time you could argue is plot related, as she 'allows' this so that she can kill Tessai with her poison. Even then, the concept of her having to get sexually assaulted to win a fight shows an insane level of hatred and disregard towards women. But even if you did give that one a pass, you'd still have the second time, when Shijima, the sneaky shadow ninja of the 9 Monsters, manages to kidnap her to lure Jubei into his trap, he makes sure to take a moment to quickly sexually violate her for good measure. To be honest, I would find it difficult to describe this film as good when the treatment of women in it is blatantly terrible. So I guess that is something that should be kept in mind if anyone else ever reads this.
(Oh, also just remembered there is another woman character who appears - an unnamed woman who is very literally just there getting fucked by the head of Kagero's village when she goes to report back the death of her squadron to him. The guy doesn't even stop to have this conversation with her and just keeps fucking this women, who of course has to scream and moan the entire time. She's presumably a concubine, again showing the type of women the writers wanted to see in their film).
To speak about the other elements of the film then, I'd say that its concept, design and style are genuinely pretty cool. The 9 monsters is a great vehicle/set-up for driving interesting action sequences and overall creating obstacles in the story. Sadly, none of the monsters themselves really get enough screentime to properly create a problem, let alone have the main characters solve it meaningfully. A lot of their powers were really cool and very thematic for sneaky, hidden ninja technique type stuff, but the fights semed to end as soon as they started, pretty much. There was also randomly one of them whose power was just like... bees? That was a bit odd; maybe there's some Japanese mythology I'm not familiar with.
The story is pretty much a nothing story and doesn't really make much sense (to me, at least). All of the aura and mystique of the secret ninja techniques and the Edo period is kinda lost in the main storyline basically revolving around government representatives and a trade deal for blocks of gold(?). Super boring and just means the plot has no real weight to it. We're kinda just told that we should care about this trade deal enough to follow it, rather than it being geuinely interesting. Then right at the end of the story, Gemma, the big bad, decides to change up and want all the power to himself, which is so unbearably boring and predictable. Again, it carries next to no weight, because both he and the people he betrayed only appeared on screen 2 minutes prior. (I will however excuse the plot being boring and predictable, given the fact that this is one of the films that would have laid the foundation for these types of stories on the big screen - it is now 32 years old!). Gemma himself as the main antagonist is also very surface level. Pretty basic design, no interesting powers to speak of, just immorality (which is conceptually huge but narratively pretty pointless).
Even Jubei (the main character)'s journey to halt this evil plan is literally forced, so there's actually no real buy-in to wanting to see how it all gets resolved. Jubei has no specific or even general motivations in the film, which is good for forming his identity as this rogue shinobi but terrible for making the story engaging in any way. Also, the hatred Jubei feels towards Gemma is all based off an implied past that we learn very little about. We see a few flashbacks here and there, then get told that Gemma's an awful person and a demon over and over in the dialogue. It's a little bit patronising.
The animation is good! However, I think I could only give it 'good'; no higher. The fights are animated really well, with lots of environment, clothing and flowy hair also moving pleasantly and believably around it. And generally, whent things move, they move through 3 dimensional space very convincingly. The artwork is also fantastic throughout, especially how they use light and shade to describe forms in quite a lot of visual detail (which really adds to the sense of depth to the characters and movement). There is a fair amount of the animators being 'economical' but that's understandable; it also happens to a point that it breaks your suspense or looks uncanny.
For the storytelling, I think the fights, the tone, the style and concept etc. all come together to create a decent viewing experience. Your eye is directed well and it's clear what's happening, where things are etc. Although there aren't any particularly interesting storytelling devices, like. Plus the explanations around the plot are a little bit clunky. So not great but can't say it's terrible.
To be honest, I've struggled to find the focus to sit and write about this film and I think that itself explains how I feel about it. It's a film that didn't really strike me in any way for its brilliance and and no point did it make me feel any emotion more than mildly (other than contempt for its creators). So sadly, although this film is maybe a cult classic, I'd say that overall, it isn't actually very good. I would maybe relegate it to being great for having on in the background for visual interest but even that would be suspect, what with all the women getting raped and stuff. So really there's no place for this film. But it is kind of cool in some parts. That's about it.
