Review of Ninja Scroll (1993) by John H — 08 Jun 2010

This movie rocked hard.

Blood flew in lovely spurts across paper rooms. Heads rolled in great numbers, decapitated by razor sharp swords. Magic mixed with swordplay to find the right mix to enable one man and one woman to slay demons and faceless hordes of deathly armies of dark soldiers. Women of the era live beside men to be used as slaves, fuck toys, or as expendable bait for enemies.

The hero in [i]Ninja Scroll[/i] is quite the little bishie with curly hair. Reminded me of Spike from [i]Cowboy Bebop[/i] a bit. ^_^= (Indeed, his Japanese VA is the same man who VAed Spike. I watched the dub this time around, however.).

I also loved the way the heroine is treated in [i]Ninja Scroll[/i]. She is an admirable woman who refuses to play the role that is handed to her by society and pays a heavy price for that refusal.

I will be buying this DVD. It's wonderful. I can't wait to watch it while hearing Koichi Yamadera portray Jubei. Brad Lavelle did a fine job with the dub (as did the wonderful Wendee Lee with Kagero), but this is one that I think I want to watch the flow and ebb with.

I noticed a lot of fitful stops and starts with the English, which generally means there is some concept that isn't breaking through. So, I will want to watch it plain.

The animation is gorgeous in [i]Ninja Scroll[/i]. I wasn't as thrilled with it as I was with the story, but it was beautiful. The colors were beautiful, the faces clearly etched in my mind. With age comes wisdom. With death can come peace or rage.

Wow. [b]UNLIKE[/b] [i]Akira[/i], this great anime lived up to its reputation. This will be taking up space on my DVD shelf!

My husband liked it also. He started to drop off to sleep when it got philosophical about the meaning of death and love in the middle of the movie. But, then the blood started to fly again and he perked right back up.