Ninja Kamui Is a Blood-Soaked Action Anime Laser-Targeted at the Toonami Generation

By Elijah Gonzalez | February 16, 2024 | 10:15am

Photo Courtesy of Max

Anime Features HBO Max

Ninja Kamui Is a Blood-Soaked Action Anime Laser-Targeted at the Toonami Generation

While it’s increasingly difficult to imagine, there was very much a fabled, vaguely romanticized time when it was damn difficult to watch cartoons from Japan. Older fans will tell you about how exorbitantly expensive it was to buy VHS tapes, most of which only contained three of four episodes a pop, and that, even if you could snag these at a reasonable price, most series were never officially localized in the first place. Because of these hurdles, it wasn’t until anime started receiving well-aimed broadcasting slots that the medium really caught on stateside. And for many, including myself, this first introduction came via a now mythologized evening block: Cartoon Network’s Toonami.

Toonami kicked off in 1997, but truly picked up steam in ‘98 when Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z caught the attention of a wave of adolescents. For me personally, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that I fell down the rabbit hole, and I remember it well. There were many reasons why these shows transfixed my still-developing brain, but the primary and most intensely pre-teen of them was just how gnarly they could be compared to their animated counterparts elsewhere. For instance, I still remember my shock when, in Episode 5 of DBZ, Piccolo blasted a grapefruit-sized hole through Goku and Raditz, killing our protagonist (the first time of many) in brutal fashion. Whether it was these Saiyan adventures, the even more stabby battles of Naruto, or others, these series featured dismemberment and death on a scale that shattered my nascent concept of what animation could be.

Fundamentally, there was something deeply exciting about watching TV that felt “forbidden” and “adult,” even though, in reality, these shows were aimed directly at my age demographic and intentionally leaned into these elements to create this response. Beyond their action, there were other, more nuanced reasons why they sucked me in, such as their melodrama and willingness to engage with heavy themes beyond bloodletting. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there was the easygoing, slice-of-life vibes of something like Hamtaro. But, if there’s a single element that left my jaw on the floor as a kid, for better or worse, it was definitely the violence.

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This weekend, Toonami (and Max) aired Ninja Kamui, an original anime that feels so intensely in tune with this lineage that it seems tailor-made to produce the same reaction. It’s a gory revenge series about a shinobi out to destroy his old clan, a shadowy organization with a global reach that can dispatch their foes without a trace. On its face, the most obvious reason to check this one out is just how impressive its action sequences are.

The premiere wastes no time establishing its priorities, and its initial scene is pure over-the-top style. As futuristic assassins close in on a cornered, seemingly unassuming businessman, their would-be prey starts smashing skulls in a blur of kunai and flashing knives. The man pirouettes between a volley of needles, catching the blades in his mouth before returning them to their senders. His fists and blade viciously find their mark, sending out geysers of blood. It’s all lightning-fast, but avoids becoming entirely disorienting because it slows down at key points to articulate the physicality of each blow.

The sequence makes for one of the most eye-catching stretches of action animation in recent memory, but this may not surprise those who have been following this project closely, given the involvement of series director Sunghoo Park. Known for his key animation and direction on the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen, The God of High School, and many others, his cuts are frequently defined by a sense of speed and impact, traits that feel perfect for a show about literal ninjas. Put simply, the results here are nothing short of dazzling. Despite the superhuman abilities of these shinobi, there is an undercurrent of realism to how they move that makes these feats all the more stunning to behold. On top of the deft animation, everything else, from the dramatic storyboarding to the well-utilized impact frames, makes these sequences ooze cool. Many of Toonami’s popular broadcasts back in the day were focused on martial arts action, and this one embodies those ideals to an extreme degree.

This focus on punching feels deeply in tune with the programming block’s aesthetic, but another way the show reminds me of staying up late to watch this channel is how its world-building is full of details that are just out of focus. Due to how these series were broadcast and the lengthy, serialized nature of most anime, I rarely got a chance to catch these stories from their first episode, meaning there would be tons of background elements I was unclear on and had to pick up on the fly. Even if you were on top of things and tried to watch from the premiere, there were cases like how Dragon Ball Z, a sequel to Dragon Ball, aired years before its predecessor on Toonami.

Whether intentionally aping this lack of context or not, Ninja Kamui also begins in media res, with an opening death battle that’s not explained until later. After this, we see a farm where wheat fields are broken up by menacing sci-fi obelisks of ambiguous purpose, the contrast between technology and the rustic setting causing the mind to race with possibilities. In the second episode, we’re keyed in on the backstory of the cyber ninjas hunting down these characters, but this exposition left me with more questions than answers. In these moments, I can’t help but recall the intriguing pull of a broader world just out of reach that came with diving into an in-progress tale.

But perhaps the way the show most directly leans into the style of the Toonami era is through its intensely early 2000s tone. There is more than a little juvenile edginess found in its setup (first episode spoilers incoming), which involves a man watching as his family is horrifically butchered in front of his eyes. From here, he goes on a killing spree, mercilessly down waves of foes in a maximalist action scene that involves stabbing, bludgeoning, and empty-eyed murder. There is a performative provocativeness to it all, which is best embodied by a scene from the second episode where our protagonist brutally tortures a dude for an excessive amount of time.

But while these grimdark plot beats, like its rote fridge-stuffing, are uninteresting on their face, it more or less lands because the delivery hits a specific cheesy wavelength. The previously described fisticuffs, defined by spectacle and buckets of blood, cue us in that this story follows action-flick logic. A very unsubtle needle drop plays during an idyllic family cookout, raising the death flags so high they can likely be viewed from outer space. And, of course, the single best shorthand for its tone is its opening theme, a post-hardcore ballad literally titled “Vengeance,” which would have easily fit in alongside the chart-topping hits of My Chemical Romance. This one’s early aughts sensibilities go deep to its bones.

All of this feels deeply by design. Not only is the series airing on Toonami, but it’s also one of the rare anime directly licensed by Adult Swim and Warner Bros., with Jason Demarco, the co-creator of Toonami and current Creative Director of Adult Swim, serving as executive producer.

While I initially considered that this show might be trying to be the Generation Alpha equivalent to my own early experiences with Goku, I don’t think that’s correct. Most teens won’t be having their anime radicalization moment from this one, largely because that’s likely already come via watching Demon Slayer or some other uber-popular battle-shonen on a streamer like Netflix. It’s more accurate to say that the series is for the old heads. It’s doing the classic nostalgia trick of evoking the memory of something rather than directly embodying the thing itself, matching an exaggerated recollection that’s grown with time. The anime on Toonami back in the day was nowhere this violent or in your face, and it’s only the memory of supporting characters getting blasted apart or of Gaara being a sad boy that makes it feel that way.

However, even as someone who usually winces when entertainment panders to bummed-out Millenials by intentionally aping a 2000s aesthetic, Ninja Kamui is hitting the right buttons. Perhaps it mostly comes down to how well-executed its action sequences are and that it marks Sunghoo Park’s heavily-anticipated return to the director’s chair. But beyond this, there’s something so painfully sincere about its commitment to the bit that things loop back around to being fun again, like when the main theme crescendoes right before its title drop at the end of the first episode, the symbolism of the protagonist donning an Oni mask so aggressively ham-fisted that I couldn’t help but chuckle.

The current anime season has a slate of thoughtful, emotionally resonant series like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, The Apothecary Diaries, The Dangers in My Heart, and more that push well beyond what my adolescent understanding of the medium entailed, and that I would eagerly recommend to anyone trying to expand their anime horizons or that simply like good stories. But sometimes, you just want something indulgently old-school, an impulse that’s mostly fine as long as it’s kept in balance with taking in new ideas. Thanks to its emulation of a bygone era, Ninja Kamui has me looking forward to Saturday nights with Toonami in a way I haven’t in a long time.

Elijah Gonzalez writes about games and anime. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon series. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.