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REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  20/100
  A Failure On All Counts

  We’ve been blessed with quite a few good to great anime original series in this decade so far, ranging from Odd Taxi, to Lycoris Recoil, and even Do it Yourself this anime season. I suppose this is a grim reminder that not every single original can be done at an elite level, but even so, this show was quite the abhorrent showing, oozing of generic storytelling, mixed with a lot of contrivances, questionable ideas, and very inconsistent character writing. I’m not one to lambast things often, but this show needs to have its fair grilling.

  STORY:

  You’ll see this in the synopsis already, but essentially, Ittoki, the main protagonist, is just living his daily life, although heavily surveyed by his mom, Kousetsu, his childhood friend, and Tokisada, his uncle. Someone called Tsubaki tries to seduce him and kill him in the process, but he is protected by ninjas? The shocking truth is then revealed that he is the supposed heir to the Iga ninja clan, and to train up at a ninja academy immediately. The moment I found out an academy would be involved, I just rolled my eyes and waited for Ittoki to probably get a harem, and to gain insane levels of plot armour. Did that necessarily happen? Not exactly, but the plot got more disappointing to me than that.

  Turns out, the ninjas aren’t your typical ninjas, with the jumping, the shurikens, the mental dexterity, but instead, “ninjas” are powered by ninja gear, something resembling mechs. I thought this show was about ninjas! Yep, with ninja gear, you can be a ninja whenever you feel like it, how about we just don’t train at all? Then what was the academy even for, to learn how to beep boop beep boop and press buttons???

  Honestly, this show just doesn’t have any sort of identity, it’s simply a story about “ninja” wars, with contrived plot twists, or twists that had NO prior build up to it. It even sort of gave up and just gave us a beach episode in the middle of the series. “Hey Ittoki, which of us is hotter?” Imagine if anyone even cared to discuss that.

  ART:

  The animation was not very impressive overall, very bland and boring. The character designs for the most part were generic, perhaps only Kousetsu had the passable design.

  MUSIC:

  Except for the ED which is fine, the OP and the soundtrack are very bland as well. Just a poor showing of audiovisual direction overall.

  CHARACTERS:

  Needless to say, the characters were also very laughable and not memorable at all. Ittoki is your typical dumb protagonist, with a sense of justice and morality I bet no one else would even care about, and did I mention he was kind of dumb? He’s constantly out of the loop, whether it’s with the ninja gear, or the knowledge of ninjas in general. So why didn’t y’all just tell him about the ninjas from the very beginning if he’s the heir of the Iga clan? Now this poor child has to figure it out all on his own with that brain of his.

  Now to the girls. Ryouko is just kind of there, the cutesy girl who knows all the academy stuff, and of course ends up liking Ittoki. Kirei is also just kind of there, with some twists and turns of her own. Kousetsu is also just there, though the ED would signal she has a bit more depth to her character.

  Now to the villains. LOL, imagine the political discourse was actually interesting. Yeah, I’m going to be honest, I forgot who the villains were. Some bozo from the Koga clan or something. Not even going to discuss this.

  ENJOYMENT:

  It really had potential, but not only was it rushed, any sort of twist wasn’t very well done.

  THEMATIC EXECUTION:

  Like I said, these ninjas aren’t really even ninjas, so any sort of ninja theme was a failure. There were some weird rules around the “way of the ninja”, and they say that rules are meant to be broken, but yeah, there weren’t any real rules were there? Any sort of romance was a waste of time as well.

  OVERALL:

  Probably one of my least favourite anime from this entire year, as this was not only generic, but thoroughly contrived, uninteresting, and the entire premise of ninjas was squandered by horrid ideas. There is nearly nothing to praise here at all, and I’m glad my watching of this has come to an end.

  Oh, and did I mention Ittoki is not a good ninja? Don’t remember if I did.

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• 

  ZNote

  17/100
  A problem-plagued mess of worldbuilding, characterization, and intrigue.

  During the first episode of Shinobi no Ittoki, future ninja clan leader Ittoki is approached by a female classmate named Tsubaki and asked out on a date, which culminates in him being invited up to her room where she dresses scantily and tries to seduce him (keep in mind, they’re in middle school). When Ittoki rebukes her attempts, he plays it off like some kind of joke and nervously chuckles as he checks under her bed to see ninjas lying in wait to kill him. They attack and cut his face, but even with this having just happened, he asks what kind of prank she’s pulling. It turns out that she was indeed on a mission to end him, and after being rescued by childhood friend Kousetsu and his uncle Tokisada, Ittoki is told by his mother Yumika that he is to be the next legitimate heir of the Iga Clan of ninjas. This, by every odds-defying and implausible circumstance, catches Ittoki off-guard.

  Shinobi no Ittoki is a masterclass in how to ruthlessly tank the viability of a main character, or a series as a whole, in the first twenty-four minutes. The show’s universe establishes that the way of the ninja has lasted all the way through to the modern day, and that they have managed to weave themselves into companies and other corporate megastructures in order to blend more seamlessly into everyday life. For a layperson who does not know any better, this is certainly very surprising information to learn and opens the door to an entire underworld they never knew of.

  The catch is that as presented within the show, the expositing of information clashes horribly. To begin with, there is no justifiable reason for Ittoki to not be privy to this information his mother tells him about. Gymnastics is evidently something that Ittoki is gifted for, although the various stunts that he pulls when trying to get to cram school and dodge a truck that nearly hits him certainly seem on par with ninjutsu instead of the parallel bars or pommel horse. As far as his physical dexterity is concerned, there is no cause for alarm. But as far as his place within the Iga Clan, what logic could there possibly be in Yumika leaving your son, the legitimate heir to your Clan, in the dark as to what is happening?

  Even if the narrative wanted to operate under the assumption that Ittoki’s father and Yumika were doing their best to keep Ittoki “protected” from the Iga Clan lifestyle, the fact that the rival Clan that tried to kill Ittoki (the Kouga) had been causing problems “recently” should have raised an alarm somehow. Rather than actually keep her son protected by telling him earlier of his secret lineage (instead insisting that Ittoki not go out with Tsubaki without adequately explaining why), she waited until he nearly got killed and he was shocked at the numerous revelations. Instead, by having the first episode waffling around with the “crush” going on between Ittoki and Tsubaki, it only succeeds in making Ittoki seem too woefully out of his element. It’s to such an extent that one could reasonably call him “inept.” This inability to handle worldbuilding, character building, and expositing is a recurring problem that Shinobi no Ittoki never properly rectifies.

  This problem also unfortunately weaves its way into Ittoki being a pallidly conceived and developed main character, which manifests in the anime’s primary throughline in two ways; firstly, the show tracks Ittoki’s growth by sending him and Kousetsu to Ninja Academy. From here, the show adopts an approach most-similar to schooltime slice-of-life, meeting friends and going to class. Considering that the Kouga’s presence and influence in the school is already widespread, Ittoki’s allies are few and is left alone even-moreso than he might have been otherwise to learn about ninjutsu training. Because of his character nature as a well-intentioned bumbler, he reads as incompetent-at-best and stupid-at-worst, especially when everyone else already knows many of the basics of ninjutsu.

  Not helping is that his biggest ally, Kousetsu, seems to spend more time chastising him than earnestly helping him. This shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise; Ittoki’s family did an abysmal job of introducing him to the world of ninjutsu, so to expect their son who has a target on his back to all of a sudden “get with the program” is laughable. If Ittoki’s survival is so important, it begs the question of why they would send him to a ninja school full of strangers and where the Kouga are more entrenched. Considering that the Iga Clan’s village is not exactly the smallest location, and that the members most likely need to keep their skills honed, was there no alternative to the school option? Ittoki’s inability to understand the basics of what’s going on, coupled with the Clan’s decision to ship him off to a more-unsafe location, makes following him as an outsider terribly unengaging at the fundamental level.

  If there is one feature of this show’s universe that exacerbates this problem, it’s Ninja Gear. Part of what makes ninjutsu an intriguing form of martial arts is the ability to train one’s body to the point where quickness and espionage are the dominating factors rather than the sheer brawn of other arts. Shinobi no Ittoki, in its effort to make ninjutsu more relevant to the modern day, opts to give every one of its major characters science-fiction oriented Ninja Gear. Naturally, Ittoki does not know what this is, and Kousetsu curtly insults him and leaves him stuck with his Ninja Gear motionless in their first real exam.

  

  As a result, Ninja Gear’s inclusion actually impedes itself into the sense of drama that the show is attempting to convey. Tension during the course of the “Academy Arc” is less about physical and mental dexterity against your opponent because it now has to involve hoping that the Ninja Gear worn by Ittoki does not malfunction or get damaged. The consequence is that ninjutsu as a martial art feels stunningly demystified, something that’s portrayed as quaint and that just about anybody could learn if they shill out enough money for Ninja Gear and train their bodies a little. Compounding the problem is that Ninja Gear is not merely present here, but makes appearances throughout the rest of the show. Nearly everyone has one.

  But Ninja Gear’s inclusion does help bring the other characters and the larger-overarching plot into the fold, which transitions to the second way Ittoki’s character doesn’t work; the cast of characters and story he surrounds himself with or gets involved in are not interesting on their own either. He therefore has nothing that he can earnestly bounce off of to contribute to his growth. Each student comes to the Ninja Academy for their own purposes, whether it be for revenge or otherwise, but none progresses in a way that’s gradual or meaningful. Events in the plot happen with little buildup or substantive foreshadowing (if not downright-flimsy logic), leaving larger events devoid of characterization or gripping implication. Whether it involves betrayal, reconciliations, or revelations that are supposed to change the status quo, the characters undergo change because the story says or claims that they have done so, mostly (since Kisegawa is an exception) in lieu of being able to witness and experience that change for ourselves.

  And Ittoki embodies this aspect the worst of all. By the time the series is over, Ittoki’s self-assuredness in himself and his own potential feels completely undeserved. His growth is spurned more by the power of friendship rather than truly undertaking the journey of coming into his own as a ninja and joining the Iga Clan proper. Given the extent of battle or actions sequences that occur in the show starting from the “Academy Arc” onwards, this undeserved sensation rings pointedly true. Ittoki, by the time the series is over and the climax has arrived, inspires no confidence either as a ninja or as a thoughtful, calculating leader. The reason being that it’s as though the narrative suddenly decided that he was a completely new character altogether from how he was first presented, capable and shouldering the burdens placed upon him. We see the endpoints, but not the trail. The exposition from episode one never properly oriented Ittoki in the story, and the result is that it makes his moments of rising up read as vaporous.

  Perhaps all of this could be forgiven if the aesthetic of the series was adequate, but it cannot succeed there, either. There are a handful of decent explosions or uses of set pieces, yet the color palette employed is oddly washed-out, and the attempts to be darker and brooding as it leans more into the science-fiction conspiratorial technology plot don’t work. Between being musically unadventurous and not succeeding in either or its dramatic or comedic portrayals due to the weak characterization, Shinobi no Ittoki feels devoid of an identity. The series does not know what it wants to be, but the writing makes the mistake of thinking that doing a little of everything translates to a grand story.

  I know that I have been particularly critical of this series, but I do not want to be completely cruel to it, either. I surmise that the ultimate fault with the series comes down to one factor more than any other: the series composition was handled by Takano Minato, and this was their very first credit for working on an anime. Make no mistake; writing for television is hard, and especially considering that Shinobi no Ittoki is an original work as opposed to an adaptation of a larger-scale work, she was, to use a phrase, essentially thrown into the lion’s den. It’s impossible to know how much of what transpired in the writing was her idea versus someone else involved in production insisting on working certain element in. Alas, the writing as presented is awash with abysmal character and worldbuilding, a slumbering exercise that moves through plot moments without strong thread to connect them all.

  I hope Minato gets a better chance soon, because Shinobi no Ittoki is a mess.

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• 

  TurboMadMan

  50/100
  A mediocre story that makes you wonder shouldn't I be doing something productive instead of watching this?

  The show starts well but loses its direction somewhere in the middle

  In the first episode, Ittoki is depicted as being a super Confident, Athletic High School student who excels in every aspect of life. But suddenly after some unforeseen accident, he comes to know that he comes from a family of ninjas and that his late father was also a ninja and the chief of his clan. He next, realizes that the people around him are no ordinary people. They are all ninjas and that includes even his mother, who was the chief of his clan for the time being. And he is told that now, it's his turn to be the chief and so he needs to be well-versed in the ways of Shinobi.

  And that was the end of all the good things that I liked about this show.

  And from this point on the character of Ittoki shifts from being a Confident, Eccentric high school kid to a rather Weak and Underconfident self. The show starts feeling repetitive with typical cliche dialogues and a typical lack lusture Villain with superficial cartoonishly evil ambitions. Ittoki constantly gets thrown into rather challenging situations one after another but he somehow barely manages to get through all those situations thanks to the power of friendship.
  And this thing somehow stretches through most of the show without showing any improvements in Ittoki as a character.

  Now fast forward to the second last episode of the show suddenly a lot of bad incidents happen but Ittoki somehow comes through and handles everything like a champ without seeking any external emotional help whatsoever which is again so much out of character for IIttoki! And earlier he is depicted as a total noob in Ninjutsu but suddenly all of a sudden by the end of the show he transforms into one of the best ninjas in his village and goes out taking the big guns on his own.

  The show takes almost an entire season to hammer in the fact that after Ittoki the protagonist of the show finds out that he comes from a family of ninjas and now it's his time to become the chief he loses all confidence in himself and becomes quite mentally and physically submissive and weak and he constantly seeks validation from his friends and family members but the last few episodes completely discredit all of that and take on a totally new approach with Ittokis character.

  PACING

  The story starts well with a great character with so much potential to grow. But the creators of the show decide to show some of the most boring aspects of the show and keep on stretching it over the entire season which serves no greater purpose in a wider perspective. But during the last few episodes, the show picks up the pace and starts bombarding viewers with so many things that are hard to keep count of and suddenly now Ittoki is smart and wise and completely changes his entire personality.

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