s the classic anime film Ninja Scroll begins, a country village has been wiped out by plague, and the local feudal lord sends 20 of his ninja retainers to the site to investigate reports of invaders in the area. But the ninja force encounters a massive monster with rock for skin and a spinning weapon that reduces human bodies to chum, and most of them are quickly wiped out. The monster captures the last survivor, a well-endowed poison taster named Kagero, and he's in the process of raping her when he's forestalled by a wandering ninja named Jubei. The next thing Jubei knows, he's earned the enmity of the monster and his coterie, the "Eight Devils of Kimon." He's also stumbled into a political conspiracy involving an old enemy: The Eight Devils are in the service of Lord Gemma, a man Jubei is positive he personally killed, and Gemma himself serves the Shogun of the Dark, a pretender to the shogunate who's out to topple the Tokugawa family. The slaughter of the country village is just the start of Gemma's scheme.
Jubei and Kagero end up in a prickly relationship in which they repeatedly save each others' lives, as the Eight Devils—a group of creepy warriors with magical or demonic powers—attempt to hunt them down. Kagero intends to fulfill her clan's duty to her lord, while Jubei has been poisoned by a wily priest, who promises he'll surrender the antidote if Jubei helps defeat the Devils. A great many bloody battles and graphic sexual encounters follow, as Jubei and Kagero unravel Gemma's plot, mostly by doggedly fighting everything that comes to kill them.
The plot's pretty basic, and Manga's 10th-anniversary special-edition release follows suit; the dual-sided disc includes both full-screen and widescreen versions of Ninja Scroll, with a wide variety of soundtrack options (2.0 stereo, 6.1 DTS Extended Surround or Dolby Digital EX for both the English and Japanese soundtracks), but the actual extras are limited to a character gallery and short interviews with director Yoshiaki Kawajiri and with two members of the English-language cast.
As shiny and oversexed as ever
Kawajiri has gone on to do bigger and better things than Ninja Scroll (primarily Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and X: The TV Series; his segment of The Animatrix was by far its weakest link). But Ninja Scroll remains a classic, a common entry-level anime film and an old favorite for many fans. One reason for its enduring appeal: the linear story, which is simple to grasp even for those with no grounding in anime culture or Japanese history. The Tokugawa-era setting mostly provides design elements and names; nothing about the plot is ever more complex than the temporary mystery of why Gemma's walking around commanding monsters when Jubei clearly remembers slicing his head off. It's an old tale, and a clear enough one: Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl nearly die several times over while slaying evil creatures with power over wasps, snakes, shadows, explosives, human minds, electricity and the dead.
But, plot aside, Ninja Scroll's concrete, ground-level draws are those old standards, sex and violence. The whole film drips with lurid avidity. Nudity is almost as common as arterial sprays, and both are depicted with Kawajiri's typical bravura. (One gory battle that's rendered almost exclusively in reds and blacks is particularly stylish and impressive.) Compared to Bloodlust, the animation does look slightly dated, though mostly due to the simplicity of the colors; everything is vividly rendered and brightly hued, but the coloring doesn't have the complexity of later Kawajiri products, or more modern anime in general.
And for anyone looking for abstract ideas or melancholy moods, Ninja Scroll is right out. It's not about deep thought or deep feelings, it's about monsters who rip people's arms off and drink from them, and about a bad guy who, as it's pointedly established, has sex with his demon retainers of both genders, just because he can. As uniquely debauched and messy as it was a decade ago, Ninja Scroll is no longer on the cutting edge of anime design, but it still stands out as further over the top than most of its successors.
Fans really shouldn't miss Ninja Scroll: The Series, which tones the sex way down, but persists in the Jubei-vs.-a zillion-unique-monsters theme.
— Tasha
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