Adult Swim’s Ninja Kamui is a brutal, fast-paced revenge thriller

Ninja Kamui wastes no time getting from zero to 100. Within five minutes of the first episode, a bespectacled salaryman is ambushed by a flurry of projectile needles and charges from a dozen armored assailants, bobbing and weaving with uncanny precision. answers each of their attacks before being viciously decapitated by a sneering, dreadlocked brute. It’s a strong first impression of director Sunghoo Park’s first original series after his work on Jujutsu Kaisenone that is boldly described Ninja Kamui‘s statement of intent with bloody and balletic finesse. In an anime season full of strong premieres, Ninja Kamui positions itself as an action anime worth keeping an eye on.

(Ed. remark: Minor spoilers ahead Ninja Kamui episodes 1 through 2.)

The first original anime production from Park’s studio E&H Production, produced in collaboration with Sola Entertainment, follows the story of Higan, a former ninja who flees with his wife and baby to build a new life in America after dealing with the death has escaped from his clan. . Joe and his family adopt a new identity and make a living as farmers. They live an idyllic and peaceful life, until Higan’s clan finally catches up with him, slaughtering his wife and child and leaving him within a hair’s breadth of death. Higan survives the attack on his home and embarks on a single-minded quest for revenge as he attempts to track down his former masters and avenge the murder of his family.

There’s not a lot of subtlety in these early episodes, although there are some cool little details that convey the painstaking lengths Higan was willing to go to to protect his family, like surreptitiously erasing their fingerprints after leaving a supermarket or setting up a comprehensive surveillance system with multiple cameras to detect potential threats. Although the primary focus of the series is on Higan bashing and taking down faceless bad guys, there are still notable supporting characters, such as FBI agent Mike Morris and his partner Emma Samanda, an eccentric cat-loving doctor who previously worked with Higan before starting his company left. clan, and the as-yet-unnamed CEO of Auza, a ubiquitous mega-corporation that strongly suggested it was working with Higan’s former employers.

Image: E&H Production/Adult Swim

However, not much time is spent on these characters in these first two episodes, but that’s fine because those details are all in service of the real appeal of Ninja Kamui: the action. Park received high praise for his work in the series’ first season Jujutsu Kaisen and the 2021 prequel Jiujutsu Kaisen 0, both of which feature fast-paced and creative fight sequences with memorable choreography and editing. Fans of Jujutsu Kaisen won’t be disappointed here as the action in Ninja Kamui is easily comparable to JJK’s, albeit much more gratuitous in the amount of blood and viscera. Character designs by Takashi Okazaki, creator of Afro-samuraialso contribute to the appeal of the Ninja Kamuias fans of the 2007 anime and its 2009 sequel Afro-samurai: resurrection will also feel right at home with the level of violence and action choreography on display here.

There are no particularly grand or daring ambitions on display when it comes to Ninja Kamui‘s opening episodes. The series knows what it is: a hyper-violent revenge thriller with expertly calibrated action sequences and a uniformly dark and brooding tone. With that in mind, Ninja Kamui thoroughly succeeds as an engaging and entertaining action anime. With a confirmed total of twelve episodes, only time will tell how this original premise will evolve and change over the course of the season. But I know one thing for sure, and that’s that Ninja Kamui is a stunning addition to Adult Swim’s anime programming catalog, and wherever this story goes, one thing is certain: there will be blood.

Ninja Kamui airs Saturdays on Adult Swim and can be streamed on Max.