Movie Talk - Batman: Ninja

If there’s one thing you can link to Batman, it can be martial arts. It seems like DC thinks that too since we’ve gotten quite a lot of stuff involving Batman going up against ninjas, monks, and everything in between. Heck, some throw Batman into the whole “World’s Greatest Fighter” title, and that’s just silly. He’s already the World’s Greatest Detective, and adding any more “Great” titles is just overcompensating. When the alien from another world is a bit more relatable than the human male who learned to do everything within a decade, you might be overdoing it. Anyway, why did I go down that tangent? I guess I wanted to hold off on talking about this movie. That’s not a good sign!

Batman: Ninja was released in 2018. Someone at DC had the interesting idea to let some anime creators get their hands on the Dark Knight again. This was done before with Batman: Gotham Nights from 2008. While that movie wasn’t the best of the bunch, seeing Batman (specifically the Nolan Batman) done in anime form was pretty cool. This time, Junpei Mizusaki was the director, Kamikaze Douga and YamatoWorks did the animation, and Takashi Okazaki (created Afro Samurai) designed the characters. When it got adapted for American audiences, Leo Chu and Eric Garcia rewrote the movie. It seems that folk are a bit split on this one. Heck, I didn’t even think about looking at this one till now since the animation wasn’t pulling me in. Still, was it worth it?

Batman: Ninja involves Batman, his allies, and some of his rogues gallery being transported back to feudal Japan. Because time travel makes no sense here, Batman ends up in Japan a couple of months later and finds that the villains have taken over. Joker and the villains have these mechanized giant robots that were pilfered from Gorilla Grodd who was the creator of the time machine. Batman along with Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Robin (Damian), and a league of bat ninjas from this time do their best to save Japan and set the timeline right.

OPINION

So, what did I think of this loud, obnoxious movie? Well, if you can tell by most of this post, I didn’t like it all that much. I’m not the biggest anime hound, but I do like it from time to time. I’m pretty picky when it comes to anime, and the previous Batman movie was right up my alley. As for this one here, I think Batman: Ninja’s down that alley that I try not to peruse. The movie was already turning me off a bit with the cel-shaded animation, which is something I’m not a fan of with anime. It can work sometimes, but here, it just didn’t look that appealing.

Okay... I'll bite. What the heck was up with Damian's hair??????

I’ll list off the things I did like since there were good things here. I felt like the movie was an anime version of Batman: the Brave and the Bold. I could’ve seen them pulling something like this off. Something tells me I would’ve liked it better if they handled this. It was cool to see all four Robins teamed up together even though they looked a bit different. I also thought it was cool to see Batman use means other than technology to beat the bad guys. The dude literally loses all his tech in the past which included a Batmobile that could turn into a Batcycle, Batplane, and Armor suit… wait, what?

I also thought the voice-acting was fine and it was cool to hear some Bat-alumni like Roger Craig Smith, Will Fridele, Tara Strong, and a few others. While I’m not a fan of the animation, some of the designs for these characters were cool and fit the era. Some of the action was also nice. Batman in all his suits looked cool, the Robins looked nice except for Damian’s hair, most of the villains looked cool, and Catwoman looked hot as usual… What? It’s true.

Uh... Well... It's not every day where we have a giant version of Batman go up against an evil Megazord.

As for my problems with the movie, the story is just too nonsensical. Okay, I can get the whole “we’ve been transported back in time” thing. When the giant mechas start to show up, my face starts to look weird. When you have a legion of bats and monkeys form into a giant version of Batman, my mental self ends up throwing some papers into the air or something. That might be fun for someone, but for me, nope! Also, some of the dialogue wasn’t that great. This may be another culture flag here. Also, how did the rogues get these robots built in a couple of months??? I wonder what the regular Japanese peasant would’ve thought of a talking gorilla, a clown, a hot plant lady, a bunch of birdboys, a batman, and giant robots running around. Heck, they’d be used to kappa, oni, and other weird supernatural stuff popping up.

What in the heck did they do to the Joker's voice??? I doubt he sounded this bad in the Japanese version!

While I did like the voice-acting, there was one that really grated my gears: The Joker. We had Tony Hale voicing him and he is probably the worst voiced version of the Joker I’ve heard. He’s even worse than Brent Spiner from Young Justice! At least there, he wasn’t around much. Here, we hear the Joker for at least 30 minutes! That’s too much for me, man! As I said before, the animation wasn’t my cup of team. It could be a little too chaotic. There’s also a point where it goes completely off the board in this one scene with the Red Hood. If I could name this movie something, it would be Batman: All-Out BatSh^t Chaos” or something that sounds cool in Japanese.

Well, at least the ladies look cool... What? It's true!

……………………………………

In the end, I didn’t like this one. It’s not my cup of tea, but it made for an interesting watch. Pure anime fans may think this is awesome, but for someone who is a casual fan, look elsewhere. Heck, if you want fun Batman stories, watch Brave and the Bold or something. Heck, you could look at the next movie I’ll talk about: Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ll just say this now: it’s a lot better than this thing here. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.