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?

TV Talk - Batman: TAS "Night of the Ninja" and "Day of the Samurai"

Well, it’s January, so that means I get to look at a lot of guys posing in stances and yelling. No, it’s not the WWF. This month is Martial Arts Month, the time where I look at any media (movies, TV, comics, books, etc.) that features martial arts. This time, I think it’s time to throw a little Batman into the mix. While the Caped Crusader is considered to be one of the best fighters in the DCU, I haven’t mentioned him yet during this month. It’s probably because I really don’t have many comics that center on him fighting ninjas or something like that. Also, Batman gets enough love as it is (too much, honestly).

I then remembered that Batman did go up against a ninja named Kyodai Ken on Batman: The Animated Series. Kyodai was a ninja Bruce met when he was in training to become Batman. Ken first appeared in “Night of the Ninja,” the 28th episode aired on FOX. He later appeared in “Day of the Samurai,” the 55th episode aired. This was a character that was only created for the show, so I don’t think he’s appeared anywhere else. Besides, Batman’s got enough wannabe ninjas to deal with. I was able to re-watch them on the DCU app. Today, I’ll be talking about both episodes.