I was desperately attempting to find something remotely watchable out of my local Blockbusters' pisspoor 'Gold' collection to complete the three for a fiver deal when I saw 'Ninja Scroll'. The last and only other anime I've seen was a showing of Akira at a local indie cinema a few years back and it was really good fun, well animated, interesting plot, etc. so I thought I'd give this a go. Unfortunately, Ninja Scroll is a big steaming pile of tosh. You'd find more plot depth and character development in an episode of Pokemon, which, in a way, is what this closely resembles. Only with more decapitations. On the plus side I guess it fulfils most of the stereotypes for this kind of thing: gallons of blood spraying out of peoples necks, magical creatures, naive love story, etc. What almost saved the experience for me though was the unintentionally funny DVD extras; first an 'inside the actors studio' with two of the American voice artists:
''What preparation do you do for your roles?'' ''I get in my car and drive to the studio.''
And an interview with an obviously harassed and irritated director:
Apparently serious interviewer: ''Was it your intention to realistically portray female lifestyles in feudal era Japan?'' (note: every female character in the film is a beautiful, scantily clad ninja assassin with ridiculous superpowers) Director: ''No.''
''What preparation do you do for your roles?'' ''I get in my car and drive to the studio.''
And an interview with an obviously harassed and irritated director:
Apparently serious interviewer: ''Was it your intention to realistically portray female lifestyles in feudal era Japan?'' (note: every female character in the film is a beautiful, scantily clad ninja assassin with ridiculous superpowers) Director: ''No.''