Ninja Resurrection

L-sama★ 1

There comes a time in every anime watcher’s life that he or she must stare pure horror in the face and, as much as one may not want to, watch an anime that makes their skin crawl. My friends, this was my time. I can honestly say that this anime did have a decent introduction. The narration, read over stills of maps and old pictures, paints a picture of a potentially decent story. The instant the real animation starts, however, all of the hype is lost in a sea of dismembered corpses. When I say sea, I mean it. The amount of blood and gore inthese 2 OVA alone is more than enough to almost give Berserk and Elfen Lied a run for their money; even two children are slaughtered and their decapitated heads are shown to the viewer. If you think that these action scenes are well animated, think again. For a 1998 OVA, the animation is horrific, using stills to simulate the ninja “dashing” by and killing guards along the way. Let’s also not forget the gratuitous sex scenes that do absolutely nothing for the main story line and are equally difficult, if not more so, to stomach. Though the gloomy style of art fits well enough, it is no where near enough to bring this title out of mediocrity. To make matters worse, Ninja Resurrection is historically based. If the producers would have stuck to the time period in question, this series may have gone down a bit easier. Instead, they decide that Jubei’s crew should have a little help in their battles. The ninjas somehow come across the wonders of 20th century technology in their fight against Shiro and his followers; one ninja even sports a rocket launcher (Yes, you read correctly) and another flies overhead with the aid of a jet pack. Keep in mind, folks, that this anime is taking place in the Japan of the 1600’s. I really can’t say anything more without repeating myself. If you want a good series based off of real Japanese history, pick up something like Rurouni Kenshin instead. However, if you’re a masochist, then by all mean, pick up Ninja Resurrection at your own risk. Fair warning though, this might even be too painful for a masochist to watch.

literaturenerd★ 2

Overview: The fact that MAL has over 400,000 users and only 2,000 have seen Ninja Resurrection is truly a disappointment. Ninja Resurrection is a title that EVERYONE should have to witness in order to consider yourself a true anime fan. Otherwise, you will you be missing a critical instrument with which to measure bad anime. This is another one of those titles that was considered LEGENDARILY bad among the few American diehard otaku in the early to mid 1990s. My generation all watched Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon, and DBZ regardless of whether or not we considered ourselves anime fans. We weren't even aware that those WEREanime, although we were vaguely aware that DBZ and Pokemon came from Japan. If you were an actual ANIME fan, you walked your ass down to the local video store and rented any random anime VHS you could find from the paltry selection available. There was no crunchyroll or ability to watch anime online, so that was really all you could do to see an anime that wasn't Pokemon or one of the 5 or so anime available on American TV. Some of those old anime VHS tapes turned out to be good like GITS and Akira, but most of the anime available to us at that time was absolute SHIT that was licensed for dirt cheap because no Japanese studios wanted those properties. That is one reason that the anime community in the US was VERY small at that time. Ninja Resurrection was marketed to US otaku as being a sort of sequel to the gorefest action movie Ninja Scroll, which was ( believe it or not) one of the better anime titles available in the US at that time. Unfortunately, Ninja Resurrection actually has NOTHING to do with Ninja Scroll. In fact, the original Japanese title translates to: "Demon Resurrection, the Portrait of Hell". This movie doesn't even HAVE ninjas in it! What does it have instead? Really bad voice acting and perhaps the stupidest plot in anime history! Jesus Christ resurrects in Japan for some reason in the 1600s and attempts to lead a Christian revolt against the Tokugawa Shogunate. However, the Shogunate sends its best samurai to slay Jesus and defeat the Christian rebels. It turns out that Jesus is being manipulated by an evil Japanese general who says that God doesn't exist, but Satan does. Despite the miracle powers that Jesus shows off on multiple occasions in this anime, supposedly through the direct help of God. Our hero is Jubei, the samurai who is actually loosely based on a real life historical figure. Jubei tries to convince Jesus that he is being used, but Jesus is too stupid to realize this and attacks Jubei by transforming into a giant crystal dragon. This anime is where TVtropes.com got the phrase "crystal dragon Jesus" to describe EXTREMELY bullshit religious allusions and faux symbolism. After the EPIC line "Yeah, sic em Jesus!" is delivered by the evil general, Jubei fights and defeats Jesus by impaling him with his katana through a bell tower. This allows the general to move on to the next step in his plan. In turns out that there was some prophesy where if Jesus dies full of hatred after getting murdered by humans, he will resurrect next time as Satan. However, right after Satan is reborn...the OVA ends because the first 2 volumes sold virtually zero copies in Japan. Holy SHIT does this anime suck! There is one thing that redeems this anime though. It is VERY entertainingly bad. Not only is the jumbled mess of a plot one of the stupidest things you are ever likely to see, but the English dub is HORRIBLE! Jesus is voiced by the same guy who also voiced Sonic in the first Sonic anime movie, and then never did anything again! I'm tired of punk reviewers who don't actually know anything about anime saying how Bleach is the worst anime of all time, or Elfen Lied is the da worst animu EVAR! That is like someone who considers himself a car expert saying that the Ford F-150 truck is the worst automobile ever made. It has plenty flaws, there are better trucks out there, but to rant on about how EPICLY bad the F-150 is would quickly reveal to anyone with a brain that you don't actually know SHIT about cars! Ninja Resurrection is to anime what the Zaporozhets is to cars. Any car fanatic who actually knows what the fuck they're talking about will know THAT is a bad car. Any anime fan should know that Ninja Resurrection, is one of the epitomes of shitty anime!