Ninja Kamui

Episode 3

Three episodes in and Ninja Kamui seems to have more or less settled into a formula of frontloading things with a bunch of exposition and occasional banter before capping things off with a cool ninja fight towards the end. It's not a bad formula, but for an action series as straightforward as this, it does feel like an odd choice, especially since the action is more or less the main appeal here. I also can't say that the formula clicks with me since this episode was easily the most boring so far.

The first half of the episode was the worst of it; the Ninja Clan is sending a new ninja, a guy named Lil, whose head looks too big for his body. It's the kind of campy '90s cheese I would be down for, but having half his dialogue be innuendo about how much he wants a piece of Higan feels dated in a much less fun way, so I was more annoyed than amused by his presence. Meanwhile, when Mike tries to check back in with his superiors to look into the Uber Eats ninja attack from the last episode, they're quick to cover things up and give him the whole spiel about how he should kick back and stay out of this until retirement, prompting him to further look into things on his own. This also leads to him making a proper alliance with Higan. Still, rather than exchanging sake cups as is the "traditional ninja way," it's an energy drink because that's just how Higan rolls, and that was probably the most entertaining bit out of this entire episode.

Luckily, things pick up a bit more in the second half of the episode as Emma tags along with Mike and Higan, making them into a ragtag trio. The show needed it since Higan and Mike are a bit too brooding on their own, and her presence gives a bit more levity. Emma and Higan going into a tangent about how cool Emma's vintage car is, or the revelation that she somehow turned the car into a portable supercomputer, is the most genuine fun this show has had outside of the obligatory ninja fights and has provided much-needed character chemistry for our protagonists. I hope she's here with them for the long haul. She also provides the necessary exposition dump on Auza, as we learn that they are indeed a powerful tech company whose reach has expanded worldwide. Their race to the top has also included much of their opposition getting into unfortunate accidents, which seems to be courtesy of having the ninja on their payroll. It's not exactly original as far as villain set-up goes, but it gets the job done, and they've already adequately established Auza's head as a smug tech-bro, so I'm looking forward to him presumably getting dunked on in the coming weeks.

This, of course, brings us to our obligatory ninja fight of the episode, which is honestly a bit of a letdown compared to the first two episodes, as it's comprised mainly of a 10-second car chase followed by a guy whipping out some Doc Ock tentacles before getting pulverized by Higan. It's a good-looking fight, to be sure, but it doesn't quite have the wow factor of a delivery guy being a ninja in disguise. It also doesn't help that this week's ninja was just some flunky sent by Lil to test how strong Higan is, so what we got here doesn't even feel like a particularly cool display of Higan's prowess. I still believe in Ninja Kamui's vision, and I'm not entirely bored with it just yet, but it's going to need a shakeup to fully deliver on its promise of 90's OVA-style pulp, and hopefully, that comes sooner rather than later.

Rating:

Random Notes

• The exposition dump on Auza featured a few live-action stills, which I guess was supposed to help sell the idea of how broad their influence is but just looked jarring, and it took me out of things a bit

• There seems to be a bit of division between the ninja head, Yajima, and the techbro in charge of Auza, as the latter seems to be interested in using Higan as a guinea pig and trying to test out his new tech on him as we saw in episode 2. While it does seem like the ninja is genuinely after Higan for leaving their ranks, it would be funny if it turns out this guy ordered the hit on Higan's family and purposefully set him off towards blood-soaked vengeance so he could field-test some new products.

Ninja Kamui airs on Adult Swim and streams on Max.