Shinobi no Ittoki

Episode 11

I'm bewildered by how torn I am by the events of this episode.

Tonally, everything hits just about perfectly. The scenes are well-framed, the voice actors deliver their lines with all the emotion you would expect, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Ryoko and Kirei have a deep and meaningful heart-to-heart that strikes the right chord for the audience. Ittoki finally takes his big step into adulthood and bears the responsibility for the entire village, hoping to end this conflict by putting his ninja training to use. It's all very solemn and dramatic as we head into the finale.

Except… some fundamental building blocks still aren't there.

The most obvious issue is that Ittoki really needs to do more ninja training. It wasn't that long ago—either in terms of episodes or the time that has passed in the story—that he was attending his first day of ninja school. He has only discovered this world recently and does not have much aptitude or formal training in being a ninja. What little success he has had up until this point has been almost entirely because of his vast support network of much better ninjas, making up for his lack of ability and allowing him to be the big-hearted novice. Even assuming that we go with this notion that he was secretly training off-screen, there have been almost no episodes with downtime for that to happen. Not to mention I'm pretty sure this is all taking place over a handful of months in-story.

Why does Ittoki think he can do this on his own? It's a terrible plan and so obviously awful that it immediately kicked me out of the narrative. We're well outside the bounds of dramatic exaggeration here—quite literally, Ittoki does not know how to be a ninja. Why is he marching off to die like this?

Another huge issue is that we still need to figure out what these vaunted ninja cores actually do. It's broadly hinted at, but they seem integral to this entire conflict. It might help to know what they do beyond being a MacGuffin to drive the narrative. In a more extended series, we might have gotten information about their abilities, but at this point, we know more about NSC protocols than what these ninja cores do.

Episode 11 is a perfectly executed setup to a conclusion that hasn't been earned or established enough to matter. Oy.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Shinobi no Ittoki is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.