忍者龍剣伝 / Ninja Gaiden

From NES to Animé.

 

Context:

On a dark, late night in New York City, Ryu Hayabusa is chased and attacked by assassins. After disposing of them, he finds an I.D. card for the Friedman Company. The next day, it is announced that Dr. Ned Friedman has discovered a cure for cancer. But after providing no information at his press conference, a reporter named Sarah decides to investigate with the help of her friends Robert and Jeff. When passing by Dr. Friedman's house one day, Ryu hears the voice of a young girl calling for help. When Sarah and her entourage investigate the house as well, they run into their colleague, Ryu. Upon that, they discover Dr. Friedman has been conducting experiments on live humans using biotechnology, and that it may have something to do with the power of the Evil Gods, whom Ryu had defeated in the past. But when Ryu's friend, Irene, is kidnapped, he must dawn his role as a Dragon Ninja once again to defeat this new enemy and save her...

 

"Of course you are excited by battle! We all love violence! We all love getting drunk! We all love sleeping with women! Some of us even enjoy sleeping with men! The point is that we are manly men and that is nothing to be ashamed of! Now lets go kill some fucking demons and celebrate with some fucking beer!"

- Robert Sturgeon from Ninja Gaiden: The anime

Evil rises.

...And so does good.

Overview:

Ninja Gaiden (NINJA 外伝) is a series of video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as Ninja Ryukenden (忍者龍剣伝, Ninja Ryūkenden, "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword") in Japan. The word "Gaiden" in the North American Ninja Gaiden title means "side-story" in Japanese, though the Ninja Gaiden series is not a spinoff of a previous series. The original arcade version, first two Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games and Game Boy game were released as Shadow Warriors in PAL regions.

The series gained popularity on the 8-bit NES for its tight action-platform gameplay, catchy music and, according to G4's X-Play, for being the first console game to have the story presented in cinematic cutscenes. The 8-bit trilogy was enhanced for the 16-bit Super Nintendo (SNES) in 1995. Sega also released two Ninja Gaiden games for the Game Gear and Master System, the latter only for PAL regions. A new game, titled Ninja Gaiden, was released in 2004 as a 3D action game on the Xbox, developed by Team Ninja, the makers of Dead or Alive. The Ninja Gaiden franchise is known for its high degree of difficulty, particularly the original NES version and the Xbox revival.

 

You better hide Irene!

A tad bloodier than the original game.

Story:

This is a direct sequel to the original Ninja Gaiden game from 1988. The world is constantly under threat by demons, who are held at bay by the ninjas of the Hayabusa Clan. Our hero is Ryu Hayabusa, who currently lives in New York City and does...uh...ninja things. His girlfriend is a Chinese American named Irene who runs a Chinese antique shop. In my head canon, it's the rival shop to Uncle's from Jackie Chan Adventures. Suddenly, a pair of mad scientists want to summon demons and bring chaos to the world. One of them also kidnaps Irene, so now its up to Ryu and his 2 American mercenary friends to save the day! The plot is simple, but it works. This is an adaptation of a game where the main plot is that you keep getting knocked into holes by birds, LOL.

Nah, the actual game story is about a  ninja named Ryu Hayabusa who finds a letter by his recently missing father, Ken, telling him to go to America and meet with an archaeologist Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith tells Ryu that two statues hidden by Ryu's father and the doctor have the power to end the world if united. Ryu ends up in South America and battles Jaquio, an evil cult leader bent on reviving the ancient demon called "Jashin" and responsible for the attack on Ken Hayabusa.

Friends are always welcomed.

 

Suit up!

Characters:

Ryu is a stoic, badass ninja who kills people in awesome ways. This anime doesn't try to force a tragic backstory or shoehorn in some forced character moments. It knows it only has 40 minutes to tell its story and those 40 minutes should be filled with cool Ninja stuff. Honestly though it is Ryu's mercenary pals that steal the show. The character Robert Sturgeon is voiced by the incomparable Norio Wakamoto and it just shows how a great actor can take a cheesy speech and make it GLORIOUS. Think Raul Julia in the Street Fighter movie and that's like Wakamoto in this anime. This is the guy who voiced Cell, Alexander Anderson, Oskar von Reuenthal, Vicious, M Bison, and everyone's favorite, the floating cat from Azumanga Daioh. His charisma is off the scales and here he is allowed to ham it up as much as he wants. 

Animation:

This anime was made in 1991. Considering all that, it looks pretty damn good for what it is. The action scenes are plentiful and the blood is heavy. It has an annoying habit of often being lit really dark to hide the limited animation, but besides that I have no complaints. Studio Junio, the team behind the production of this OVA has made a few other Anime. The most popular being Saber Marionette J, 3x3 Eyes: Seima Densetsu and Amada  Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. The animation style resembles that of Macross II  and other Anime from the early 90s.

Experimenting with bio-engineering.    

 

...But you must save the world.

Review:

So this an adaptation of a video game with a 3 sentence plot, made on a limited budget by a nothing studio. This has NO right to be a decent anime, and yet it honestly is. Who directed this beautiful schlock? Mamoru Kanbe. Of COURSE it was Kanbe. I have never seen an anime director so good at salvaging the worst possible situations. This dude is like The Wolf from Pulp Fiction. Why do I say Kanbe is underrated? Just ask the internet what it thinks of Elfen Lied. "Ugh..it's overrated crap for casual fags just like Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul, and Code Gayass!" Is there a difference between Elfen Lied and those others? Why yes there is. All of the other "casual trash" anime had budgets 40 times higher, were made by A-tier studios, and were based on red hot properties. Anybody could have directed Attack on Titan or Tokyo Ghoul and it would still be a hit. Kanbe was able to take a frankly horrendous manga and with a terrible studio and limited budget, craft one of the most beloved anime of its decade in countries around the world. The man has some SERIOUS talent.

I just had to watch this OVA after spending years playing the NES/Famicom trilogy which is famous for how hard it is. So I am biased about this one as a fan.

 

I don't remember this scene from the games but...

a manly statement.

In a nutshell, The OVA is a direct sequel to the first game picking up some time after the final battle against Jaqiuo. By the time this premiered, the Ninja Gaiden NES trilogy was already completed. However, the Sega Game Gear and Nintendo Game Boy were released on 1991, and the next year the Sega Master System version was made, so this little 45 minute film was made while the NES videogame trilogy was still selling like hotcakes. I mean, it made sense to work in an animated direct to video movie based upon this Nintendo hard blockbuster.

In order to make the Animé appealing to fans, there were some minor changes to the story and characters, like Irene not being a special agent or making Robert an "ex" soldier. They still do their jobs pretty well. Irene being a damsel in distress and Robert being a rad dude. And Robert has a few more buddies to hang out with.

All sorts of mutant monsters are on the way of justice...

...Before facing the final enemy.

Overall it is a great fanservice to me as a fan of the franchise. It is not the best but it is still a good watch even today.

 

Since there are no trailers, I'll finish this long overdue review with a picture of my Ninja Gaiden NES cartridge:

 

 

 That's a wrap for today, hope to post more often, stay home! wear a mask!