NINJA SCROLL

I feel a bit mixed on this anime. On paper, it's exactly the opposite of everything I like in anime. But I'm trying to branch out a bit more and try things I don't usually watch. That said, I mainly watched this film in particular because I recently watched Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and absolutely LOVED it so I wanted to try out other films by the same director.

It certainly looks stylish, I really liked the art style and I thought it had a lot of creativity. Some of the dialogue was really cheesy and full of clunky exposition. Some scenes were...uncomfortable to watch. It's certainly a product of the early 90s. I doubt this would fly nowadays but I kinda liked that it pushed some buttons. At least I had a strong reaction to it unlike so many milquetoast anime out there you end up passively watching then forget about.

Having eight demons as the villains was fun but it's WAY too many to cover in this film. It made the whole plot seem a bit repetitive and scant. Like go for 3 or even 5 and develop them further as villains. That's basically what they did in Bloodlust and it worked way better. Also, the scene with the wasps just reminded me of any time Miroku tried to use his wind tunnel in Inuyasha.

Maybe it's a bit unfair to compare it to Bloodlust but if you do compare them then it fails to match it on every level. Bloodlust is a better Kawajiri film by a goddamn country mile so I can't help being mildly disappointed watching this film. But assessed on its own, it has merits and it has its flaws but on the whole, it was exciting and I did enjoy it.