Batman Ninja opens with the following line, "You think you may have seen every Batman story. I promise you haven't". It's referring to the premise of seeing a Japanese anime version of Batman, which, actually, I have definitely seen already. It's called Big O, which despite being better, makes the exact same mistake of wasting a perfectly good premise in exchange for gratuitous mecha battles.
Batman Ninja begins with Batman falling into a time machine and finding himself pushed back in time (and, er, location?) to feudal Japan. All the classic bad guys got there a bit earlier however, and have established themselves as samurai warlords. Batman must find a way to defeat them and get back to the present, all without the help of his futuristic gizmos.
Nothing about this show lives up to that premise. Those batman villains? they're basically cameos. The movie is almost entirely focused on Gorilla Grodd, Harley and the Joker, whom you are guaranteed to get sick of the sight of. It might have been cool and interesting to see how these guys try to keep up their villain shtick with an ancient Japanese twist, but Penguin, Ivy and Co are barely introduced before they start pulling hyper-futuristic robot castles out of their asses. Even Batman isn't immune to this. Considering the movie goes out of its way to assure us the caped crusader no longer has his super car, he gets his own mode of novelty, oversized transport in short order.
Besides the wasted idea, the writing is pretty appalling too. This show brings back almost all of the big animated Batman voice actors, with the glaring exception of Mark Hamill's Joker, and even these veteran actors can't sell the cringeworthy dialogue and poor timing. I get that Batman villains whole deal is making shitty puns, but writers usually can make that come off as charming at least. Here there is no one-liner too lazy or cliched. "I'm a fan!" yells the Joker, throwing some fans at Batman, "hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhaahahah!" One standout bit of terrible storytelling comes when the Batman finds an apparently reformed Joker. Batman is told it is an obvious trick, and batman says "no, I've been fooled by the Joker before, but this is different. He's completely changed!" 30 seconds later, it becomes obvious that, no, it totally is a trick and Batman is a complete moron. The Joker is back to normal in the next scene, laughing at how gullible he is.
Even the animation, which at times looks gorgeous, starts to feel a bit superficial after a while, looking at times like a videogame cutscene. I remember seeing a wuxia themed Batman vignette on youtube, which goes for the same sort of painterly, martial arts heavy theme as Ninja Batman, but does it to a much higher standard and far more succinctly. Go watch that, but for the love of god, give this shambles a miss.
A Massive Letdown
Batman Ninja opens with the following line, "You think you may have seen every Batman story. I promise you haven't". It's referring to the premise of seeing a Japanese anime version of Batman, which, actually, I have definitely seen already. It's called Big O, which despite being better, makes the exact same mistake of wasting a perfectly good premise in exchange for gratuitous mecha battles.
Batman Ninja begins with Batman falling into a time machine and finding himself pushed back in time (and, er, location?) to feudal Japan. All the classic bad guys got there a bit earlier however, and have established themselves as samurai warlords. Batman must find a way to defeat them and get back to the present, all without the help of his futuristic gizmos.
Nothing about this show lives up to that premise. Those batman villains? they're basically cameos. The movie is almost entirely focused on Gorilla Grodd, Harley and the Joker, whom you are guaranteed to get sick of the sight of. It might have been cool and interesting to see how these guys try to keep up their villain shtick with an ancient Japanese twist, but Penguin, Ivy and Co are barely introduced before they start pulling hyper-futuristic robot castles out of their asses. Even Batman isn't immune to this. Considering the movie goes out of its way to assure us the caped crusader no longer has his super car, he gets his own mode of novelty, oversized transport in short order.
Besides the wasted idea, the writing is pretty appalling too. This show brings back almost all of the big animated Batman voice actors, with the glaring exception of Mark Hamill's Joker, and even these veteran actors can't sell the cringeworthy dialogue and poor timing. I get that Batman villains whole deal is making shitty puns, but writers usually can make that come off as charming at least. Here there is no one-liner too lazy or cliched. "I'm a fan!" yells the Joker, throwing some fans at Batman, "hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhaahahah!" One standout bit of terrible storytelling comes when the Batman finds an apparently reformed Joker. Batman is told it is an obvious trick, and batman says "no, I've been fooled by the Joker before, but this is different. He's completely changed!" 30 seconds later, it becomes obvious that, no, it totally is a trick and Batman is a complete moron. The Joker is back to normal in the next scene, laughing at how gullible he is.
Even the animation, which at times looks gorgeous, starts to feel a bit superficial after a while, looking at times like a videogame cutscene. I remember seeing a wuxia themed Batman vignette on youtube, which goes for the same sort of painterly, martial arts heavy theme as Ninja Batman, but does it to a much higher standard and far more succinctly. Go watch that
, but for the love of god, give this shambles a miss.