English Dub Review: Ninja Kamui “Episode 11”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Higan and Zai finish their duel, with Higan sparing Zai but telling him he and Mari hoped they could show Zai a future beyond the ninja. Meanwhile, Joseph tries assassinating Yamagi but quickly finds the tables turned as an army of ninja arrive at his building, with only Dilly around to protect him.

OUR TAKE

Huh, okay, turns out this show has thirteen episodes total and not twelve like I read somewhere. That’s actually good, since this would definitely not work as a penultimate episode, being instead a set up for the big climax of the show. Thankfully the final battle looks like it will not be Higan up against Joseph, who is now finally getting his just desserts for being a fucking weirdo, but instead Yamagi, the current head of the Ninja organization that Higan has sworn to destroy. That might be my bad actually since it was pretty clear early on that the only reason Higan’s wife and son are dead is because of this restrictive idea that ninja can’t leave said organization, something Joseph doesn’t give two shits about, but Yamagi clearly does. It turns out that Higan and Mari’s desertion is also something that ended up hurting Zai in the end as well, not just emotionally by having his only friends up and disappear on him, but also that he was interrogated and tortured by the higher up Ninjas when it was revealed they had left. Yeah, even if that wasn’t what they intended to happen, I would honestly be a bit pissed at them too if I was Zai.

So yeah, Joseph’s still very likely to die, possibly next week, but it’s interesting seeing that Dilly has, for whatever reason, decided to put her life on the line to protect him. I don’t think we’ve seen any sign of him ever being nice to her or giving her much reason to value his life, but maybe we’ll get a flashback of him complimenting her for a second that explains this. Either way, it makes…MARGINALLY more sense to have her fight and make use of her Kosugi armor this way than fight Higan, so that’s something I guess. That will then give Higan time to prepare to fight Yamagi, who will then be his final boss of the show either next week or the week after. Perhaps once I go through all of these episodes again for the overall Season Review, some of this will start making a bit more sense, but for now I just gotta hang on for dear life as we gradually reach the conclusion. And then Toonami’s basically taking two weeks off to marathon every single episode anyway, so there’s that. See you next time for the ACTUAL penultimate installment!