English Dub Review: Ninja Kamui “Episode 13”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Higan settles things with Yamaji and Zai, and Mike arrests Joseph, putting their plans to an end.

OUR TAKE

So ends the story of Ninja Kamui, and true to the way it’s handled things so far, it’s very flashy and well animated, but is ultimately pretty predictable in how it goes about it. Now, I say this, but in order to stretch out the amount of words I’m typing here, I will now admit that I actually got my predictions for how this would end wrong. I thought the final battle would be against Joseph in some way and completely overlooked Yamaji as a possible final opponent. I think this was because Yamaji was mainly only hinted at while Joseph and the lieutenants were more active antagonists, but Yamaji was still definitely the most connected to why Higan left and also despised the Ninja clan, so having him end up being the last obstacle does make more sense. Joseph getting taken down by Mike, meanwhile, also gives Mike something to do in the end, which it would’ve definitely felt lacking to not have. Huh, I don’t know why I’ve been so apprehensive towards this show. Despite reviewing all of these episodes from the back half, I guess I never gave the show the active attention it needed to really invest myself in what was happening.

My own second guessing aside, this episode does feel undercut by how it just needs to finish things up. Maybe it’s because I’m just so used to story conventions but by this point, things had gone so over the top in Yamaji’s favor that I just couldn’t see this ending any other way than completely defeating him. As such, it was just a matter of waiting for when, not if or even how, Higan would eventually win. But while that part was practically an afterthought, the final scenes ended things on a pretty nice not and message. Higan stops Zai from committing seppuku and convinces him to live, which is a nice way to show that Higan is teaching his will to live to his estranged friend. But I guess I would’ve liked to see what Zai did or how he chose to continue his life, mainly because I don’t expect he’ll get many job interviews with that big scary mask. Anyway, yeah, that’s Ninja Kamui. Even with as conclusive as this ending was, there does seem to be wishes by Executive Producer Jason DeMarco to get a second season somehow, so I’m sure they have ideas for how they could continue the story if they get the chance. But for now, that’s all she wrote.