English Dub Review: Ninja Kamui “Episode 1”

Joe Higan is just an average Joe. Living a peaceful life with his wife and son in the countryside. That all comes to an end when his past comes back to haunt him as a clan of ninjas kill his loved ones. However, Joe manages to survive the attack, and swears revenge…

Sunghoo Park’s meteoric rise to flame with Jujutsu Kaisen and God of High School still manages to catch me off guard at times. I’m not saying it’s not deserved– the man always directed and animated the coolest fights you were ever gonna see in seasonal anime! Just straight up intensity personified. He was basically asking for a show where he could fully take the reins to do whatever he wants, and obviously that brings us to Ninja Kamui.

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s a revenge plot, and even the “revenge plot” is largely an excuse for some dope as hell action. We set up the bare essentials: Dude loves his family, we have some cute moments together, and the day shit goes down is also on the day of the son’s birthday. It feels so methodical, like slowly marking off items on a checklist. It does drag on a bit too long for my tastes but once things get going, they really get going!

Sunghoo Park’s action-framing sense is crazy, fun, engaging, and most importantly satisfying as hell. Our main guy is casually mowing down mobs like it’s nothing, but every blow feels so impactful, and we want it to be considering he’s straight up slicing them in half. Hell, the action’s so intense that even the background struggles to keep up. At moments it’s just Joe flying across the screen, the action’s still engaging as hell for most viewers to notice- or even care I’d imagine. It’s something both of his previous projects have suffered from in various different degrees. Unfortunately this one is no different, but fortunately I can’t overlook it– it’s just too damn fun!

The action has to come to a screeching halt considering we need the proper motive for revenge. Joe gets stabbed in the neck by a random ninja, and starts getting his ass kicked for a bit. With the icing on the cake being seeing his wife and child being killed right before his eyes– and then he gets stabbed in the chest for good measure. This show doesn’t twist the knife, it drills it straight in. 

The escalation continues; after waking up in a hospital the ninja manage to find him and then another kickass fight scene ensues. I do love how they casually reveal that he has full on supernatural powers now. Further broadening the scope on just how ridiculously cool the fights are gonna get in the future. He manages to kill the head honcho who killed his wife, but more clan members are just going to keep coming. And thus his journey of revenge can finally begin.

To be completely honest, I’m not expecting some in-depth examination of revenge itself– maybe the show could surprise me on that but I’m not holding my breath. I am fully expecting to have a blast with Park’s action animation and direction! Episode one was a great opener in that regard and I’m real excited to see more.