The Future Of Toonami’s Ninja Kamui Is A Big Fucking Mess Right Now

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In a recent interview with Animation Magazine Genndy Tartakovsky says the third season of Primal is on the way (along with his feature-length Fixed which has been completed and is just awaiting a distributor), but the status of another animated drama on Adult Swim is a big fucking mess right now and all parties are to blame on this one.

First thing’s first, Ninja Kamui, in the grand scheme of the original anime having been produced for Toonami, is a very mid series at best. The CG animation looks like shit, the plot was boring, and the characters were cliched and uninteresting leaving. That said, we need more originals on Toonami, but there are dozens of anime on Crunchyroll, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix that are far better than this example from WB Discovery.

Sola Entertainment CEO Joseph Chou was paraphrased through a Business Wire press release covering the Shinobi Origins video game as stating that a second season of the anime was in the works, however several hours after its publication, the show’s executive producer Jason DeMarco replied to a Bluesky post that a second season had “not been announced”. The following day, the press release was retracted and Chou responded to an inquiry from Anime News Network (who started this whole mess in the first place by not fact-checking a Business Wire publication that can be very iffy with it’s scoops), clarifying that the game’s public relations staff had inserted the quote themselves and that, while ideas were being considered for a potential second season, “there is nothing official at all”.

What IS official is that Adult Swim is not moving forward with a series adaptation of the very good Hamlet Factory which creator Jeremy Kaplowitz says was being developed as a TV series but didn’t move forward which sounds more of an apropo WB Discovery move.

Synopsis:

An explosive story of revenge, “Ninja Kamui” follows a former ninja clan member who is haunted by the brutal murders of his family. Meanwhile, an FBI agent and his rookie partner also work to investigate the murders and uncover a vast global conspiracy.