Ninja Kamui

Episode 11

We're finally entering the home stretch for this show, and not a moment too soon given how badly the last couple of episodes managed to fumble things. Sadly, this week's events have more or less continued that trend, and being this close to the end only makes that more frustrating. While this episode has many moving parts, none connect the way they need to, and the results feel pretty messy.

First, we've got the continuation of the fight between Higan and Zai which is the best part of the episode. It looks cool and uses a lot of good camera work to help make the whole thing feel cinematic. But much like any big 1v1 fight in an anime, the fight can only really be as good as the emotional stakes. While Zai certainly has them between feeling like his friends betrayed him and getting half his face burned because of it, I can't say the same for Higan. Sure, he gives a big Naruto speech about how he never stopped caring about Zai and wants to help him break free of the organization but he's also never really mentioned the guy up until this fight, so even with all his recent character development, the moment falls flat. Especially since the fight ends unceremoniously as the episode has other things to get to.

That brings us to the other major conflict of the episode, which is Joseph and Yamaji trying to out-gambit each other as Joseph has caught on that the ninja aren't particularly loyal to him. Unsurprisingly, his attempts to get the jump on them fail pretty spectacularly, causing him to run for the hills until he's saved by his bodyguard, Dilly who's decided to prioritize her mission of protecting him over Yamaji's orders. It's a neat idea in concept, but much like the fight between Higan and Zai it doesn't work as well as intended since they haven't had enough scenes together to make this feel justified. I was rooting for her to go through with it when it looked like she was choking him to death in an act of betrayal. Unfortunately, it looks like Joseph gets to survive another day, which is honestly the biggest letdown of the entire episode since everything looked like it was setting him up to die in a very comical fashion (dude even made the classic mistake of running to an elevator to escape so he was practically begging for it). I can only hope that his eventual death in the finale is funny enough to make up for this total misfire.

Rounding things out, we have Mike's escapades with the hacker guy as they continue their attempts to get into Emma's files and expose all of Auza's secrets. While they seem to have hit a dead end without having Emma's biometric signature, Mike recalls that she touched that drawing from his dead daughter that he keeps around, and they manage to get some prints off it. Again, it's a nice idea in practice but it just doesn't quite have the emotional connection that the show wants it to (not to mention it highlights how even in death, Emma is contributing more to this show than any of the other characters). We also get one final scene of Zai in a canyon, having been left in total despair after his fight with Higan, or at least that seems like the intention. I'm guessing this was supposed to drive home how he was so obsessed with the past that he let himself lose sight of any potential future he could have had with Higan and Mari. The scene was tacked on to the end of the episode, rather than the end of the fight and it confused me more than anything else. This entire episode felt pretty all over the place, and with only a couple of episodes remaining, I don't think there's much hope of any of it coming together

Rating:

Ninja Kamui airs on Adult Swim and streams on Max.