Ninja Resurrection | KYOTO VIDEO
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
- Ninja Resurrection was once one of the most infamous anime titles that ever got dumped on to the overseas market. Take a look into the lie that formed around this anime and see whether or not that's proper cause for its unfavorable reputation.
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KB is their name and talking about old animation is his game! If you want deep analysis and history on the realm of retro anime and old animation, then you've come to the right place. Be warned though. Being a possum means he loves consuming trash, media-based or otherwise.
I DEFINITELY believed that this was a sequel to Ninja Scroll until literally this video! I also had heard it was bad and never watched it either. ADV was clearly pretty good at laying down a bunch of bread crumbs and letting everyone connect the dots and just letting it go uncorrected, very easy to do in that internet era. It also doesn't help that Ninja Scroll actually DOES have a TV series sequel and I, and many others, have long been muddling the whole thing as a franchise.
Same here, I was kinda skeptical but seem to have a silent belief that this show was the sequel, many years later funny enough I found out that ninja scroll actually had a TVseries!!
Ninja Resurrection was based on a Futaro Yamada novel.
This movie would be the equivalent of us writing a story about Joseph Smith actually having Mormon powers, and he's wrecking all kinds of shit down in Utah, and the only one who can save us is DAVY FUCKING CROCKETT!!! WHY THE FUCK HASN'T SOMEONE MADE THAT MOVIE YET?!
Childhood memories I miss the 90s so much. Old school anime never goes out of style.
Hearing all this context for this infamously shocking and nasty piece of work was honestly fascinating and quite refreshing. Wasn't expecting to discover just how deep this one went.
Also, I'm going to choose chaos here and say that the boom of weird, esoteric, somewhat experimental and often slightly pretentious television series (and a few OVA stragglers) in the wake of Evangelion was an unalloyed good even if some of those series weren't amazing and a few were outright bad. 1998 specifically may not have been a banner year for that sort of freakiness in your estimation-although it did give us an immortal classic of post-Eva denpa in Serial Experiments: Lain, the similarly lauded Perfect Blue, and, as you noted far less favourably, the deeply peculiar Gasaraki and cult favourite Brain Powerd-but the end of the '90s and the early '00s as a whole were rich with some wild material.
FLCL likely began production around 1998 as well, the last beautiful gasp of the OVA era and to this day still one of the prettiest looking digitally-colored anime ever released. Why can't more digital anime have colors like that? :C
Finally someone touched upon Fuutaro Yamada and Makai Tenshou! Currently reading the manga adaptation by Segawa Masaki (The author of the famous Basilisk) in original japanese, and it's probably the best I've seen. That's pretty sad how much of the original material is forgotten in the adaptations. They often erase Mori Souiken completely. Ninja Resurrection is pretty good in this regard, with everything in place. If only it'd not be an unfinished product...
I could see some up and coming animation outfit get the rights and finishing it, for good or bad.
Much like Hollywood raiding old IP for nostalgia dollars, even infamy has some brand recognition.
You implying that Cyberteam in Akihabara is bad?!
I was offended by that as well.
Honestly the only complaint I've heard about this one is that it isn't finished. If it was actually bad and cut off halfway through then it would be considered a highlight of the anime
God, this particular anime haunted my teenage psyche after I saw Bennett the Sage’s video on it; though I always was impressed by the usage of shadows in the first half of the OVA
Huh. I bet there's probably a lot of American comic books produced during the mid-80s 'black and white boom' that had similar fates to this OVA.
Kinda. But the Late 80s to early 1990s brought out the Edge Lord in a lot of Media, both for Kids and Adults.
I mean, everyone was watching Wrestling. Everyone was reading Comic books about Superman Dying or Batman Knightfall where Bane broke his back like a Slimjim! And Image comics was pumping out Spawn while Rob Liefeld was making Muscular dudes, and wwwaaaayy too Skinny ladies carry guns and way too many pouches!
Everything in the 90s was basically following int the footsteps of Action Trendsetters that Fathered their influence!
All I remember about this OVA, that I don't remember if I ever watched it or not, is that ADV clearly wanted people to think it was a sequel to Ninja Scroll.
Also don't like this video's implication that "Cyberteam in Akihabara" was anything other than a classic. Or outright stating any of the Nuku Nuku anime are bad. That's just crazy talk.
@@theotakux5959 Agreed. Cyberteam in Akihabara and Nuku Nuku are both great.
Thank you for another fantastic video. I remember seeing a really misleading print ad for this title in Fangoria (or maybe Wizard) back in '98 and getting super excited for it, only to be massively disappointed and pissed off when I finally got my hands on the tapes. I still have them even though I probably only ever watched them once. Guess I should try selling them since VHS collecting seems to be coming back into fashion again lately.
On a completely unrelated note, why has the Slayers Great video been taken down? Did it get a copyright strike or something? In any case, thanks again for all your hard work.
What?!?! The Streak is one of the greatest songs ever!
3:06 I still have a boxset of Steel Angel Kurumi, haha.
Used once.
Woah, based on hearing the story behind this, I gotta read Yamada's works.
I have a feeling that had it been released under the "Demon Reincarnation" title (which makes more sense, considering its supernatural horror elements, Sato's excellent shading, especially 16:49 looking appropriately scary, and the whole ✝ vs ⛧ thing), instead of capitalizing on the Ninja Scroll franchise, and had it been finished (I assume budget constraints/issues and how at this point, OVAs were on their last dying breaths during this time and how little effort went into making most of them), I'm sure the backlash/anger would have been less hot, though it probably still still be considered controversial/hard to watch (and probably compared to _Watership Down,_ _The Plague Dogs_ and _Felidae_ which also were gruesome/violent), especially with some of the scenes being something I'd expect from a hentai (the whole zombie and geisha thing for one example 🤢).
Oh, and 1998 also had that trainwreck of an anime known as _Maze,_ along with its OVA and movie that is lost media, supposedly because the original master tape was lost.
Reading Yamada's original novels is pretty hard if we don't count Kouga Ninpouchou that's been officially translated into English. Start with Segawa Masaki's adaptations (Basilisk the anime is excellent), then Yagyuu Ninpouchou (Manga is officially translated into English).
I actually forgot avout the whole "sequel to ninja scroll" gag.
I am actually kind of shocked they didn't try to link it to the game Samurai Shodown.
Stoked you gave this a fair shake. I was a day one buyer of the tapes back in the day, and once I got over that it wasn't follow-up to Ninja Scroll, I really dug it for what it is- a well-directed, low budget anime version of a B-Movie. Unfinished as it is, I think it's a fun relic of the over-the-top OVA era that is sorely missed. ALSO- the score is GREAT. Ep 1 obviously cribs on Basil Poledouris's Conan the Barbarian score, but it's still great. And ep 2 leaning more into classic Japanese mystic sounds is an eerie listen.
(1) the ninja scroll series did happen. (2) The true Ninja Scroll 2 has a pilot trailer on CZcams. Madhouse tried to make a sequel but couldn't raise the money because NInja Scroll the first film was EXTREMELY unsuccessful in Japan. (3) No anime fan back then thought Ninja Resurrection was a sequel (4) Ninja Resurrection was/is dope af.
1998 was a good year for TV anime classics, movies in major anime franchises, and the American anime boom. But the OAV market sounds like it didn't want to admit it was dying.
that pronunciation on chiaroscuro is legendary
As a lover of ‘Ninja Sroll’, I was one of many who were ticked off about the sequel angle ADV went with. Despite all its flaws, the show did grow on me. Despite being unfinished, I would give the show a D~, not a complete failure but damn close. Great essay on the subjectthough.
That's definitely true, even the best-remembered years full of classics had bad stuff too. We praise 2006 for a lot of great shows that changed the anime industry, but I like to show people the detailed animation of the strawberry sundae in Kanon next to the cabbage from Brighter than the Dawning Blue, then tell them that both of those aired in not only the same year but also the same SEASON.
I always liked *Ninja Resurrection.* Didn't _love_ it. Yes, I was not so much disappointed as I and my friends were perplexed as to whether this was the same Jubei from *Ninja Scroll.* I think the animation is decent.. it gets pretty brutal (though by the end almost comically so) and we were amused by the transforming rocket ninja and the various D&D characters supporting Jubei. Our biggest gripe was the complete lack of character introductions (as it felt there was 2 episodes before this that we missed) and, of course, *no ending.*
It's kind of like the fairly faithful adaptation of the original *Devilman* made in the late 1980's... why wasn't there 2 more parts to complete the series? Silly/Awesome english dub aside, after reading the original manga, it was as close as anyone was ever going to get.. and it ends right in the middle.
But I LIKE Cyberteam in Akihabara.
@@Railbreaker84 Surprised I'm not the only one.
Its one thing ADV to market an anime as something that its not, but then to get viewers into believing the OVA is getting a continuation when it wasn't is just asking for trouble.
We were told it was a sequel to Ninja Scroll. Instead it was based on the same novel which inspired the Samurai Showdown videogame series.
I would love to see you tackle Big-O someday.
Yeah it was a good series. I liked half of it. Some parts was really slow. But the story was so good
I'm sorry but Brain Powerd isn't a Evangelion rip-off: it started production at the same time. It's also pretty interesting on it's own!
It's shocking how much of FateGrandOrder Shimousa copied from this, keep the concept of the undead army of ancient Japanese heroes lead by an evil Amakusa, except instead of just being zombies, they're now summoned heroic spirits at they're fighting prime that got corrupted against their will into the service of Amakusa, Yagyuu instead joins the antagonist not because he agree with Amakusa, but because of the prospect at a rematch with Musashi, and instead of a ressurected Musashi, we get a young female genderbent version of themselves from an alternate universe (yes that's their excuse for the female Musashi, the male one isn't around cause he's presumed dead from old age) and they take the place as the Protagonist.
They even copied the part where they made a ressurected Amakusa the main antagonist, but this Amakusa was an evil vengeful spirit from an alternate Universe called a Lostbelt (a lostbelt similar to a bad timeline, they're basically kinda like the darkverse from DC, timelines so F***ed up that couldn't exist in proper human history even as an alternate timeline), who instead of dying at Shimabara, instead got Isekaid into the main universe and forced to wander the many alternate timelines by a being he called "Satan" which is actually an Eldritch monster from beyond space and time, to which he saw no matter which timeline he was in he would always lose in shimabara this caused him to lose his faith in humanity and god , which leads him to view the failure of his rebellion as a betrayal from god, so with the power of "Satan" he raised an undead army of old heroes to take revenge on God and the Tokugawa
if people wants to find about how the OVA storyline could have ended I suggest folks just watch the live action movie adaptation that was made in the early 80's.😐
I know this is not the place to ask but after some digging around, i checked that aside from the Ken Ishikawa manga there was another one called Makai Tenshou: Yume no Ato from which this anime took a lot, I've tried to find it but i couldn't, is there anyone who can help me find it?
I’d love for you to delve into Iria
This anime hit me so hard as a kid, Jubie cutting through those people when he gets into the temple had my brother rewinding the VHS for hours.
Yeah this hit me hard too as kid
@@damianstarks3338 Growing up as a black anime kid in the late 90/ early 00’s ninjas were my bag, and Jubie was the coolest thing ever to me.
@@darkcloud2442 I was the same as you growing up as a black anime kid in that era.
are you speaking of the scene where his sword makes a whining noise as he slices a small army of mooks into Black Forest Ham? I also liked when he speedwalked up the side of the wall and then back down again like it was his morning jog.
18:00 is that the scene you speak of?
this is the most BATSHIT INSANE OVA i have ever seen in my life
and that's why i love it
Seriously. The sex and violence aren't "objectionable", they're the selling point!
@@Belgand that sounds like a DVD cover quote.
yeah I'd remembered seeing the ads for this and making the same assumption! (as an aside I did wind up with the ninja scroll series one year for christmas.... hoping to rectify that and get the actual movie itself soon just to have it again!) and apparently it was *supposed* to get a sequel but never did? also I'm pretty sure a lot of those characters also showed up in the first samurai shodown game?
Buddy of mine bought this thinking, of course, it was the Ninja Scroll sequel.
Shortly into watching, we both knew it wasn't, but we didn't hate it at all.
Okay where does the whole supernatural return of historical characters idea come from? How did it get so popular? I'm pretty sure it didn't start with the Fate series or Hirano's Drifters.
There was another OVA series that was never finished that Really got me mad. MIGHTY ASTEROID MINERS. It followed a 10 year old boy as the asteroid colony he lived in was destroyed by a cataclysm. The last two episodes were never finished also.
Basilisk , is a great anime , when i was starting off into anime, it was a awesome watch !
I'm not going to say 2009 was a good year for anime but it's weird citing Heaven's Lost Property as an example of that. The only problem was the unsatisfying non-ending even when they got a movie to wrap it up.
Hey KaiserBeamz , the word "Chiaroscuro" is not pronounced the way you are trying. (and it is not the first time you did it)
Tip : go on google translate, type the word and then click on the listen icon to hear its correct pronunciation.
I can understand your being point about downgrading "Ninja" resurrection not being a completed OVA series, but in retrospect many OVAs were never completed, including the first OVA series, Dallos. As I'm sure you're aware, OVAs were always a risk to release as the studios relied on video sales of each episode that got released to pay for the subsequent releases of the series to follow. And in Japan OVAs were quite expensive to buy and most of the studios weren't relying on foreign market sales yet to increment the profits of the series. I think we should be a little more understanding of the difficulty in releasing any animation and judge each series for it's own merits. That being said, I still want more episodes of the Suikoden OVA.
Insanely bad take calling Brain Powerd an Evangelion rip off
Tomino was COOKING with that shit
sharkboy and lavagirl, now thats an anime classic
Hey, I cant figure out the name of the music in the background but it seems so familiar. 11:43
had to sneakily watch this on one of the vcrs in the house believe it was one of the few vhs at blockbuster-I rented them all
Absolutely no year during the 90s can be considered the worst year in anime.
If I was a billionaire, funding a completion to this series is the first thing I'd do. Every day I weep for its cancelation. Ninja Resurrection is fucking awesome.
I'll take most 90s anime over some uncreative digitally painted shit released after 2000.
Digital ink paint was already around in the 90s.
Pure nostalgia poisoning but having been a kid in that year, i cant say i dont like this anime, like i know its bad, and i agree with all the criticisms, but its from the 90s, which is the best decade of all the decades that have ever been.
Love the source material that this shares with my Favorite Sonny Chiba movie and the Samurai Shodown series.
If it were released to streaming, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But implying it being a sequel, on top of selling an unfinished product- fan exploitation. Those vhs tapes weren’t cheap either.
Most gory and nihilist Ninja anime I’ve ever seen.
I would say that Shigurui is only slightly less gory and even more relentlessly nihilistic and pessimistic. It's also a full twelve episodes, so it has more time to get under the viewer's skin and make them squirm. Honestly, a review of that series would be pretty interesting to see, and the director Hiroshi Hamasaki has actually been discussed on this channel before (see the Junk Boy video), although it's a bit more recent than KB tends to cover.
That sounds like praise to me.
Just wanted to say, really enjoying your videos. Came across them while looking for anyone talking about Key the Metal Idol(love that anime) and saw yours, etc etc. Anyways given your love for exploring 80s/90s anime, I'm surprised you haven't done a video on Moldiver. Just sayin, maybe in the future! Keep up the good work.
Ahhh, Ninja Resurrection…
15:35 oh yep, I remember this.
Ninja Resurrection did not skimp on the Horror and the monstrous concepts to brought into this anime.
At the same time…. I was pissed that it was only 2 episodes long, and learning that this was supposed to be 4 episodes long! Damn, was that disappointing!
This would’ve been amazing, but it’s clear these episodes were pretty much ruined by choices made by companies. 😢
Oh well, time to look up that 1980s Ninja Reincarnation film.
Samurai Reincarnation is a cult classic, but I wouldn't count it as an accurate adaptation. Like the later 2003 movie it's extremely condensed, mostly for the worse. The original book was an epic journey where Juubei wasn't a one man army, since he got a whole doujo of discibles with him. Tragic loss of life, tragic decisions of the corrupted reincarnated are the highlights of the story that are watered down to the "villain of the chapter for Juubei to defeat" approach.
I remember watching Ninja Resurrection back in the day at a convention. The jet-propelled armor and ninja rocket launcher gave us huge laughs. The rest of the movie was bad.
Bought this because I thought it was a Ninja Scroll sequel....
Boy did i fall for the gimmick
You best not be shitting on my girl Steel Angel Kurumi
Oh man, ADV totally caught me and my best friend with it's tricks. We loved Ninja Scroll (he had it on VCD!) so when we saw Ninja Resurrection we snapped it right up...we watched it once. Real wtf moment there...
Anyone know the name of the Intro Music?
5:17 GET back here, ShockerRR! SHOOOCKEERRRRRR!
At least is not as insulting as the terrible Ninja Scroll TV series.. that was a direct attack on the classic movie
I know I probably shouldn't make a comment on this video until I've seen it all the way through (I'd only really watched the beginning & ending of this video), but I can't help but make this comment since I noticed you referred to Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a 'remake' to which I make this long-winded rant...
Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is NOT A REMAKE of the Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! It is, in fact, meant to be another adaptation of the book. It's worth noting that, after Roald Dahl passed away in 1990, Dahl's widow and daughter wanted to make a new film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory due to how much Dahl hated Mel Stuart's film version. The Dahl family wanted to make a movie adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was true to Dahl's vision. When Tim Burton was hired to be the director, it's worth noting that he also considered his movie version to be another adaptation of the book, especially considering that Burton himself loved the book and hated the Mel Stuart version. Burton even told the screenwriter for his adaptation NOT TO WATCH the Mel Stuart version when writing it. (It's true; look it up.)
You are free to love Mel Stuart's adaptation of CATCF & hate Tim Burton's version, but calling Burton's version a remake is a slap-in-the-face to the intentions of both Burton & the Dahl family! Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is NOT A REMAKE of Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; it is ANOTHER ADAPTATION of Roald Dahl's original book!
Thank you!
Is Not like they Left Us in an Eclipse 🙊
2023 will be hell.
And so, Synduality Noir is the trashiest mecha anime of 2023, but, the two best new animes of Fall 2023 is The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You and Undead Unluck. Along with Reign of the Seven Spellblades is one of my favorite anime of Summer 2023.
I totally got fooled by this vid. I bought the vhs and totally thought it was a sequel to Ninja Scroll and then after I watched it with my buds everybody was like "wait, what? that's the end"
9:28 dude not to be a total weeb, but it's not AH-MAH-KU-SA, it's AH-MAKSA, lol. Like everybody knows that because of Samurai Shodown, c'mon, 90's shit. We all called him Amaksa.
I bloody loved that ova. I was fine with all the death & brutal parts. I didn't think they was too long at all. The story was good. But I was there mostly for the action & horror. The story was 2nd over all. It was nice but it was no Akira. I always wanted another ova
One thing I'd also like to mention concerning why ninja 🥷 resurrection was never completed is that, besides the extreme gore and graphic content, what put the final nail in the coffin ⚰️ is a real life homicide. If you look up animepedia, there was a real life homicide that happened and revolved around one of the graphic scenes from the film.
3:03 But I thought you liked the original
All Purpose Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku, KB.😕
Honestly all you had to do to convince me that 1998 was a bad year, is to show me clips of Cyber Team in Akihabara and Lost Universe. And God I could make an entire video essay on Lost Universe and its production issues.
Despite its production issues (a lot of which were fixed in the home video release) Lost Universe is still great. I would gladly take that over the crap we get today.
Can't agree with the statement that 98 was the worst year in anime. Im not saying it's the best, but it's not the worst. The bad is not that bad, the good are some of the best from that decade and the rest is just average at worst. The good outweighs the bad. I've been watching anime more or less since the late 90's and I can tell you the're have been worst years that 98.
Just finding out now some of the best edgy AMVs I saw back in the day were mostly from this; so at least there's that.
I'm laughing. It took me too long to realize you said chiaroscuro and not the name of a Japanese anime creator.
Are you implying Geo Breeders and Steel Angel Kurumi are bad?
Well for me, since I did not grow up watching ninja Resurrection when it first came out. I don’t think it’s that bad it’s OK it’s just not spectacular. I see ninja Resurrection as a ninja scroll clone.
i never felt ripped off by this anime not having a end. in fact im glad it didn't have a end cuz it drove me to watch the live action movie
You implying Brain Powerd is a Evangelion ripoff?
Can anyone tell me what Japan's beef with Christianity was? I feel like I'm missing something...
So I've read the manga that Ninja Ressurection is based on: Makai Tensho. It was a very boring, anticlimactic read and its context makes me understand why this project was shelved (along with the bad economy). Yes Ninja Ressurection is largely faithful to the original source material but every part of the story told up to the end of Ninja Ressurection just sets us up for a major letdown in terms of story-telling, character development, and the ending for the manga.
This is one of those cases where the movie is better than the book and I imagine if Ninja Ressurection had continued they mightve changed the story for a better ending.
But was the action parts good & magic
bro why is Amakusa here!?
8:51, so... Fate?
Can definitely see why you’d choose this anime as a representation to the weak year 1998 was for anime. That was unsatisfying to hear what happened.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I owned this one.
What can go wrong thats wild
ok that not-ninja scroll merchandizing is wild
Wild
I love Record of Locked War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. To me the last 5 episodes of the ova while have their moments feel more like filler episodes. The books were still being written at the time. Yeah the tv series was done by another studio and has a couple of continuity issues, but it felt like a better continuation after Karla's defeat at the end of ova 8
Also the novels were still being written at the time so Madhouse loosely adapted books 3 and 4 and created an original ending. The tv series follows books 3 and 4 more faithfully and adapted 6 and 7.
Total noob here - can anyone tell me what anime are shown around 2.05 to 2.30?
2.05 apparently appears to be Lost Universe, a spin-off of Slayers which infamously had its fourth episode aired unfinished, as the South Korean animation company it was outsourced to, San Ho Studio, only had a tiny stack of key frame cels for references, and the settei/model sheets, complete with multiple poses, costumes, and notes on scale were lost, and they had to rush through it to piece something together.
@saintsheepy6682 thank you so much 👍😀
@@karlosn5579 No prob. 😄👍
The animation was corrected when it was released on Laserdisc, but it was more of a too little, too late, as the reputation of E&G Films (company that worked on it) never recovered.
@saintsheepy6682 thanks again - much appreciated 🙏 👍
why were 1982 and 2009 the worst years for anime?
Nice
Yup! I stopped buying anime for a while after that.
I always disliked this anime. Bad on its own merits.
And it also has a big heaping scoop of japanese YIKES thrown on top because this anime is about the very real, very historical merciless slaughter of a minority group
that would be the Christians, right?
Dude, no hate, but don’t be disrespecting ray stevens.
you forgot to mention 2013 as one of the worst years for anime,because in 2013 THE WORST FUCKING ANIME EVER MADE,WANNA BE THE STRONGEST IN THE WORLD PREMIERED!!!
I will say that that particular show is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. And no matter if it was in the original Japanese or English dub, you could say that the show was a real...scream.
Ninja
Visually it looks great.
But it's 90s edge, and 90s edge is bad.
1990's anime (and comics & manga) were awesome in the 1990's. Or at least, it was awesome, if you had grown tired of all the comics and cartoons being kid friendly. Its a bit like why translated Chinese xianxia (and xuanhua) novels are so popular. If one were to look at them objectively, they are all bad. But if you had become bored with fantasy novels, after reading hundreds or thousands of western fantasy series. Then reading those Chinese novels would probably feel exciting (even if they are bad)