Ninja Kamui has excellent first season

For a brief period, Cartoon Network’s Toonami collaborated with Crunchyroll to provide original anime series based on popular franchises such as Blade Runner and Sega’s Shenmue. However, the joint efforts ended in 2020 when Sony bought Crunchyroll. However, this did not deter Toonami from searching for original anime; their latest series was found on the “Max” streaming platform, and it asks what happens when you mix ninjas, a monolith tech company and a rogue ninja determine to stop his former clan and that tech company from launching chaos on all humanity? Ninja Kamui is the right man for the job.

Episode 1 starts off with an unidentified ninja disguised as a businessman in an unknown U.S. city attempting to escape from a group of ninja assassins chasing him. He gives his attackers a brutal beating but is ultimately captured and beheaded by their boss. Meanwhile in the Midwest, Joe Logan, his wife Sara and son Kyle are enjoying their daily life as a farm family. On the day of Kyle’s birthday, the family celebrates happily, and all is well until later that night, the Logans are ambushed by ninjas like the ones that attacked the businessman. Joe defeats one group and rushes to the master bedroom to find that Sara and Kyle have been murdered by another group of ninjas. Enraged, Joe begins to fight but succumbs to his wounds from the previous battle and is seemingly killed.
By some miraculous action, Joe awakens in an unknown hospital’s morgue and is immediately questioned by FBI agents Mike Morriss and Emma Samanda who are assigned to the Logan case. Morriss and Samanda decide to watch over Joe who was again attacked by ninjas and defeats them except for the commander. As the commander is defeated, he tells Joe that he cannot hide from the clan. As a result, Joe’s identity as the ninja Higan is revealed, leading him to return home and grab his box of personal effects including his old ninja mask before burning the house down.

Episode 2 shows Higan reuniting with Kagari, a former comrade who treats Higan’s injuries from the previous episode. Higan, with the rogue ninja leader captured from the attack on his home, begins to interrogate the ninja to get answers about why he and his family were targeted.

After getting a clue from the ninja that the clan had a hideout in the Southwestern U.S., Higan travels there for more clues. Elsewhere, Mike and Emma continue their investigation quietly due to the FBI closing the investigation on Higan’s family. Mike receives a call from Higan wanting to talk about the attack and they agree to meet at a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. When Mike gets Higan to confess about the Logan identity, he prepares to take Higan in for further questioning until they are attacked by ninjas disguised as a food delivery men, Higan defeated the ninjas, but he and Mike are attacked by unknown mercenaries who used rocket launchers to level the restaurant. Higan and Mike survive the attack, but Mike continues the investigation after discovering the attacker’s blades were able to penetrate his bullet-proof vest. In another location, Higan’s former master Yamaji receives word from his apprentice Zai that Higan remains alive.

The first two episodes of Ninja Kamui are straight fire. From the beginning of Episode 1, I felt that the action was on point with every fight scene being choreographed as they were in a live-action movie with straight hands being thrown full throttle. I also appreciate that during the action I was given background on the characters such as Higan, who is a simple farmer/mechanic guy who just wants peace for him and his family and living out his best version of life after escaping the life of a mercenary. I also like that Mike and Emma are not main characters of color who fit the usual comedic or sacrificial tropes of other animated shows. The character designs by Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai, Batman Ninja) were eye catching and kept my interest.

The music in the show is top notch, including the opening theme performed by Coldrain – a J-Rock band that has grown on me recently. The ending by Jessica Gelinas musically balances the themes of war and peace together, which keeps the story fluid yet entertaining. Williams Street and Sentai Studios have done a great job on the dub and sub adaptations with the dub cast of Jeremy Gee as Higan, Shawn Hamilton as Mike, Luci Christian as Emma. The introduction of Luis Galindo as Yamaji and James Marler as Zai gave quality performances that make Ninja Kamui worth re-watching.

Ninja Kamui is another example of Cartoon Network presenting old and new fans of its Toonami block new and consistently good material. They continue to show why they are the best at bringing action-oriented shows to their target audience. Always delivering the best, Toonami is the OG of Saturdays and top dog of bringing anime to the masses.

Brandon Beatty is editor-at-large of Gaming Insurrection. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com