The plot is simple. Gorilla Grood makes a time travel thingy called the “Quake Engine” which teleports a bunch of villains and members of the bat family to feudal Japan which Batman being the last one to arrive two years later because plot convenience. After trying two failed full on assaults on the newly crowned “Sixth Heavenly King Lord Joker”, who foreshadows mecha castles and destroying his tech during them. Batman being uncharacteristically stupid, actually teams up with Grood, who lets them take out “Lord Joker” before predictably betraying him. After Batman realises that he has to fight by this time period’s rules, he becomes a ninja lord known as “Batman Sengoku” with a ninja clan who happens to be planning for Batman’s arrival because prophecy cliche and while it’s cool and all, it’s a shame that his opponents didn’t follow by the same rules because they have all turned their castles into mechs and decided to have a massive mech fight where Grood just made them become his slaves and then Joker pulls a deus ex out of his arse, takes control of the castles and does a super cheesy “Power Ranger” megazoid transformation. Following this, Batman forms a giant Batman made of bats and armoured monkeys to fight the mech and then Joker and Batman has a sword fight. After all this mess happens, Batman decides he is done messing around in Japan, they just time travel back where it ends abruptly. Yeah, I don’t really care about spoiling this at all because the plot is on the same level of a direct to video cash grab.
This plot could of been much better if it a writer that didn’t love “because plot” moments and wasn’t schizophrenic about what genre it wanted to be. I will be getting into those “because plot” moments later because I want to talk about the tone or rather, the lack of it. If this was just sticking to more of a period piece feel with Batman characters, this would of been a serviceable movie but the fact it can’t find its tone since it wants to go balls to wall on what mainstream westerners think what anime is mainly is, it becomes confusing and plot elements have no rhythm or reason to why they happen. They just happen because plot needs it to happen and that’s poor writing. What also bothered me was the lack of establishment presented to us in what canon and time period of the Batman mythos we are in. I am not the biggest comic book person (ironic, I know) but I know an awful lot about them and I was still slightly confused. We are up to our fourth Robin and Catwoman is trusted enough to know Batman’s true identity as well but that establishes nothing. You can say it doesn’t matter but if we don’t address them, there is plot holes like Catwoman knowing Batman’s real identity. I will drive that point home when I complain about our Batman depiction but let’s talk about the animation because I hate it.
This is where you going to see my more “otaku” side leak out but I think we already saw this in my numerous manga reviews so let’s get on with it. Cast your mind back to the “Berserk” review where I complained about how the CGI for the anime was ugly because guess what, Batman Ninja did it as well and it still ugly. To its credit, it still tries to have a very anime drawn look and there is a brief moments of 2D animations but the 2D looks like crap and Berserk also tried to do drawn look and still looks like compacted trash so it’s pointless. I also don’t like the animation quality, it just seemed stiff at times for me and you really see it when they do facial close ups. It’s just the same animation problems I had with the Berserk anime except this is WB this time so you would think they had the cash to splash in this but I guess the DCCU is burning a hole in that fat wallet. What also isn’t helping is the character designs are horrible to look at. I get it they wanted to roll with the look of the period it’s set in but Joker has a stupid looking mustache, the current Robin has gone partially bald and Catwoman’s hair colour keeps switching between dark brown and light brown. While some of these are forgivable (except Joker’s mustache) but they ruined Red Hood by giving him a stupid looking mask which is pretty much a very tall basket painted red and Batman in his general armour looks like crap. It’s just really sloppy character design in my opinion and talking about my opinion, the voice acting is like listening to randoms off the street to do really bad impressions of the characters. The trailer I saw first was subbed and although I am more of a dubbed over subbed person, I really wish they stuck with the subbed version because omg, the dub is horrible. Everyone sounds uninterested and the Joker is constantly ear grating with his shrill voice. I know his voice is supposed to be annoying but it’s supposed to be scary but this dub voice is just horrible because it doesn’t scare me, it just makes my ears hurt. I just hate everything about this part of the film because I am an otaku (or weeb if you want to be derogatory) and they didn’t really do anything with the more anime like approach. I wouldn’t be even remotely interested in this if they went with their standard comic book cartoon look but they advertised this like it was a anime adaption of the Batman franchise so I feel like as both a otaku and very casual comic fan, I had to see this and judge it so with that said, let’s talk about I think the way they have depicted Batman is absolutely wrong.
If you were asked what would be Batman’s most defining personality trait, what would you respond with? For me, outside of pointing out his grouchy attitude and the whole “dead parents” thing, I would say it’s intelligence and how he has a plan for every single possible outcome because he is the world’s greatest detective if we were to believe his comic book title. I bring this up because they do not follow this at all in the movie. He is constantly making rather rash and stupid decisions like teaming up with Grood or trying to assault Joker’s fortress twice by himself and this would be slightly excusable if he was still that young person with no experience but he isn’t. Remember, he is up to his fourth robin in this film so he must be in his late 40s - early 50s by now so he isn’t dumb and naive. He has the experience so what is the excuse for him to act like an idiot? Simple, the plot demanded it and that’s the only reason why he acts like an idiot. Why does Batman show up two years later after everyone else dropped in? Why is there a ninja clan that has been waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled and Batman happens to fit that criteria? Why does Batman constantly make horribly stupid mistakes when he is proven to be far more intelligent? It’s because the plot needs to happen and that’s why I hate the writers. The writers of this film doesn’t know how Batman acts or what makes an fun and interesting film. They have written something that’s an insult to both anime, Batman and maybe even direct to home DVDs and direct to home DVDs are horrible so it’s appalling bad.
Like I said before, I had no expectations for this going in and I ended up being disappointed anyway. It’s just a really bad display of writing and animation. The fact this exists is a stain on this earth in my opinion. I think the only way this can be enjoyed is if are either 10 years old or you got your friends around and you had a drinking party while you watch this because it’s that bad. If I was to praise anything in this, it would be how balls to the wall crazy the second half is. Here’s 2/10 for effort but effort isn’t enough, WB when you are incompetent. Direct to home DVDs used to be the one thing you had over Marvel when they started their cinematic universe and now you are just screwing it all up. I am more then disappointed to be perfectly honest. So anyway, next week might just be another movie review because I want a bit of a break from writing these next week so I am going to be updating a review for everyone which features the 90s heartthrob before he got his Oscar. Remember, if you want to support me in other ways (outside of sharing these reviews with others), you can check out my steam profile if you want to give me free stuff to review or my YouTube channel where I upload weekly montages of me being an idiot while playing YuGiOh.
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