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So, a lot of people take issue with the fact this movie only covers about one volume of the manga, but here's the thing: manga and film are two totally different mediums with different storytelling capabilities. If they tried to emulate the epic scope of the comic, it would have been disastrous; it's a little messy as is, but the cloak-and-dagger politics take a backseat to a subtle character-oriented approach, which makes it compelling. Who can't identify with this kind of adolescent rivalry? I can't do the animation justice, but's amazing. I dunno, maybe you just "had to be there," i.e. had to be around ... 13 years old having no idea what to expect when you saw it, but it left imprints in my brain.

The typically Japanese impenetrable spiritualism the film eventually slips into is potentially alienating, but it's worth noting it has more depth than any of Miyazaki's eco-sermons.

Misogyny! Gore! Everything wrong with anime! etc etc! Really though, the way I see it is that Ninja Scroll is fundamentally an exploitation film that happens to be animated, more or less structured like a 70s grindhouse film in terms of emphasis on very base payoff. Funny how people get a lot less lenient about that kind of sleaze once it's animated, i.e. real people aren't being exploited in the process. Anyway, it's actually rather unique in how it takes a period story with ninjas and, without sacrificing the romanticism of such a setting, does something grotesque and almost horror-oriented with it. Great oldschool animation ... to boot--they can capture this kind of fluidity digitally very easily now, but it just doesn't have the same soul as the traditional method. Yeah, it's misogynistic, violent and basically pretty dumb--so what?

First of all, this didn't need to be 20-something episodes. It's satire, and satire is reactionary; it's clever enough that you try to stay on its crack-addled wavelength for a couple hours, but after a while it begins to set in that there's no real heart. Jokes that weren't very funny the first time around are run into the ground. Animation turns into a glorified slideshow with cheap digital effects. Character designs reach Pokemon levels of bland (this girl has purple hair! This girl has green/blue/yellow hair! This guy has spiky hair and yells a lot! etc).

I get that the show's thing is that is ... pokes fun at bad anime, but after a while it unironically just becomes a bad anime--apparently the line is blurry enough that people don't realize it or don't care.

Worst of all, a really clever premise goes to waste: every episode is supposed to be a parody of a certain genre, but it's so stylistically rote and prosaic it usually falls short. Like, one episode is a horror movie parody, and so... the characters walk around a little in a dark sewer and fight a monster. No variation in music, art direction, mood or anything. Really disappointing.

A hint of inspiration returns at the end during that Fist of the North Star parody, when running gags are turned on their heads and used dramatically in a rather experimental way, but that doesn't make up for most of the episodes being rubbish. Thankfully FLCL came along later and did this postmodern slapstick thing correctly.