- Plot
The plot of this Anime is extremely straight forward and rather basic. Main character is on a journey to find his mother that was kidnapped when he was a a toddler, during his journey he meets up with old comrades and they embark on a quest to save his mother and take down the Imperial Army and liberate the Country. A long the way Challenges are overcome, many interesting people are met, former Ninku companions are discovered. There are some neat things a long the way to keep your interest.
So if you're looking for any plot twists or an intricate plot, you won't find this here. But what you will find here is a fun adventure, with good world building, fun characters and decent action. The plot isn't complicated but it doesn't have to be because the main cast and the world are what really make this Anime enjoyable in my opinion.
- Pacing
Since it is an adventure Anime a bulk of the time is allocated to side stories, so the pacing isn't going to be fast, but unlike other Shonen Anime these Side Stories are actually pretty well done and the outcome of them aren't always happy endings. The thing that surprised me the most is how the writers did such a good job at building the world and people that live within it by using these side stories. You really start feeling immersed into this world and it makes you want to keep learning more and more about it.
- Characters
Main Cast
Fuusuke: Rat Ninja and Former captain of Ninkuu's squad 1. His specialty is Air techniques. Pretty impressive resume for a 12 year old huh? He always has his good friend Hiroyuki Penguin by his side.
Touji: Snake ninja and former captain of the 6th Ninkuu squad. He specializes in ground based abilities. He has a younger sister named Rihoko and has fought alongside Fuusuke and Aichou during the war and they have known each other since before then as well.
Aichou: Rooster ninja and former captain of Ninkuu's squad 10. His abilities include being able to jump extremely high into the air and being able to soar in the sky. Not quite flying, but very damn close. He's hot tempered and is often brash and can be kind of a dick at first but he lightens up later on.
Rihoko: The sister of Touji. She is not a combatant but she is shown to be able to use the substitution technique.
Hiroyuki: Fuusuke's best friend. He is a Penguin with a lot of character.(which is expressed very well through gestures and the like since he cannot talk)
Conclusion: The way these main characters interact with each other is probably one of the things I enjoyed the most about them. The interactions feel real and they talk to each other and act as friends would in real life. They are all able to express different emotions and characteristics and it never feels forced or out of character. Overall their characters aren't deep or complex but they are fun, likable and ithe way they interact with each other and the world around them is well done.
- Villains
I don't want to spoil the villains but I will list their names and give a basic description then talk a little about what I liked about them and what could have been improved on.
- Kisumi (1 of the 3 colonel's in the Imperial Army, He has Long Blonde hair and has an Elegant, Feminine look to him.)
His character was ok. His motivations made sense if not very original but I do wish they spent more time building his character. He is absent for a lot of the series and his character arc ends leaving a lot to be desired and falls kind of flat.
- Ajirada (1 of the 3 colonel's in the Imperial Army, A big man with a sophisticated yet imposing presence)
I really felt burned with Ajirada. They could have done so much more with his character. I really wish they expanded more on his back story, and there was a chance to give him a small character arc about half way through the series but for whatever reason they decided to not do it. He had the potential to be one of the most interesting characters in the show. Disappointing.
- Mekira (1 of the 3 colonel's in the Imperial Army, a Red head with short hair and a tom boyish look) Again, Another villain that left much to be desired. (do you see a pattern here?) She had an interesting back story that they could have used to explore the world outside of the Country the story takes place in but they just choose to not do anything with it. They also chose to not do much with her character either. She comes into the show late and doesn't really do much of anything. Her character arc concludes okay, but they could have done more with her.
- Kouchin (Leader of the Imperial Army, Tall and wears garbs of a Priest)
He also suffers from what the rest of the villains in this show suffer from. Not enough screen time to develop them enough. Kouchin however has even less time than the others and makes him the most boring villain of them all. His character is so text book, just like his motives. Yeah at the end we get a few reveals about him and why he's doing what he's doing but we're so disconnected from him by the end of the story that it's hard to care.
Conclusion: The villains are by far the weakest part of this Anime. They aren't utilized enough. You have a 55 episode Anime and they don't do much of anything. Or have that big of an influence on the plot itself. They tend to show up then disappear for an extended period of time which I feel really shouldn't be happening.
- Music
The Opening and the 3 Ending songs are fantastic. I loved them. They're all full of emotion and have a wonderful sound and vocals.
The insert songs themselves aren't anything special but do a good job at fitting the tone of each scene. They also borrowed one specific insert theme from Yu Yu Hakusho. They could have used more from it that I missed but I doubt it.
- Voices
The cast here all did a great job with the voices. I have no complaints. For our Main cast we have Rica Matsumoto as Fuusuke who is known for the voice of Ashe Ketchum or Satoshi from Pokemon. Megumi Hayashibara as Rihoko, who is also Lina Inverse from Slayers. Jurota Kosugi as Touji who also has voiced Asuma from Naruto, Arlong from One Piece and Jonathan Jostar from Jo Jo. Then finally we have Mitsuaki Madono as Aichou who has voiced Kon from Bleach. They are all experienced and delivered their lines amazingly.
- Art
The character designs are nothing to write home about, almost all of them have the same kind of faces aside from Fuusuke, Mekira and Kisumi. I did like though how much effort was put into Rihoko's wardrobes though. Nearly every other episode she had a new outfit for the ENTIRE run of the show. Which is impressive. Character designs overall got the job done though. They were following the Mangaka's art, so no complaints. Oh yeah, there are literally no frames in which characters look off character or goofy, which is extremely surprising.
The backgrounds, and environments are beautifully drawn. Very Colorful and vibrant. Something that only hand drawn Animation cells can achieve. I really enjoyed looking at all the lush green countrysides and towns, snowy mountains, big blue oceans and skies. Just very nice to look at. I can't praise it enough.
-Animation
The animation is fluid and there were no reused animation sequences. You can clearly tell they had a good budget with this series. The fights are well done, regular movement is well done, Vehicle movement is well done. This is just a well animated show.
- The setting
The story takes place in more of a Western setting. If I had to guess likely the early 1900's since there are planes, trains, automobiles, telephones and other kinds of early technology. The technology in this Anime is actually very consistent.You won't find anything that will break immersion here. In terms of locations you'll see everything from countrysides, deserts, islands, snowy mountains, small villages, small towns and huge cities. There's definitely a lot variety here.
- The World building
The world building is excellently done here. The people that live in it have real problems and feel like real people. We get to see how the aftermath of the War has affected these people through each episode and it really immerses you into the world and care about the people in it. Definitely the strongest point of this series was how this is handled.
- Overall enjoyment
I really enjoyed Ninku. The World was great, the main cast was great and aren't preachy like in a lot of Shonen Anime. However I do wish that there were more fights but the fights it did have were well animated and didn't drag. I also would have loved if more time was spent on developing and using the cast of villains they had as well as made the plot a bit more tight.
Overall I think this Anime is really underrated. For the World Building alone and Main cast I really recommend this. If you're a fan of Naruto it's also a treat to see where Kishimoto the author of Naruto drew a lot of his inspiration and ideas from.
If you're a fan of Shonen give this a shot but be warned this is not a battle Shonen, Characters aren't going through training arcs, tournament arcs, or getting power ups and having long dragged out battles. So if that's what you are looking for you won't get it here. However if you want a different kind of Shonen that is different from the norm I really suggest you watch this.
- Final Thoughts
It's really a shame that a show that had so much money and effort put behind it just couldn't take off the way they expected it to. Cause this Anime had great production value for its time and even had several video games and other merchandise. I'm guessing kids couldn't really connect with some of the adult themes in this Anime like they could with other shows at the time.
Ninku really is an interesting piece of work. I've never seen a Shonen Anime that made the world and characters all feel so.. well real. Truly a lost gem in my opinion even with its flaws.
