The first thing that had me scratching my head was the fact that the main characters can even exist at all. Simply put, their parents never had a chance to bang in the original series. But, whatevs. They wanted a sequel so we can suspend some disbelief. However, they completely change the lore of their two techniques, adding in the Ouka, something that didn't exist in the original series and was basically pulled out of this writer's ass. The contradictions go on and on.
But, all of this would be forgivable if it was used to tell a good story. Spoilers: it wasn't. The thing that made the original show so good was seeing how the shinobi utilized their bizarre techniques. In Ouka Ninja Scrolls, the abilities are so watered down and boring, and aren't even used in creative ways. In the original there was the girl who could drain blood with skin contact, so she had to use her feminine wiles to seduce and deceive her enemies. In Ouka, the equivalent girl just stands there and induces lust. Much less interesting. Essentially, all the abilities and how they are used are much less interesting, which is a shame because that's what makes ninja fighting shows good.
But the worst part of it all is the story. SPOILERS AHEAD... not that you should care. The main villain is a discount version of Pain from Naruto. He wants people to know suffering so they'll choose peace, need more war, blah blah blah. But apparently he needs Nobunaga to do it. Yes, THAT Nobunaga. Why can't he just be the warlord? Dunno. He's got a castle that magically appears and is moving to Edo. Why can't the castle just appear by Edo? Dunno. In order to revive Nobunaga he needs the main characters to kill each other... or bang. Doesn't matter which. I've got no words for that one. And it just goes on and on getting worse and worse.
Seriously, this anime is like peeling the layers of the Stupid Onion. I've seen some dumb shit, and sometimes I even like dumb shit, but this is not even so bad it's good. This is just bad to the core. Save yourself 8 hours and learn how to use Microsoft Excel instead. You'll have more fun.
