Highlights
- Episode 12 of Ninja Kamui is not the finale, despite previous confusion, leaving room for more exciting developments.
- Dilly’s story feels rushed, Mike shines in a fistfight, and Higan learns important lessons about the ninja code.
- Higan’s growth as a protagonist may be contorted, but the supporting cast brings the story full circle before the potential grand finale.
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Show Title |
Ninja Kamui |
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Director |
Sunghoo Park |
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Studio |
E&H Production |
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Episode Air Date |
4/27/2024 |
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Ninja Kamui, Episode 12, now streaming on Max.
If anyone was confused and was certain that this would be the last episode of Ninja Kamui, don’t worry, you weren’t going crazy; the episode count given by producer Jason DeMarco was incorrect. And frankly, it’s a blessing, because no matter how much cool stuff happened in the last episode, the last thing this series has earned is a cliffhanger – there’s not nearly enough gas in the tank.
Episode 11 was by far one of the best since the early episodes, thanks to a return to form by way of good old-fashioned ninjutsu, martial arts, and a tried and true rivalry between old friends. It wasn’t perfect, and the spectacle felt like a reminder of what the show up to that point could have been, but it appropriately built hype for a finale… or, what was thought to be the finale.
This Week’s Episode Has No Time to Dilly-Dally
Between protecting Joseph last week to fighting Yamaji this week, Dilly’s story felt like a speedrun of a potentially compelling arc that wasn’t given quite enough time to make sense. Her feeling indebted to Joseph for valuing her opinion rather than treating her like just a soldier feels on-theme for how this story approaches the life of a ninja. However, it makes her death feel all the more unfortunate when the audience remembers that she did all this for Joseph.
Of all the people she could ride or die for, it was a megalomaniacal CEO who has been – to the story’s strength – characterized as a manchild. This shortsighted decision sorta saps a lot of the empathy one might have for Dilly. It brings to mind a previous episode when Emma praised Auza as “pretty cool if you ignore their blatantly evil scheme,” as if the screenwriters decided that being too anti-capitalist might be a bridge too far.
Again, Why the Gusoku Gears?
Dilly’s main argument for why she defends Joseph is because he can bring about “change,” her prime example being the Gusoku Gears, which Yamaji covets, sorta proving her point. But once again, the mech suits feel sorta redundant whenever the audience is shown what characters are capable of doing without them. Yamaji stomps a large chunk out of the floor and kicks it at a fully armored Dilly without even taking his hands out of his pockets.
Nothing about the power scaling changes to a meaningful degree. Only the animation style changes, just with the added omission of anything intrinsically tied to the ninja aesthetic. Now that Yamaji has ditched Auza as a public front, he’s eschewed the whole “working in the shadows” part of the ninja code and deploys the Gusoku Gears en masse to take over the country. This is actually where Mike steals the show.
Mike Fights Back in His Own Way
Early on in the show, Mike Moriss felt like he could have easily been the weakest part of the cast because it wasn’t as though he could hold his own in a fight against ninjas. Very quickly, though, as the series started to delve into its wackier corporate conspiracy plotline, he ended up being one of the more entertaining parts of the show, especially when the animation faltered. He’s funny, his partnership with Emma was endearing, and he found his own way to combat Auza.
It says something about the quality of the action in the latter half of this series that one of the most impactful action scenes is Mike’s brief fistfight with his old partner. The whole series, he’s been shoved off the case, labeled an outlaw, and betrayed by his oldest friend. Now he just gets to sit in the hot seat and still make demands while he’s holding the cards for once, thanks to the data leaked by Jason. Not the most original outcome, but a satisfying endgame for Mike nonetheless.
Higan Learns the Truth About the Ninja Code
For a while now, Ninja Kamui has been articulating a thesis of sorts about what it is to live a life in service of an ideal. It takes the traditional idea of a ninja and confronts it with the march of time, technology, and changing politics to challenge the hero to embrace a more nuanced perspective on what it is to be a ninja. Higan’s encounter with the old chief puts this entire conflict into perspective by framing it as a difference in opinion about how to evolve with the times.
Neither Higan nor Yamagi follow the code because the former abandoned it for love and the latter abandoned it to exceed the code’s mandate by conquering as opposed to working from the shadows. But the chief’s lesson is that Higan, Mari, and Zai weren’t wrong to follow their hearts and that the code should never have been absolute, but merely a guideline.
Has Higan Grown As a Protagonist?
As for how the leading man responds to all this, it feels a bit like the show is trying to contort itself to make it seem as if Higan has had more growth than he has. When he expresses confusion as to why the old chief has looked after him, he cites one such reason being that he “grew a personality” which did evoke an unexpected chuckle. He has been almost immune to a personality – or at least an interesting one – for the lion’s share of the series.
With that said, however, there is this nice sort of montage of those Higan has met on his journey, who he describes as the people who “gave him life again.” It’s a nice way to articulate his ultimate lesson and acknowledge the weight pulled by the supporting cast. Granted, it would have hit harder had he interacted with them more, but at least it’s something to bring the story full circle before the end.
Assuming Adult Swim doesn’t have a fourteenth episode tucked away, then next week will be the honest-to-goodness grand finale. Higan and Yamaji will go head-to-head and, unsurprisingly, they will do so in the Gusoku Gears. There’s always the chance they’ll ditch the suits halfway, but whether they do or not, Ninja Kamui‘s ending needs to be more than “okay.”
Source: Jason DeMarco on Twitter/X
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