English Dub Review: Ninja Kamui “Episode 6”

Overview

Following the aftermath of last episode’s climatic battle. Joe finds himself taken in by a very familiar ally…

Our Take

Ninja Kamui continues to surprise. For better or for worse.

Getting the massive twist out of the way: Emma suddenly turning out to be a double agent. I know just a few episodes ago I was complaining about our buddy-cop duo feeling pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Can’t say I was expecting the show to prove me wrong in such a crazy way. I don’t mind Emma suddenly having the spotlight and giving her character more relevance… It’s just how they did it is what irks me. 

Aside from one quick hint last episode, we don’t get any major hints about her knowing more than she lets on– I guess some of the hacker talk in past eps, maybe. But that still isn’t enough for me, and they don’t stop at her being a double agent either. They continue to double down, revealing that she also saved Joe’s life in the very first episode by injecting him with a serum that only made everyone else think he was dead temporarily. Instead of making her a double agent, she’s just full on omnipotent at this point, apparently! I have no problem with Ninja Kamui channeling its over the top nonsense in creative ways– especially for the fights! But here, it’s less fun and more head-scratching. 

Speaking of another head-scratcher, we finally figure out the significance of the show’s title. It’s literally Ninja Kamui. Joe is a Ninja, and the badass mecha suit Emma makes for him is the Kamui. Which, given that most of this week’s fight was in mech suits already, indicates the shift from hand-to-hand combat to full on mecha fights. This week’s fight wasn’t terrible, but much less engaging than what came before. The pilot had Joe slicing through hundreds of ninjas like it was nothing, the kind of action that instantly grabs the viewer’s attention. The over-the-top nature is still felt in the fights, but CG makes them lose that brutal sense of physicality that the hand-to-hand combat oozes with. Given that next week’s preview shows Joe fighting with his Kamui in CG… My complaints are still going to hold water. But we’ll see. 

Massive shifts in the status quo I wasn’t expecting from a show like this. Not necessarily for the better. Let’s see where it takes us.