English Dub Review: Ninja vs. Gokudo “Part 4 The Great Burial of Love #2”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
I’ll make our dream come true!  Wishing to bring back their “golden age”, bosozoku “god” Hiroki Yajima raises a 30,000-strong biker gang that barrels down the Teito Highway, drenching it in blood and flames!  But Zanzo and his ninja are up for the fight and lie in wait at five points along the highway to confront the rampaging Seikaten Biker Gang Army.

Our Take:
All hell has officially broken loose as the Gokudo clan gained an extra hand in the form of an entire biker gang.  Given how these clans behave, even in bars, there’s no doubt we’ll be seeing a lot more chaos in the centuries-old war compared to earlier episodes.  This is the case when the Seikaten Biker Gang Army goes all out on innocent civilians to rid the world of adulthood, forcing the Eight Imperial Ninja to take action.  As a result, the episode cranks up the action a notch, showcasing the ninjas using their skills against their gokudo opponents.  While Zanzo and the others seem to have no problem decapitating their foes, Shinoha isn’t so fortunate, as he pits himself against Hiroki Yajima and his ricochet bullets.
Of course, the impact of the disarray would’ve been a lot more impactful if it had been given the proper direction of its storyline and voice performance than what we got now.  Seriously, is there anything else I should say about the voice acting that I haven’t said before?  It’s just straight-up unbearable, diminishing the show’s second-rate quality in every episode.  It also doesn’t help that the soap-opera-esque vocal performances made this week’s action-packed episode as hard-hitting as a pillow fight at a slumber party.  In addition to the poor voice acting, the direction of the action scenes felt extremely underwhelming and rushed, lacking the emotional impact and entertainment needed to elevate the narrative stakes of the ninja-vs-gokudo battle.  As a result, this grand war between the two clans still feels anything but grand, and at this point, I want them to just move on already.