Julien Neaves, Editor
In 1995 the English dub of awesome anime film Ninja Scroll was released and blew away Western audiences. It was therefore not surprising 1997 OVA Ninja Resurrection (Demon Realm Reincarnation: Portrait of Hell) would be marketed outside of Japan as a Ninja Scroll sequel despite having no direct connection to the influential anime film.
Now the protagonist of Ninja Resurrection is a fictionalised version of real-life historical samurai Yagyū Jūbē Mitsuyoshi and Ninja Scroll’s hero is also based on the same person, and both the OVA and first film feature a group of demonic characters with varying abilities. But Ninja Resurrection is a much darker, weirder and less straightforward story. With a resurrected SPOILER ALERT let’s dive on in:
OVA 1 – The Cant of Hell
The first OVA has the highly misleading subtitle “The Revenge of Jubei”. There is nothing in the story for him to avenge and he actually features very little in the story. The focus is on Amakusa Shirō, a messianic figure who leads a small group of Christians against the shogunate during the Shimabara Rebellion. We spend so much time with the group one would assume that we are supposed to root for them. Which makes it disconcerting when we see the shogunate soldiers and Jubei slashing the small band to bloody pieces. And there is a LOT of gore, including the brutal murder of two young children which was extremely uncomfortable to watch.
Jubei and his fellow warriors enter the fray with zero backstory or no development. There is no explanation as to who they are or why they have anachronistic weaponry like a bazooka-like device and super armour. Shirō also goes very quickly from kindly Christian leader to a villain with inexplicable psychokinetic powers that summons a dragon made from bricks. The final battle is a decent one, but the build-up was so inconsistent that it was difficult to be invested in what happens. We then have the twist that Shirō’s lieutenant Mori wanted to turn him into the devil and not a Christ-figure. And then his daughter Ocho has sex with the dying leader after her father’s severed finger crawled into her. It is all just very strange and disturbing.
OVA 2 – Hell’s Spawn
The first OVA is odd but at least the story is a consistent one. The same cannot be said for the second OVA, Hell’s Spawn. The opening has Jubei goofing off with a couple of children and making for extremely dull viewing. We get some Jubei backstory, hints of a conspiracy and an unsettling rape and murder scene that did remind me of Ninja Scroll, but not in a good way.
The rest of the OVA has some demonic resurrected ninjas killing other ninjas, which admittedly did look cool. And then we watch Ocho go through a brutal and disgusting ritual to birth the new evil Shirō. Evil Shirō with his new magical hair powers joins in the fray to slaughter a bunch of innocent men, women and children. Was this supposed to be entertaining, because I was not entertained.
The OVA ends abruptly with a freeze frame on the baddies, and it was clear we were supposed to get at least a third installment when Jubei would battle Shirō and the resurrected ninjas, but none was ever made. And while Ninja Resurrection is gorgeously animated the messed-up, messy and incomplete story makes it a difficult one to recommend. Better to just rewatch Ninja Scroll for the twentieth time.
Editor Jules’ Score: 5 out of 10
Have you seen Ninja Resurrection? How would you rate it? And you check out more retro ninja anime below:
Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by the Cryptkeeper, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “13 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.