From far in the outer rings of the season preview comes Shinobi no Ittoki, an original focused on the lives of ninjas in modern Japan. Seems to me we used to see quite a few ninja-themed anime back in the day, though not so much in recent years. If you know your ninja history you know the two leading clans were the Iga and the Koga, and the villages that bear their names are today the epicenters of the shlock-driven ninja tourist trade, which seems to fascinate Japanese and foreigners alike.
This series, produced at Troyca, doesn’t have any standout names in the staff. But boy, the cast is star-studded – including Ohsaka Ryouta as the middle-school Iga Ninja protagonist Sakuraba Ittoki and “ever 17” Inoue Kikuo as his mom Yuka, with many more big names to come. I get the sense from the premiere that Ohsaka and Inoue do a lot to elevate the material, but that has a limited shelf life. The basic premise is that Yuka has never told her son his true identity. Instead she plays the Kyouiku mama role to the hilt, forcing Ittoki into non-stop academic and extracurricular activities and ensuring that he has absolutely no social life.
Ittoki does find out the truth eventually – when his first date (which he goes on despite his mother forbidding it, with the held of his also-a-ninja uncle) turns out to be a Koga ambush. The basic premise that ninjas with their secret lives in modern Japan isn’t a new one, and it can certainly work. But this thing about not telling the child they’re the heir to (fill in here) is already a very tired trope I can live without. That said it’s over and done with now, and the episode on the whole certainly wasn’t half-bad. The action sequences were decent and apart from the mother, most of the characters made a decent impression.
My concern, as with any original series without a writer with a track record, is whether the material itself has any staying power. The direction is fine, the cast is strong, the premise has potential. But things already cross into silly (not in a good way), and this is just the first episode. It’s too early to make a call and there were moments here where I rather enjoyed this premiere, but I feel like the odds of Shinobi no Ittoki having legs aren’t great.
Todd Clawson
October 8, 2022 at 5:34 am“this thing about not telling the child they’re the heir to (fill in here) is already a very tired trope I can live without” I guess it plays into the audience fantasy that a supposedly normal person discovers that they are actually something really cool and secret that few other people are aware of. Kind of like discovering you are wizard and are going to a magic school when you turn 11. I do agree though that it is a pretty annoying trope. It just really doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t tell your kid that the whole family are ninjas especially if you still have enemies around. About the only time I ever thought it made some sense was D.N. Angel where the main character wasn’t told he could turn into Dark Mousy. His Mom didn’t tell him because she wasn’t even sure if it would happen and its not like the main character would have suffered any consequences or had any enemies if he had just lived a normal life so why potentially mess up his life with false expectations. It has been a long time since I watched the show though and that was with fan subs so I may be remembering things wrong.
Nicc
October 11, 2022 at 6:58 amHello there, long time listener, first time caller.
I also agree that’s a tired trope that I was hoping that we’d leave behind in the Heisei era. That said, it seems that he has a decent foundation to build on as he’s proficient in academics and athletics. He skillfully dodged that truck that might have isekai-ed him to a different series, in what almost certainly part of the set-up. One of the characters wearing a facemask full-time doesn’t seem so strange anymore considering the we’re still living with COVID. All in all, it was a decent start and I’ll watch at least one more episode.