Anime: Ninin ga Shinobuden: The Nonsense Kunoichi Fiction

(Writers note: If you read this review, RATE this review. Authors thrive on feedback, whether it be a simple happy face, or an in-depth critique.)

Summary/Outline: THHBBBBPPPTTTT! Yeah, right. Summary/Outline my ass! It's not called the Nonsense Kunoichi Fiction for nothing, you know?

2x2 Shinobuden contains a very wierd set of characters. First, there is Shinobu, a female ninja in training. She is an absolutely horrid ninja, with an absolutely horrid teacher. Her master is a little floating yellow blob with wings that spends most of his screen time screaming and trying to get into Shinobu's pants. Shinobu's best friend ("We're more than friends, but less than lovers!") is Kaede, a young female student who first meets Shinobu when she catches Shinobu breaking into her house to steal underwear for one of her master's "Tests". There are also the master's other students, with names that don't really matter, since there are at least two dozen of them, and they all look the same, wearing the same black ninja outfits.

2x2 Shinobuden is an anime rarity: A pure comedy. No drama, no action, (unless they're trying to make you laugh) no moral-of-the-story bullshit. Just pure, unadulterated comedy. When it comes to a series like this, there is only one important question. Is it funny? The answer is Yes... most of the time.

For those of you reading this review, feel free to stop now. The important question has been answered. What follows is a standard by-the-numbers rundown of the Animation, Sound, Story, etc. All completely irrelevant in a pure comedy. The animation can be single frame atrociousness, the sound can be deliberately scratchy and out of sync. The story can be nonexistant. The only thing that matters is this:

Did...

you...

laugh?


The animation in Shinobuden is rather well done. Very few still or repeated frames. The animation is smooth and adorable. I particularly like the way Shinobu herself is drawn. Sexy and innocent. (though a little too young) The style isn't particularly unique, but it is well rendered, and fluid. The ending credits are done in claymation, which was a surprising switch, and worked pretty well. Well enough for ending credits at least.

The opening song is catchy and amusing, though it relies quite abit on the animation that goes along with it. Not something you want for your car stereo, but it adds to the goofy feel of the opening credits. The ending song follows the same guidelines. The Sound Effects were excellent, making you laugh or smile without drawing attention to themselves.

The story doesn't exist, which I'm pretty sure is on purpose. If you've seen series such as Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemi, or Oruchuban Ebichu, then the lack of a coherent story is nothing new. The plot revolves around zany Seinfeld-esque situations, such as Shinobu raising a plant (which eats birds, ninja, cats, and roofing tiles whenever Shinobu isn't looking), or Kaede getting a cold and being treated by the entire ninja squad.

One of the problems in Shinobuden is the master himself, Onsokumaru. He's loud, vulgar, unnattractively animated (whether it's on purpose or not is irrelevant. The feeling is the same), and during the early episodes, very annoying. In my opinion, he's given far too much screen time, more than Shinobu herself. He does grow on you a bit, becoming more funny and less annoying in the second half. However, he never ceases to be loud, unnattractive, and obnoxious, which is bound to turn off some viewers.

All in all, I had a lot of fun watching 2x2 Shinobuden. It took some getting used to, since it's been a while since I last saw this type of Excel Saga zany humor. It eventually grew on me, however, and I found myself laughing at some of the wierdest jokes ever put to text and animated. The final episode is the best by far, with the master and his trainies discussing bad anime plots/characters/animation. I found myself nodding during most of their discussion, as well as laughing maniacally.

If you liked Excel Saga, you're gonna love 2x2 Shinobuden. If random humor isn't your style, stay away. Far far away.

Have you ever been up really really late, and been really really tired, (perhaps even really really drunk) and suddenly started coming up with really stupid ideas that seem hilarious at the time but, when you wake up the next morning, strike you as completely stupid? That's 2x2=Shinobuden in a nutshell. The authors give you fair warning when they call it the "Nonsense Kunoichi Fiction," so consider yourself forewarned.

Supposedly, the story is about Shinobu, an apprentice Kunoichi (female ninja) who meets an ordinary girl named Kaede, and the friendship that develops, but that story is really an excuse for the authors to toss in whatever stupid jokes they can come up with at the time. And somehow, it turns out to be extremely hilarious.

ANIMATION

Cute as heck. That's all I can say. Character designs are quite cute, although every girl seems to be constantly blushing for some reason. Onsokumaru is a nightmare come to life. And the closing credits sequence had me rolling out of my chair giggling.

SOUND

Ayako Kawasumi plays Kaede, a fact which I didn't notice until AFTER I finished watching the series (I'm so used to her playing serious parts that I didn't expect to find her in such a farcical series). That always scores brownie points with me. Of course, all the voices are all quite well done, and the music (BGM and both credits) is well suited for the tone of the series.

STORY

What story? Any story that exists is an excuse for the authors to toss in more jokes, usually revolving around parody, toilet humor, and implied lesbian tendencies. We don't need to steenking story.

On the other hand, the final episode of the series was freaking hilarious - basically, it revolves around the ninja clan arguing about how the series should end. We see cliche endings from everything from magical girl anime to sports anime as the cast tries to come up with the greatest ending to an anime series ever.

CHARACTER

All the characters are HILARIOUS. We've got the stupidly naive yet good hearted ninja, the "straight man," the clan of comic relief ninja punching bags, the disapproving younger sister, the truly competent kunoichi, a crocodile in a ninja outfit. . . and Onsokumaru. Onsokumaru just defies any attempt at description. He's like a three year old on amphetamines crossed with a dirty old man. You just have to watch, then you will begin to understand.

VALUE

It's hit and miss, really. Certain episodes are hilarious enough that once you're done you want to watch it again immediately. Others are more long and tedious than funny. But it's good enough that I'd keep ahold of it for future viewing.

CONCLUSION

Ninin ga Shinobuden isn't going to win any awards for serious drama or character development, but if you're looking for a nice perk-me-up or a quick laugh and you're not too squeamish about some relatively dirty humor, it does the job. If they had released it in fifteen minute shorts, it might work better: half an hour of this brand of humor is a bit much for me, but that's one of the advantages of not having to watch it on network television, I suppose.

Ninin ga Shinobuden similar to Azumanga Daioh is a random freefor all anime with a touch of ecchi involved. While only released in 2004 it's gained a moderate following in only a couple monthes. Azumanga's release in 2002 got people thinking about comedy in new ways, looking more for an extreme episodic view than more popular serialization view.

The drawing style of shinobuden is a mixture of the most extremely cute drawing style and ecchi. It works with the story lines and feeling of the show, but it's not perfect.

The voice actors of the series is pretty good, even though there's only a handful, the fact that there's only one male character for an entire group of ninjas might raise one's eyebrows but since they are generic (on purpose) it also works good.

The opening song of Shinobuden requires special menation. Shinobuden is a random type of show and the song prepares you for it. The song is extremely enjoyable and definatly fits in the show. The ending song is not the best but it still fits in with the ideas of the show. It's a very cute song.

The story of shinobuden is as for meantioned completely random. Only the final episode has any real continued story line and it only links with one line in the middle of the show. This doesn't ruin the feel of the show as it works. The show has tons of story lines. Each of the 12 episodes are split into 2 parts, there's no real link between the parts (except for the final episode). The story lines on a whole are entertaining. The first episode and last episode are absolutly 10s, there's a bunch of great episodes in the middle, almost all of them reaching 9. Though the reason why I can't give this that level is the first part of episode 11 feels so out of place it hurts the show's flow.

Connected to the story is the characters. The Shinobu is the main character of the show, a ninja and student. The other main characters are her friend Kaede, her sidekick, the master of the dojo. There is also a bunch of characters, including a decent sized cast of generic ninjas, which turns out not to detract from the beauty of the show.

The characters sadly don't grow too much, but in 12 episodes it's very hard to fit true character development. In the end the characters fit with the randomness of the show.

I first watched this show at the end of october 2004 when there was only 10 episodes out, I then rewatched the show in the final days of 2004 and the early days of 2005 and was greatly pleased with the show again. The show had me smiling for 40 percent of the time, laughing 50 percent of the time and shaking my head only 10 percent of the time (the begining of episode 11). I've seen most of the episodes twice now and don't feel like I wasted time by doing so. If there's a OVA I'm likely to watch the series once more.

While this is not a replacement in my collection for Azumanga Daioh, it's definatly got a space along side the series. It's not exactly the same, so those expecting a little bit of drama will be put off but this will definatly fill the need of comedy for anyone.

A plot- and mindless anime? Yes, but still a lot of fun.

Shinobuden is about a girl, Shinobu, who trains to be a ninja in a ninja-village. Onsokumaru, a strange yellow ball who can transform into a human-like shape is the leader of this village and there are a lot of other ninjas, who never take off their masks.
In the first episode Shinobu gets a mission from Onsokumaru and meets Kaede, a girl from the city. That starts a friendship between the two. Later Shinobu's sister, Miyabi, joins them as well as an alligator, Devil, and some other bizarre characters.

Shinobuden doesn't have any overall plot, rather it makes fun of a possible plot. Each part of an episode (every episode has two parts) has some general theme and everything else is pure comedy, (perverted) jokes and puns. A lot of other animes are being made fun of in this anime, a real feast for otakus. The ninja craft is target of a lot of perverted and sometimes disgusting jokes and especially in the beginning I had to laugh really hard about all of the jokes, especially the shuriken-scene in the 2nd episode got me (a must see for comedy fans). Sadly to the end the originality wears a bit off, but it still is fun to watch till the end.

The characters are what make this anime. The girl's designs are really cute and their voices really fit them. The fact that all of the ninja's look the same adds a lot to the comedy. Then there's the really perverted Onsokumaru who's really annoying at times but fits really well to this fun show and is responsible for a lot of the jokes and puns. This wouldn't be possible without a good seiyuu and Norio Wakamoto does a good work on giving him his voice and making him truely funny. But the greatest work is once again done by Tomokazu Seki who gives all of the ninjas his voice. He does a great job on giving them different nuances when they speak and without his ability wouldn't they sound as half as funny as they are.

The music is not outstanding but it fits to the overall feel of the anime. The opening, Shinobu Sanjou by Kumano Kiyomi and the ending, Kuru Kururin by Kaoru, are both fast and kawaii songs, interesting is the footage for the outro which shows dolls of Onsokumaru and the ninjas who are running around and chasing each other and is really something else. The background music and the effects are most of the time ok, though after a time you get tired of the continuously reappearing pieces and effects.

This anime is rather short with 12 episodes but it's more than enough. Once you've seen it completely it loses a lot since most of the jokes aren't that funny for the second time. But for the first time it's really funny, comparable with Dokkoida but not on the same level as Azumanga Daioh or Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai. Still I think if you enjoyed those animes you could like this one as well.