Well, it was fun. A bit obnoxious in how how the characters keep screeching and yelling -- one of the things that barred me from going near any anime for years -- but still well worth your time.
It's about a group of ninjas-in-training who are tasked with recovering a scroll (what else?) and are pitted against monsters and wizard warriors with various abilities, not unlike characters from a fighting game.
Something we, ninja fans, are quite used to, right? If I'm not mistaken, these plot tropes of varied ninja magicians fighting against each other in attempts to obtain a scroll stems from the Ninja Scrolls series of novels by Futaro Yamada.
Overall, it's like a more light-hearted Youtouden: Wrath of the Ninja, but it's way less serious and convoluted. It has plenty of ninja action and one sequence of castle infiltration got me smiling as I'm fresh off completing a Tenchu game.
There was a cute nod to kaiju movies there two -- the giant frog vs mecha-beetle reminded me of Godzilla Raids Again, with a castle serving as an epic backdrop.
Production-wise, the animation is top-notch,the voice actions is good, the action is exciting and the music is superb.
Wikipedia prompts that one man, Eiji Suganuma, directed, storyboarded it and designed the characters. You have to respect that.
I'd prefer if the characters looked more like ninjas and less like idoru or strippers, but eh, what can you do?.. Historical shinobi no mono looked anything but the image we've used to, so...
Despite me wrinkling my nose at the excessive screeching, I did go online to look what other titles were voiced by Mami Nakajima (Matsuri), I liked her performance that much.
It was sad to learn that Takeo Miratsu, the composer whose music I liked so much (his work in The Abashiri Family guided me to Ninja Cadets) died from liver cancer at the age of 46. Too soon, man!..
The anime ends pretty abruptly, something I'm also quite used to by this point. It was a fun experience, hence a bit higher rating. Masterpiece it is not, but if you're looking for some fun ninja action you might do just fine.
