Mad House productions have done it, they succeeded in bringing the feature length anime legend to the small screen. OK the new style of the characters takes a little while getting used to, and the story has it's weaker points, but when you compare it to other samurai-sword-fight-anime it's way superior to all others. First of all the series looks good, very good, almost as good as a feature film. The animation is snappy and the colors are great... no negative marks on this point. Second of all the action is way cool, the enemies get really crazy towards the end of the series and Jubeï has to hack and slash his way through them. Which is quite a job believe you me, because there are more enemy characters then you can shake a stick at. A minor point here, maybe some of them die a little too fast, but on the other hand this underlines Jubeï's superiority. His ultrafast attacks are very cool and if you should not understand his technique, you should watch the movie and maybe you'll see he does hit his enemy with his sword... Now the story itself. The story is pretty basic, but has some strong points still. The return of certain characters in later episodes gives the story an emotional charge. Also we know more then the main characters so we begin to sympathize with certain enemies. Still the story is the weaker aspect of this series, still cool but sometimes (not often mind you) a little disappointing. Conclusion: If you are a fan of anime you should check out this series NOW, if you are a fan of the movie, BUY NOW, you won't regret it. But remember it's a series, with a much lower budget and a smaller team as the movie. Still pretty nifty though.
Review of Ninja Scroll: The Series
