Ninja Nonsense Complete Series – Review

Title: Ninja Nonsense
Alternate Title: Ninja Nonsense: The Legend of Shinobu
Published by: Siren Visual (Australia / New Zealand) & Nozomi Entertainment (North America)
Based on: Manga Series under the same name by Ryoichi Koga
Genre: Comedy
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Runtime: 320 Minutes
Cost: $39.95
Classification: This title is rated M for Crude Humour, Sexual References and Coarse Language
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to the Siren Visual PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.

Comedy series can either be a big hit or a big miss in the anime industry nowadays especially as more and more titles are making their way over to international shores, and the next comedy series on my review slate is Ninja Nonsense, a title that was released a couple of years back by Nozomi Entertainment in North America and just last month made its way to Australia thanks to Siren Visual. While I am open to review almost any type of anime series, I am personally one for a good plot – but as with most comedy series… from the first episode I was willing to forgo the plot preference provided they kept up the adrenaline filled non-subtle “nonsense” for the entire 12 episode series. Did it fulfill this requirement or does it fall into the “okay” category many before it have landed? Read on to find out in my review of Ninja Nonsense: The Legend of Shinobu.

Take one totally cute (and naive) ninja-girl trainee, add a ninja horde under the tutelage of a perverse headmaster – a strange, yellow, spherical, pudgy… creature… named Onsokumaru – and you get the kind of “super-explosive ninja insanity” that can only be found in what’s been called “the runaway nuclear reactor” of anime comedies!

Let’s be honest, there are plenty of shows that focus around ninja clans or ninja related plotlines…. take Naruto as one of the more popular examples a hefty number of anime fans would have at least watched one episode of. We also have plenty of comedies available on the market and I am sure almost every anime fan would have watched one of them. But then there hasn’t really been a series that mixes and matches the concepts of each to present a comical ninja tale set in modern day Japan…. and you know what… it worked much better than I expected. The series does not rely on any form of plot to bring the story across, infact most of the episodes are just episodic in nature and exist to bring out the eccentricities of every character and ninja present in the series and work to get chuckles, giggles and laughter from the home viewers (Between you and me, it got all three of them).

Of course, this is called Ninja Nonsense for a reason, therefore you should be expecting the all important fanservice and childish/crude humour to pop up frequently meaning this series might not be to the tastes of everyone, but for those like this mixed in with some slapstick comedy, yuri and a whole bunch of ninjas doing completely non-ninjaish things than welcome to your series! While the characters all prove to make up a highly enjoyable cast, there is without a doubt one character that really makes the series what it is…. a perverted yellow ball known as Onsokumaru who is originally introduced as providing main character Shinobu with several hundred options for her exam – of which she chooses to steal high school girl panties in which she thereforth makes friends with Kaede Shiranui and brings her into the world of the comical ninja. This one yellow talking ball provides much comedy from transforming into a creepy human shape, having delusional perverse fantasies relating to female characters and getting attacked by everything from Shinobu’s little sister Miyabi to a gigantic talking crocodile who keeps eating him.

There is a sizable cast included in the series, some of which only appear for an episode or two while others are recurring throughout the whole series, each bringing with them their own eccentric personalities or means of reacting to the crazed ninja clan so in this regards they do attempt at keeping the humour fresh. I didn’t actually watch this series all at once but spread it over the course of four days with a disc each day and to be honest the comedy kept me satisfied all the way through even if they did perhaps toe the line between comical and bland at points. Either way, while there is little plot and only some character development – both the Japanese writers for the series and Nozomi Entertainment’s ADR team really managed to put across a comical series with creative writing where only small sections of the series are not vying for you laugh.

While most comedy series seem to take a hit when it comes to visual designs, the production quality proved to be pretty impressive. The animation quality really helped add to the comedy of the series which relied on fast-paced action and spontaneous bits and pieces that were well implemented. Character designs were perhaps a bit on the average side of things, however judging from a small bit of the manga series I looked over, it holds true to the source material and it makes me wonder if they would have been able to pull off the comedic animation with any other designs. Either way they do have it lucky considering that a majority of the series characters are infact ninjas with masks over their heads – but they use it to their advantage by providing them ample opportunity to be Masked Ninjas with (X), where X could be anything from a bikini to pink tutu to say…. just an army of classic ninjas. Environment designs were also a bit on the basic side.

While the instrumental soundtrack was honestly a bit on the unmemorable side to me – perhaps due to the fact that there are many other things going on the screen at any one time, the series opening and ending sountracks were actually pretty good. The opening sequence “Shinobu Sanjou! by Kumano Kiyomi” was an upbeat track featuring occasional dubbed voice inclusions by Onsokumaru and Shinobu, ninja inspired lyrics and was pretty enjoyable while the ending sequence “Kuru Kururin by kaoru” perhaps wasn’t as interesting in the music department but I loved the whole ninja inspired stop motion animation they had going on with the sequence. The voice cast was perhaps the biggest element that could have made or break this series and I have to admit that while there was some evident rewriting going on to ensure the comedy flowed better with English fans, the English voice cast was much better than the Japanese ones hand down in matching their characters personalities and putting across the jokes (Of course this is a comedy series so it might just depend on how competent you are in a particular language). Sean Schemmel whose most notable work previously is as Goku in Dragon Ball Z voiced Onsokumaru and played the role perfectly, although most of the other voice roles were filled by people suited to their respective roles as well.

This series could quite possibly be the most extra-filled release ever done by Siren Visual to date (or perhaps rivaled with Dennou Coil Part 2) which while I cannot completely tell – may be due to the release being the same as Nozomi Entertainment’s in North America which was also crammed with extra content. But irrespective of why, we have been granted with a smorgasbord of bonus content over the four discs including:

•  TV Spots (18 in total)
• Clean Japanese Opening Sequences (1, 2 and 3)
• Clean Japanese Closing Sequence
• US Trailer for the Series
• Character Biographies
• Japanese Cast Interviews (Two in Total)
• Kuru-Kuru Rin (Closing) Full Size

One thing that is slightly unfortunate is that the usual slipcovers that Siren Visual are well known for including with their releases was missing in their release of Ninja Nonsense which was a slight disappointment.

When it all comes down to it, I am happy to say that Siren Visual started their 2012 anime releases with a very interesting choice of anime considering their usual releases, but I feel it has paid off as they have delivered one of the best comedies I have watched in a fair while and look forward to seeing more releases like this in the next eleven months. Of course, I could not recommend it to anyone who does not like immature and at times crude humor…. but everyone else should consider giving it a shot! Kudos go to Nozomi Entertainment and Siren Visual for deciding to release this series to the English market. I personally recommend as there are four discs each with three episodes on each, watching a single disc a day as not only does it prolong the humour but I think it might help you appreciate it more than getting one big comedy hit.