Berthier - Ninja Scroll

The 1993 anime Ninja Scroll was an intense blend of fantasy and reality of Shinto values and intense crime fighting scenes that meshed to create a fascinating plot and character structure. The symbolism that came along with the film was very evident and came through well regardless of the fast paced plot line.  The main character, Jubei, has been considered by some to be a Japanese Robin Hood. When the comparison was first brought to my attention, I didn’t really see the resemblance. The only the thing I could really see being close to a “Robin Hood” like act was when he saved Kagero, the love interest in the story from being raped by one of the demons Tessai.

            I was originally confused by how much rape was in this film. It was almost considerably alarming. The thing that intrigued me about it though was that American films really don’t mesh these types of serious ordeals with the fantasy world. Japanese Shinto culture on the other hand is very keen on mixing both of the two ideals together, which is very foreign to all American films. This movie was originally very hard for me to understand because there were so many different characters and the plot line really didn’t all come together until about twenty-five minutes into the film.

I thought it was interesting how Kagero was portrayed. She was at first somewhat of a mysterious character, but when her secret is revealed and the audience finds out that she can’t be loved because anyone who even kisses her will fall to their knees and parish, the movie starts to make much more sense. My favorite part of the whole movie is when the seductive demon named Benisato is trying to get secrets out of Jubei and the snake tattoos come off of her body and surround him. Then when Kagero comes behind Benisato and she has the most poisonous snake come out of her genitalia and Kagero got attacked, the movie goes haywire! What Benisato did not know was that when the snake bit Kagero it was the end of Benisato’s life. I thought that was genius and would watch this movie again.