Makai Tenshou

There comes a time in every anime watcher’s life that he or she must stare pure horror in the face and, as much as one may not want to, watch an anime that makes their skin crawl. My friends, this was my time.

I can honestly say that this anime did have a decent introduction. The narration, read over stills of maps and old pictures, paints a picture of a potentially decent story. The instant the real animation starts, however, all of the hype is lost in a sea of dismembered corpses. When I say sea, I mean it. The amount of blood and gore in ... these 2 OVA alone is more than enough to almost give Berserk and Elfen Lied a run for their money; even two children are slaughtered and their decapitated heads are shown to the viewer. If you think that these action scenes are well animated, think again. For a 1998 OVA, the animation is horrific, using stills to simulate the ninja “dashing” by and killing guards along the way. Let’s also not forget the gratuitous sex scenes that do absolutely nothing for the main story line and are equally difficult, if not more so, to stomach. Though the gloomy style of art fits well enough, it is no where near enough to bring this title out of mediocrity.

To make matters worse, Ninja Resurrection is historically based. If the producers would have stuck to the time period in question, this series may have gone down a bit easier. Instead, they decide that Jubei’s crew should have a little help in their battles. The ninjas somehow come across the wonders of 20th century technology in their fight against Shiro and his followers; one ninja even sports a rocket launcher (Yes, you read correctly) and another flies overhead with the aid of a jet pack. Keep in mind, folks, that this anime is taking place in the Japan of the 1600’s.

I really can’t say anything more without repeating myself. If you want a good series based off of real Japanese history, pick up something like Rurouni Kenshin instead. However, if you’re a masochist, then by all mean, pick up Ninja Resurrection at your own risk. Fair warning though, this might even be too painful for a masochist to watch.

Overview:

The fact that MAL has over 400,000 users and only 2,000 have seen Ninja Resurrection is truly a disappointment. Ninja Resurrection is a title that EVERYONE should have to witness in order to consider yourself a true anime fan. Otherwise, you will you be missing a critical instrument with which to measure bad anime.

This is another one of those titles that was considered LEGENDARILY bad among the few American diehard otaku in the early to mid 1990s. My generation all watched Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon, and DBZ regardless of whether or not we considered ourselves anime fans. We weren't even aware that those WERE ... anime, although we were vaguely aware that DBZ and Pokemon came from Japan. If you were an actual ANIME fan, you walked your ass down to the local video store and rented any random anime VHS you could find from the paltry selection available. There was no crunchyroll or ability to watch anime online, so that was really all you could do to see an anime that wasn't Pokemon or one of the 5 or so anime available on American TV. Some of those old anime VHS tapes turned out to be good like GITS and Akira, but most of the anime available to us at that time was absolute SHIT that was licensed for dirt cheap because no Japanese studios wanted those properties. That is one reason that the anime community in the US was VERY small at that time. Ninja Resurrection was marketed to US otaku as being a sort of sequel to the gorefest action movie Ninja Scroll, which was ( believe it or not) one of the better anime titles available in the US at that time. Unfortunately, Ninja Resurrection actually has NOTHING to do with Ninja Scroll. In fact, the original Japanese title translates to: "Demon Resurrection, the Portrait of Hell". This movie doesn't even HAVE ninjas in it! What does it have instead? Really bad voice acting and perhaps the stupidest plot in anime history!

Jesus Christ resurrects in Japan for some reason in the 1600s and attempts to lead a Christian revolt against the Tokugawa Shogunate. However, the Shogunate sends its best samurai to slay Jesus and defeat the Christian rebels. It turns out that Jesus is being manipulated by an evil Japanese general who says that God doesn't exist, but Satan does. Despite the miracle powers that Jesus shows off on multiple occasions in this anime, supposedly through the direct help of God. Our hero is Jubei, the samurai who is actually loosely based on a real life historical figure. Jubei tries to convince Jesus that he is being used, but Jesus is too stupid to realize this and attacks Jubei by transforming into a giant crystal dragon. This anime is where TVtropes.com got the phrase "crystal dragon Jesus" to describe EXTREMELY bullshit religious allusions and faux symbolism. After the EPIC line "Yeah, sic em Jesus!" is delivered by the evil general, Jubei fights and defeats Jesus by impaling him with his katana through a bell tower. This allows the general to move on to the next step in his plan. In turns out that there was some prophesy where if Jesus dies full of hatred after getting murdered by humans, he will resurrect next time as Satan. However, right after Satan is reborn...the OVA ends because the first 2 volumes sold virtually zero copies in Japan. Holy SHIT does this anime suck!

There is one thing that redeems this anime though. It is VERY entertainingly bad. Not only is the jumbled mess of a plot one of the stupidest things you are ever likely to see, but the English dub is HORRIBLE! Jesus is voiced by the same guy who also voiced Sonic in the first Sonic anime movie, and then never did anything again!

I'm tired of punk reviewers who don't actually know anything about anime saying how Bleach is the worst anime of all time, or Elfen Lied is the da worst animu EVAR! That is like someone who considers himself a car expert saying that the Ford F-150 truck is the worst automobile ever made. It has plenty flaws, there are better trucks out there, but to rant on about how EPICLY bad the F-150 is would quickly reveal to anyone with a brain that you don't actually know SHIT about cars! Ninja Resurrection is to anime what the Zaporozhets is to cars. Any car fanatic who actually knows what the fuck they're talking about will know THAT is a bad car. Any anime fan should know that Ninja Resurrection, is one of the epitomes of shitty anime!

There's really not much to say about this OVA, I rented it thinking I was getting something related to Ninja Scroll and instead I received a headache from trying to figure out how Jubei was suddenly missing an eye.

This was a gore-fest, which I don't necessarily have a problem with (I love Berserk, Elfen Lied, etc.) as long as I get some plot along with my disembodied heads. But not only was there gore but random violence against children, rape, satanic sacrifices, more rape, more innocent people getting slaughtered for no reason whatsoever... it gets annoying after about, oh, an hour of this.

I ... really wouldn't have minded this OVA so much if there was some point to it. I might actually say that I liked it, there was definitely a lot of potential, but in the end everything that happened meant nothing. The OVA just ends. We're just about to start this huge climatic battle against the forces of evil and satan's reincarnation and then... the credits roll.

There is no sequel, no continuation, nothing.

So I pretty much just wasted 90 minutes of my life watching an OVA that had no point to it. I want to resurrect the time I lost and will never get back!

NO! No, No, No, noooooo. Do not watch this. When people say they watched something that just wasted their time, this is how you will feel. Like you have literally had the physical embodiment of time ripped out of your soul. This was so awful. The violence. For many of us, violence is one of the reasons we watch anime. Almost everyone that views this complains about the violence. What you need to understand is that it is not the amount of violence that makes this terrible its the senseless irrelevance of it all. They desperately used shock value to attempt to obtain viewers. ~Oh ... no, this shinobi is entangling me in his mobile intestines~ Yeah, thats not cool, its stupid. For a moment I was starting to believe that this was some kind of Ninja Scroll parody. I mean the whole thing is goofy. Cutting off a guy's arms then having him have sex with a character that hasn't even been introduced yet... for no reason! This is the kind of garbage you can expect, along with poor animation and awful dialogue.

Being a fan of old school anime I just had to watch Ninja Resurrection.

There's plenty of action and samurai hack and slash.
I'll be willing to bet, it even has blood and gore enough to satisfy Dracula himself.

The OVA has some interesting characters that could really have turned it into a great watch.

Horror / blood & gore fans might find some of the scenes interesting, I know I did. Their not interesting enough to make me give the OVA a decent rating though.

The plot is so lacking that you end up wondering WTH you've just spent time watching.
...
Why you ask? Brief explanation... without spoiling anything... IF you really feel the urge to watch it.

Old school - check
Action / fighting / samurai - check
Blood and gore - check
Plot - FAIL
Background music - Semi fail
Ending - FAIL

Don't waste your time on it. There is SO much anime out there. Go spend your time on that instead.

Ninja Resurrection has become an infamous benchmark for terrible anime, branded as a waste of potential at its best, or an offensive and mean-spirited story at its worst.

Starting off with the good, Ninja Resurrection does have good production values. The animation stands out with its great direction, using color and darkness to their fullest potential, painting the scenery and characters in stark shadows that add to the dark setting. I could practically compare it to German expressionism, a style of film-making that enhances the mood of a story by using absurd angles, non-realistic set-designs, and strange characters.

The soundtrack fits the mood perfectly. You will ... hear classic Japanese flutes that could fit any martial arts series, trumpets signaling the coming of war, drums beating over violent battles, and haunting orchestras that linger over demonic rituals.

One sad misconception, the result of bad marketing, is that this series was sold as a sequel to Ninja Scroll. While they share a similar style and characters that are inspired by the same legends, there is nothing linking these two shows together.

Where Ninja Resurrection falls apart is its story and characters, both of which suffer from the same problems, being too fast-paced, needlessly edgy, and requiring you to have a lot of initial knowledge. Good-hearted characters will suddenly turn psychotic in a matter of seconds, without any build-up that excuses it. The anime will ask the audience to simply accept that the villains are evil for the sake of being evil, and it only serves to make the violence seem all the more meaningless. The dark presentation keeps pulling out tragedy and death as if from a magical hat. Christianity also plays a major role alongside all the excessive violence and rape, which makes it seem as though the series is consciously trying to stab every sensitive spot of the western audience. In addition to that, the story is based around reimagined historical figures and events, which means that this was mainly meant for a Japanese audience, one that can appreciate the crazy spin it gives their history.

Unbeknownst to most, there is a manga that continues the story. The manga holds the name Makai Tenshou and starts where the anime ends. The story is slightly better, if only for occasionally having great art, spending more time on building up the characters, and providing the fights that the anime promised but couldn’t show. Even with this additional knowledge though, the story still only manages to be average due to its one-dimensional villains, jarring style, and a nonsensical ending that - just like this anime - ends on a cliffhanger.

It is a bad anime, yet it won't leave you bored for a second, and for a prepared mind that goes in knowing what it's about, chances are it won't be as offensive. I would call it an interesting trainwreck. For me personally, most of the fun came from trying to make sense of what brought this jumbled mess of strange ideas and gore together. It is a series that can only be recommended to those that possess a morbid enough curiosity to see one of the worst executed stories in the medium.

I'm going to say it right off the bat, Makai Tenshou or Ninja Resurrection is by far the worst anime I have ever seen. Sure there might be objectively worse anime out there from a visual or technical standpoint, but in terms of sheer repulsiveness Makai Tenshou by far the last anime I ever want to see again.

First things first this anime is NOT a sequel to Ninja Scroll, another gory 90s ninja anime that came out a few years before, despite the fact that the makers of Makai Tenshou intentionally styled the cover art the same way and named the main character Jubei ... after the protagonist of the other film. In short even the producers new they had to falsely market this anime in order to get anyone to watch it.

The story (if you could call it that) follows Shimabara Rebellion, an actual historic event when Christians in Japan revolted against the Shogun. Except the catch is here that being a Christian here actually gives you special powers for some reason, and our two main characters, Jubei Yagyu and Amakusa Shirō are real life historical figures except the latter has superpowers and is the reincarnation of Jesis. Shirō/Jesus offers to sacrifice himself to Jubei to save the Christians civilians, which the latter accepts, but after seeing the army massacre all the Christians anyway, Shirō/Jesus becomes enraged and turns into a monster. God then tells Shirō/Jesus that God doesn't exist (makes sense yet?) and Shirō/Jesus vows to reincarnate into Satan.

The pacing of the anime is equally bad, one moment people are getting bloody murdered, the next there's a random scene of children fishing, then a flashback, then a rape scene, than people getting murdered again. There is very little characterization, nothing flows together, and it comes off more as random stuff being thrown at you than anything coherent. The dialogue is awful, with almost every line being exposition and having no connection to the previous lines.

The animation isn't the absolute worse, but it is still incredibly ugly and only gets worse in quality as the anime goes on. The best scenes were those at the beginning of the episode and those were entirely comprised of stock footage.

To add insult to injury the anime doesn't even have a proper ending, it just abruptly ends right before the climax is supposed to start. Not that it would have made this flick any more enjoyable, but it only aids in making this feel like an even bigger waste of time.

In conclusion I cannot un-recommend this anime enough. Makai Tenshou is too stupid for anyone who has a brain, blasphemous to anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of religion, too ugly for anyone who enjoys just action anime, and too abrupt and incoherent for the fraction of people out there who actually enjoy these type of overly gory trashy shows. This anime infuriated me this much that I felt I needed to write this review dissuading people from watching it, so take my word for its worth and skip it.

Lately I have been scouring the back end of this site’s top rated anime ranking for some of the worst, most obscure anime out there. It is in my search for strange and profoundly terrible anime that I discovered Ninja Resurrection. This short two part OVA tells about the war between Christians and the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 1600s, and much death and suffering ensues. Eventually the conflict escalates to a ritual involving the resurrection of Satan himself, where even more people die. The most significant thing about Ninja Resurrection is its gratuitous ultraviolence. Left and right people get dismembered and decapitated. Blood sprays ... and heads roll. It isn't particularly good gore either. It's too much, it doesn't stand out. It tries so hard to be impressive and I'm not shocked at all by what I'm seeing because it is so poorly utilized.

This anime is bad. The problem I have with it isn't the impaled babies or decapitated women and children; it's the missed potential. In some parts the direction is quite good, or at the very least interesting. These moments are so few and feel so out of place, it's as if they belong to a different anime. The very first thing that happens in part two is an example of this. A group samurai are standing in a field with the large moon gleaming overhead. Their swords glow blue in the moonlight. The scene is heavily shadowed with little color and it feels very gritty and tense. The blood and gore of the ensuing fight do a good job here as they stand out against the gray-blue palette of the scene. Why is this scene here? It is so stylistically mismatched with the rest of the anime (because it's actually decent) that I lament the loss of the time and care that went into creating it.

Another critical flaw is how the OVA ends. Ninja Resurrection builds up to a conflict between the main character Juubei and Satan and his gang. But there's no payoff. Satan slaughters a bunch of people at a festival. He and his ninja buddies jump over a building and the anime ends. Again, I will bang the gong of missed potential. I would've liked to see the story resolved. I was genuinely curious as to how Juubei was going to defeat Satan’s gang of undead ninja warriors. Maybe they just ran out of money and couldn't finish the story. If they had enough money, if the scenes were as consistently well constructed and if the narrative were easier follow then maybe Ninja Resurrection might be good, perhaps a cult classic. Instead it's just bad.

Even though I’ve written multiple paragraphs, I think that all that needs to be said about Ninja Resurrection can be summed up in a single sentence:

If the best scene in your anime is the one where a woman gets violated by a severed finger and has sex with a man until he dies, then there is a problem.

For the longest time, I have wanted to watch this because I thought it was connected to Ninja Scroll ( a movie I love). I remember seeing the preview/trailer for it on one of my Manga studio vhs tapes and was all "I must watch that someday!!!" Doesn't help that even the lettering for the title was done in the same style.

Later, after the internet had grown more and streaming and videos became way more prevalent, I found out the "lead" character was indeed named "Jubei". Just not "Kibagami". Which... didn't bode well. But I still wanted to watch it because the trailer still ... looked pretty good. All dark and atmospheric. Could still be worth watching, right?

So, jump to present-day and by now I finally found time to watch it - ALL TWO EPISODES - and was left going "what the fuck was this shit". I also was finally able to look up more information about it and no, it was never connected to Ninja Scroll. It was just marketed that way so it would sell better based on the popularity of that movie. It's also an unfinished OVA series. So yeah I just wasted my time watching this.

The gore (to the point where it felt waaaay unnecessary in many instances), the rape (all of it too much, also unnecessary, gratuitous and gross), a ridiculous amount of brutality, and disturbing imagery, all these things made this fucking thing even more of a slog to get through and just plain left a bad taste in my mouth.

To the people that enjoy this, you do you. But I can't say I enjoyed this at all. The animation was good in some parts, probably the only thing I enjoyed at times. The design of other!Jubei was also pretty cool in motion and I wanted to see more of his character but that sure won't happen since the fucking thing was never finished (then why even put it out???).

Though it's debatable if I would want to subject myself to more of it even if it was. Yeah no, this was bad. But at least I can finally say I finally watched it after years of wanting to.

Ninja Resurrection was originally marketed as a kind of sequel to the excellent Ninja Scroll and aside from featuring a character named Jubei it has no relation.

The animation is decent although not as impressive as Ninja Scroll with some really cool looking fight scenes, it's brutally violent and the voice acting is pretty good but the story is almost non existent (but somehow still a bit confusing, how does that happen?) and it all feels pretty pointless. I was looking forward to seeing this but i will likely never watch it again.

It's bad.

Skip this and watch Ninja Scroll again, it's still awesome.