Deep Dive DC: Wes Looks at Batman Ninja

Welcome back to Deep Dive DC Month and, oh boy, do we have a weird one for y’all today. What started as an experiment to get together some of the greatest anime writers and artists in Japan and see what their interpretation of Batman would be resulted in easily the strangest film I’ve ever covered here on this blog, and that includes Meet the Robinsons. Friends, this is Batman Ninja, the natural result of a bunch of anime fans binge watching every Batman movie while high on mushrooms. Well, we may as well describe the story. Gorilla Grodd has invented a Time Machine and is planning to test the device using the inmates of Arkham Asylum as guinea pigs. Naturally, Batman tries to stop Grodd, the time travel experiment goes awry and Batman, his allies, Grodd, and several of the Arkham inmates are transported to feudal Japan. So far, that’s pretty out there, but not exactly exceeding the level of acceptable comic book weirdness. Just wait, it only gets crazier from here. Since time travel is very imprecise, Batman, despite entering the portal only seconds after everyone else, arrives in ancient Japan a full two years after most of the bad guys. Said bad guys (namely Joker, Penguin, Deathstroke, Poison Ivy & Two-Face) have wasted no time establishing themselves as warlords and have all but taken over Japan. Now, Batman must join forces with a clan of Ninjas who were told of Batman’s arrival from the future by some kind of prophecy to take down the villains, find Grodd, restore the time machine and bring everyone back home. I know that doesn’t sound crazy, but trust me here, the madness is more of a slow burn. Let’s take a look at Batman Ninja.

Main Character:

I guess Batman is the main character by default. It’s not called Superman Ninja, or Aquaman Ninja now is it? However, like with Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this isn’t a big personal story for the Dark Knight. He’s not here for big personal revelations of introspection, he’s here to stop the bad guys. This is just Wednesday for Batman. Mind you, it’s probably one of the strangest Wednesday’s he’s had in a while, but Wednesday nonetheless. They try to give him this half-assed token arc where he has to fight without his tech, but it’s not like we’ve never seen Batman fight without his tech before. This is nothing new. Also, I love how early on Batman is all like “We need to preserve the timeline” and not ten minutes later he’s driving the Batmobile down the streets of 17th Century Kyoto. Something about that makes me laugh.

Villain:

I do love what they did with the villains in this movie. Like I said at the top, Joker, Penguin, Deathstroke, Poison Ivy and Two-Face have all established themselves as warlords and I love their shogun style redesigns and the overall aesthetic and idea of Batman villains ruling feudal Japan. Unfortunately, with the exception of The Joker, we don’t see a ton of the villain. Even during the climax when it looks like the various robins are all going to face off with the other bad guys, we don’t even get to see those fights. That’s kind of lame. Still, I love that Tom Kenny has basically become the official go-to voice for The Penguin. We also got Grodd kicking around who has his own plan to take over Japan. That apparently was not his original plan, but when your malfunctioning time machine gives you lemons, make lemonade. The strangest inclusion is actually Bane. You’d think a guy like Bane would become a warlord like the rest. Hell, this whole thing seems right up his alley. However, Bane, does not do that. Instead, he becomes a henchman for The Joker… and he’s a Sumo Wrestler now. Okay… while I don’t believe that Bane is above working with villains like The Joker, I can definitely tell you he would never work FOR them. Bane was basically introduced as the Batman equivalent of Doomsday, putting Batman on the shelf for the better part of a year. This is not someone who’s going to swear fealty to anyone, at least not without good reason. So why the hell is he working for The Joker!? Speaking of the Clown Prince of Crime, he’s pretty awesome in this movie. Fun fact, that’s Tony Hale aka Buster Bluth from arrested development doing the voice. Joker is exactly what he needs to be in this movie and I love the aesthetic of he and Harley’s Japanese warlord glow up.

Side Characters:

Truth be told, the side characters don’t really have a lot to them in this movie. Let me put it this way, if you know these characters from the comics, you know how they are in this movie. And like the villains, each gets a kickass ninja redesign, and in Robin’s case, a cute monkey sidekick… because anime. Catwoman gets a bit more to do as she switches sides a couple times, but she’s still the same character we all know and love. However, I need to ask a serious question. See, as nuts as this plot gets, they do their best to have a logical explanation for how we got to feudal Japan. Batman was fighting Grodd when the time machine exploded, so that’s why they’re there. Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood and Robin were all there helping Batman, so they probably got caught up in the blast. The explosion was at Arkham, so it makes sense that some of the inmates ended up there as well, and Catwoman was there to steal whatever Grodd was working on and pawn it for a few bucks so she’s covered. Deathstroke is admittedly a bit of a stretch since, while he’s definitely tangled with Batman in the past, he’s not one of the Arkham Asylum regulars, but he is a gun for hire so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Grodd hired him in case someone from the cape and cowl crowd tried to put the kibosh on his experiment. All of that makes sense, which begs the question, what the hell is Alfred doing here? That makes absolutely no sense. They handwave it by saying he was in the Batmobile when the time machine exploded but… why was he in the Batmobile? Alfred does occasionally take an active role in Master Bruce’s crusade, but it’s usually a man in the chair situation. He’s coordinating things from the Batcave, not fighting the badguys himself. I’m sorry to go on a rant, but that really bugged me.

Memorable Scenes:

Okay, here’s where things get weird. But, before we nosedive straight into crazy town, why don’t we take a look at a comparatively normal scene. So, about halfway through the film, Batman and the clan of ninjas he’s allied with launch an assault on The Joker and he’s defeated and appears to have died in the process. When regrouping and preparing to attack the other bad guys, Batman thinks it might be a good idea to search for Joker and Harley to see if they survived. Can’t very well leave a psychotic clown in feudal Japan now can we. However, what probably wasn’t a good idea is assigning Red Hood to this particular task. You know, the guy who has no problem with killing bad guys and has a specific hate boner for The Joker since the clown beat him to death with a crowbar. Anywho, we’re treated to a scene in which the animation style drastically changes and Red Hood comes upon Joker and Harley, both suffering from amnesia and having spent the last few weeks living as simple farmers. Red Hood is about to end them, but Batman tells him to let them go, stating that they can’t hurt anyone like this. The scene is brief, but surprisingly beautiful in it’s animation.

But enough of that. In the words of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne, “Let’s Get Nuts!” For the most part, this movie is pretty out there, but doesn’t exceed the boundaries of acceptable comic book weirdness. However, once it gets to the climax, the writers decided to take what little grounded realism this movie had contained within, knee it several times in the balls, shoot it in the head and feed the carcass to an angry school of sharks. So, at this point, all the villains decide to go to war and the last one standing will rule all of Japan. Now, they could attack with their armies, but where would be the fun in that? Nope, apparently all the villains had the same wild idea to convert their castles into giant robots. Yes, you read that correctly. But wait, it gets crazier! See, the reason all these bad guys all came up with the same giant robot idea at the same time is because Grodd was using his psychic powers to subtly manipulate them into acting on his behalf without their knowledge. Now, Grodd makes his move and gets the giant robots to combine into what I can only describe as the Arkham Megazord. Then, as if shit wasn’t crazy enough, The Joker, having faked his amnesia, comes out of nowhere like Akuma at the end of Street Fighter and kicks Grodd out of the giant robot and takes control of it for himself. To fight this monstrosity, Robin, using a flute that can summon an army of monkeys, because he has that now, shut up, summons an army of monkeys who link together like lego blocks and form a gigantic humanoid form. Not goofy enough for you, how about the part where they summon a bunch of bats to reinforce the monkeys, which also link together to form a kaiju-sized golden age Batman. And with that, the last vestiges of grounded reality have left the building and are currently hauling ass to get as far away from this madness as possible. The whole thing culminates in a one-on-one duel between Batman and Joker on a burning giant robot. This scene nearly broke my brain when I watched it for the first time and I loved every second of it.

Story:

So, story wise I don’t think this movie is really trying to be anything other than a big flashy spectacle, and to that end, I’d call it a resounding success. The aesthetics are great and the animation is gorgeous to look at, even if the lip-sync is pretty crap. The original dub was probably in Japanese or something.

Final Thoughts: This movie is balls to the wall insane and I gotta be honest, I loved every second of it. Sure, some would probably prefer a story with more character development and pathos, but there is something to be said for something silly and over-the-top once in a while. But speaking of pathos, next week, Deep Dive DC month draws to a close with a special Patreon exclusive look at Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. See you then