Batman Gets A Much-Needed Update In ‘Batman Ninja’
With continued murmurings of disappointment over Ben Affleck’s take on Batman, with rumblings that Jake Gyllenhaal might be the one to take over the live action role of the Caped Crusader, one might wonder how to salvage Batman from his current look.
Enter Batman Ninja, a new subtitled film due out in Japan sometime in 2018. While some critics believe that Batman Ninja hearkens back to the samurai days rather than the ninja era, regardless of how Batman is perceived, there is no mistaking that Batman Ninja is probably the best looking Batman to hit the big screen in a good long while. While not much is known as yet about the overall plot of the upcoming animated ninja film, news has come out that Batman Ninja will see the Caped Crusader travel back through time to the Warring States Era of Japan, or the Sengoku Era, sometime during 1467 to 1603 according to Destructoid.com‘s article, Batman Ninja Is More Samurai Than Ninja But Still Looks Pretty Rad.
As one might also expect, Batman cannot very well go back in time on his own, so a very Kefka-esque Joker is also along for the ride. According to Polygon, Jumpei Mizusaki is directing Batman Ninja, and character designer Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai) has created some of the freshest looks at characters such as Harley Quinn, Joker, Robin, and Batman that have not been seen in recent memory.
#BatmanNINJA! The animation is beautiful and the art direction is amazing. This film is a MUST WATCH!pic.twitter.com/chctk4tEzd
— Cinema Debate (@CinemaDebate) December 1, 2017
To be sure, the film’s trailer has the feel of a dark and brooding mystery, and that should come as no real surprise, given Batman and his colleagues – and his top enemy – are inexplicably sent to what amounts to Middle Ages Japan and are fighting to ensure that Joker’s meddling does not lead to any tampering with the timeline that might lead to Japan’s future being irretrievably altered.
The trailer itself is beautiful to behold, with crisp, elegant lines defining the landscapes and the characters. Batman is every inch the handsome hero while the character design of Joker seems to somehow capture his grinning, manic psychopathy. The gorgeousness, brooding nature of the setting is perfectly captured with every stroke of color, and the music by Yuugo Kano pounds along at a breakneck pace that perfectly captures the intensity of the storyline itself.
Batman Ninja is set to hit theaters in Japan sometime in 2018, with no English language release date yet announced. For the curious, here’s the trailer:
