New Adult Swim Ninja Anime Follows Up On Boruto’s Forgotten Premise

One of the gifts Boruto has bestowed on the shinobi anime genre is the idea of “ninja tech”, and while the idea has appeared in other ninja-based anime, few have tapped into the promise of a technologically enhanced shinobi more than the new hit series Ninja Kamui. Adult Swim’s new hit series is a mesmerizing tour de force of ninjutsu and tech that advances what Boruto pioneered to the next level.

Sunghoo Park’s original anime series Ninja Kamui follows the brutal adventures of Higan, a shinobi who abandons his ninja community and his responsibilities to it. With his clan subscribing to the “once a ninja, always a ninja” school of thought – as soon as Higan leaves, he’s targeted for extermination by those he once considered his closest friends and allies.

Now relocated to the American Midwest with a new name and – thanks to technology – a new face, Higan, and his family are about as happy as can be considering he’s a wanted man. Unfortunately, he’s located by a death squad sent after him. While he’s able to survive their attack, his wife and child are viciously executed before his eyes. Consumed by the rage over his family’s slaughter, Higan steps on a brutal path to avenge his wife and child’s murder and run down any ninja who stands in this way.

Ninja Kamui Takes Nin-Tech To Another Level

Boruto‘s premise of ninja technology was never fully developed, but Ninja Kamui runs away with it

While Ninja Kamui’s basic plot is not groundbreaking, Park’s storytelling style is exceptional. Indeed, one of the ways that Ninja Kamui sets itself apart is the creative way it integrates futuristic technology into classic ninja themes. The feudal-future idea has long been a thematic concept in samurai anime such as Afro Samurai, Samurai 7, and Star Wars: Visions. In terms of shinobi, however, the idea has largely been pioneered by Masashi Kishimoto’s Boruto. In fact, elements of the idea were present in Naruto when it was still in publication.

In Boruto, ninja technology, or “nin-tech” – refers to the incorporation of “scientific ninja tools” with traditional ninjutsu skills and any supernatural “power-ups” a shinobi possesses. Perhaps the best example of nin-tech in Boruto is Naruto’s prosthetic arm. As revealed in Boruto: Naruto Next Generation Chapter #16, Naruto has, on occasion, used a synthetic arm that mimics Momoshiki Otsutsuki’s ability to “absorb and neutralize an opponent’s jutsu”. It’s an awesome enhancement, especially for a ninja as good as Naruto.

However, over the course of the series, nin-tech has lost its status as a refreshing and interesting plot device, to become the simple and unsatisfying explanation behind certain characters’ powers – mostly the members of Kara’s Inner Circle. The initial debate about the validity of nin-tech, and the morals of its use, completely disappeared from the series.

In Ninja Kamui, Technology Is Another Type Of Jutsu

As experienced in Boruto, nin-tech turned out to be a great creative device that helps to enrich the basic ninja story. Indeed, Boruto needed some method to set itself apart from Naruto, and nin-tech could have been the answer, if fully developed as a theme. On the other hand, Ninja Kamui bakes nin-tech into the story’s DNA. To be sure, unlike Boruto, with the primary evil organization in the story being a hi-tech company with a global footprint, technology is everywhere in Ninja Kamui.

For instance, there’s Higan’s facial cloaking technology that allows him to appear as the bearded white male American Joe Logan, rather than the clean-shaven Japanese citizen he truly is. There’s also the light saber-like weaponry Higan and his opponents wield, as well as his friend Emma Samanda’s rolling supercomputer disguised as an old-school Volkswagen Bug.

Interestingly, there’s a basis for Ninja Kamui’s reliance on technology in real life. According to Japan’s last real shinobi, ninja were always looking for ways of improving their abilities. Since technology serves as a fundamental means for shinobi to stay ahead of the game, they’d certainly be among the first to adopt emerging technologies.

From the viewpoint of the fan living in a modern information society, Park’s coupling of technology with outstanding physical – and even supernatural – abilities seems obvious. Indeed, why wouldn’t modern-day ninjas use the multitude of technologies available to them to be more effective? While Boruto dances around the idea, Ninja Kamui goes all in.

So far, Park’s choice has proven to be visionary. The tech vibe gives Ninja Kamui an extra special boost of fascination with the public that’s made it so popular and relevant to modern viewers. It also begs the question of why there aren’t more ninja-themed anime following the Boruto example.

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