Game OVA Reversal: Episode 4—Ninja Gaiden

We have returned for the back half of this very special Reversal season of Game OVA, in which I'm playing games after watching the anime OVAs they inspired, and after some deliberation I decided to make the difficult and uncharacteristic decision this episode to cover a property people have actually heard of. Character development! Ninja Gaiden and its OVA adaptation is on the docket this week, and I'm actually not surprised it saw a contemporaneous anime given how those NES games bothered to include so many story cutscenes for what was a fairly straightforward revenge plot involving ninja, cults, and hideous creatures summoned from beyond the veil of reality. OK, maybe not that straightforward.

For those just joining us, so far this Game OVA season we've looked at Falcom's Ys (Episode 1), Konami's Ganbare Goemon (Episode 2), and Alfa System/NEC Avenue's Download (Episode 3). I'm hoping to complete a full season of six episodes by the end of August so be sure to stick around to find out what else saw an unexpected anime adaptation.

The Property

Ninja Gaiden, or Ninja Ryuukenden ("Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword") as it's known in Japan, is an action game series from Tecmo (later Koei Tecmo) that follows modern-day ninja Ryu Hayabusa as he finds himself embroiled in the machinations of evil cult leader Jaquio while bumping into legal enforcement agencies like the CIA with their own objectives, all while pursuing the man who killed his father in a duel. Originally an arcade game, Ninja Gaiden saw its first wave of popularity due to a trilogy of bespoke NES games that took a departure from the brawler-like mechanics of the original to include more platforming and, novel at the time, animated story cutscenes between each set of levels to deliver additional exposition.

Ninja Gaiden is one of those NES properties that I'd always kept at arm's length due to its legendary difficulty, a trait that has followed the series through its many iterations as it went from a 2D platformer that accurately portrayed birds as the ruthless psychopaths that they are to a beloved 3D character-action brawler that served as a foothold of sorts for the Japanese game industry to make inroads in the oppressively American Xbox marketplace. The series is still active, of course: just last year we got the triple-threat that was the newest sequel Ninja Gaiden 4, the Ninja Gaiden II Black remaster that combined elements of its Xbox 360 original and that game's enhanced PS3 port, and the 2D throwback platformer Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It is, to my chagrin as a diehard Ys fan, probably going to be the highest profile game series to grace this feature (at least for this year) and an excuse to finally taste for myself the same futile agitation that its many fans both past and present have felt over the decades.

The Anime

Ninja Ryuukenden is a 1991 OVA released between the second and third NES games and also chronologically set between them as well. Ryu Hayabusa has moved in with the love interest from the games, Irene Lew, and opened a Japanese-themed tchotchke store but is soon tasked by Irene's journalist friend Sara and his old ally Robert T. Sturgeon with looking into a corporation using illegal genetic science to create the sort of monsters that resemble the inhuman enforcers of Jaquio's cult. At only 45 minutes long I'm guessing the investigation will be an open-and-shut case; sadly I don't think we'll have enough time to include a scene of Ryu trying to sell an Art Deco teapot to an elderly tourist couple. Fingers crossed though.

The adaptation was created by Studio Junio, with Mamoru Kanbe directing and Tomofumi Nobe as the writer. Studio Junio is probably best known either for the 3x3 Eyes adaptation (a property which also saw a lot of video games) or for Saber Marionette J, but they also dabbled with a few video game adaptations that may yet show up in a future Reversal season; those include OVAs based on Super Mario Bros. and Adventure Island that I was pretty intrigued by (maybe next year?). Mamoru Kanbe got his debut with this OVA and is still working as a director, both in a showrunner role and for individual episodes, as well as a storyboard artist. He most recently directed the downbeat CloverWorks production of The Promised Neverland and the dark fantasy drama Elfen Lied by Arms. Notably for Game OVA purposes he also directed a couple episodes of the Wild Arms TV show, which I gotta see for myself one of these days (though I'm worried it'll be "we have Trigun at home"). Tomofumi Nobe hasn't done much else since Ninja Ryuukenden (also his debut): he wrote the majority of episodes for Gene Diver, notable for its use of CG animation which was still fairly rare for the mid-'90s, and also the sci-fi post-apoc thriller movie Seven Cities Story: Arctic Front (which Mamoru Kanbe also directed). Ninja Ryuukenden was uploaded to YouTube at some point so you can watch it yourselves here.

I should preface this in saying I know almost nothing about the lore of Ninja Gaiden, other than the synopsis I supplied earlier. I don't know if a supplementary OVA is going to be the best springboard but at the same time I suspect this won't be some multi-layered narrative that demands my rapt attention. "Ninja dragon sword" seems self-explanatory enough. But hey, maybe the OVA will take some intriguing liberties with the material:

Ninja Ryuukenden (1991)

Naturally, there's some backstory to start us off here: the Evil Gods and the Dragon Gods have been holding each other at bay for centuries, the former capable of wiping out humanity if given their dire deific druthers, and so to protect mankind the latter have imbued their power into a sword and let a bunch of ninja take care of it. Or at least I inferred the last part. It then switches to a scene of a young man getting chased through the city streets (I'm guessing this is New York; the signs are in English and there was a non-golden bridge at one point) by a pair of besuited, bemasked thugs with those cool retractable blades that pop out the elbows Adam Jensen-style. Dispatching them both with his katana, since he's Ryu Hayabusa and he eats stooges like these for breakfast, the man spots a business card but has to escape in a hurry when the thugs' bodies self-destruct. He makes it back to his store, "Ryu's Japanese Shop" (snappy), to console his girlfriend Irene about dropping an upcoming dinner date since he's got a case of the murder goons to deal with. It's hell on any relationship, being hunted to the death by shadowy organizations.

The next day, Irene's talking to her friend Sara about her love troubles and Sara suggests she'll dragoon their mutual friend (and in-game cool shades guy) Robert T. Sturgeon, who has since left the military and now runs a private detective agency, into helping to make the two official since Ryu's dragging his feet. While she's there flirting with the Sturge (as I call 'im), Sara's assistant turns up to remind her of an imminent press conference being held by Professor Ned Friedman, CEO of Friedman Pharmaceuticals, and Sara considers getting a private interview as a leg up on the competition. I think we have our big bad, folks. And it's Big Pharma, no less. Ryu turns up to that same press conference, I guess because his store is closed for Golden Week or something, and telepathically hears a young girl crying out for help as he leaves. This was a thing from the video games too, only in this case it's A Link to the Past. That night, Sara meets Robert and his partner Jeff at Bradley's (a bar) (run by a guy named Bradley if I had to guess) (I'll check later if it's in the games too) and wants their help checking a rumor she heard about Friedman and strange noises coming from his house, potentially linked to a rumor about human experimentation. Finding Friedman's home abandoned and ransacked, they theorize the real Friedman may have already died and been replaced by a double (as opposed to just living somewhere else). Jeff even gets concerned that Friedman's ghost might get them, and Robert suggests calling the Ghostbusters (hey, New York represent). As Robert and Sara get deeper inside, leaving Jeff to investigate on his own as the most expendable out of the three of them, they get accosted by a mysterious man in a ninja outfit who- OK, it's just Ryu. Aren't too many dudes rocking that look in NYC. He also has his suspicions about this place after his earlier psychic run-in, though as he's getting more information about Friedman's secret biotechnology rumors there's a distant scream. It's Jeff!

"Ryu? Honey? You sure you don't want to spend five more minutes coming up with the name for our stor- oh, you've already commissioned the sign."

Sara and Robert. Sara's definitely got that '90s self-assured journalist look down. For Robert, it's essential he has both the blinds drawn and shades on his face. In the PI business, sometimes you have days when you don't want to see *anything*.

Here's a pic of Friedman CEO Ned Friedman, though the caption seems to suggest it's Mikhail "Gorbache" instead. I swear, The Daily Tims has really gone downhill; it used to be about all the Tims that were fit to print.

Rushing back to the entrance, they find Jeff... perfectly fine. He just got spooked by a weird, gooey skeleton with its crotch and butt reversed. Clear evidence of genetic tampering, or a Spaceballs teleporter accident? The four investigate further, also finding jar babies (never a good sign when you've got jar babies), but rather than let Sara publish her findings Ryu destroys her camera film and insist the others don't get involved. A later altercation with Robert has him confirm what Ryu already suspects: that this particular kind of evil can only mean Friedman's trying to resurrect Jaquio and his evil god, because I guess a guy can't just have hobbies making jar babies for fun. Robert then tells Ryu of the tale of when he and a ninja called Ryu defeated Jaquio by working together, the flashback presumably serving the audience more than it serves the guy who was actually there and did most of the work, and Ryu nonchalantly throws a kunai at another goon while Robert's going on and on. Ryu stoically insists he can't drag anyone else into what is official Dragon Ninja business, especially not Irene like she's not going to get instantly kidnapped again whether she's kept in the dark or otherwise. The trio of not-ninja then go to meet Friedman's academic peer Professor Bucky-Wise (his other peer, Professor Bucky-Fast, having been unavailable due to an enormous hangover) having apparently resigned themselves to being the protagonists now instead of the movie's only ninja given how evasive he's being (so unlike ninja). Bucky-Wise confirms that Friedman kinda seemed like a dick, as well as crazy, and that's proof enough that he's probably the villain here. Then again, as Jeff points out, Bucky-Wise is kinda suspicious too, not least of which because of that goofy-ass name.

If Bucky-Wise evilly grinning to camera wasn't enough of a hint for us in the cheap seats, the next scene sees Irene and Ryu closing up the store for the night (probably didn't sell too many forked ninja daggers today; might have to down-sais the business at this rate) when Bucky-Wise's creepy white cat strolls in and starts causing a hissyfit, which is apparently the signal for a bunch more goons to smash in through the window and ambush the pair. Ryu takes them down but Irene is attacked and barely escapes in a panic, only finding the gun and popping the last mook with a thousand-yard stare of shock on her face. OK, just to confirm something here, this chick is supposed to be former CIA, right? Like some super special division founded to fight weird monsters and evil cults? The goons did look weird without their face masks (no mouths, for one) but you'd think she had basic firearms training at least. The cops arrive, as well they might with Irene screaming the place down, but Ryu and Irene have already escaped out the back. I mean, who has the time to be making statements down at the precinct about bisecting monster assassins? Ninja have no time for paperwork. Ryu tells Irene that she can't be involved with someone as dangerous as he, and Irene tearfully responds with "I never thought it'd be like this". Lady, you barely survived two whole games where he had to fight giant monstrous henchmen to save your ass, and now you're only just realizing that dating the Dragon Ninja might be hazardous to your health? What the heck did they do to this character, man.

I'm not going to say this adaptation is ass-backwards, but...

That used to be a person, sorta. When it's animation, there's no need to spare on the red food coloring.

Which area of the CIA did you say you worked for, again? "Wuss Crimes Division"? "Kitten and Puppy Monitoring"?

Concerned for Irene, the not-ninja trio look for her on the streets of New York after her break up and eventually find her, only for her to be abducted by the same masked goons as before. What an entirely unpredictable development. Robert gives chase in his moderately priced sedan ("I wish I'd bought that Porsche!"). We get an... interesting chase scene, as Robert drives like a maniac over sidewalks until he eventually hits a fire hydrant and comes to a stop. The goons just stayed on the road the whole time and weren't even breaking the speed limit as far as I could tell; maybe Robert only got his license the previous afternoon? During all this, Ryu is assaulting the Friedman offices, fighting past some mermen along the way (did it accidentally switch to Castlevania when I wasn't looking? Ryu already kinda looks like Richter Belmont...). Realizing Friedman kidnapped Irene to draw out Ryu (yeah, no shit?) Robert, Jeff, and Sara gear up to go after them with a secret stash of semi-automatic weapons and explosives Jeff keeps on hand for emergencies, or maybe a Fourth of July party. Resolving herself to intervening despite the risks involved, Sara tears her pencil skirt to make it easier to move around in while reaching for one of Jeff's weapons: the two men share a look of admiration at her determination. Which is why, in the very next scene, she's tied to a chair (with a gag, which seems excessive) while the two of them head off fully armed to join Ryu.

While Ryu's chopping up mutants elsewhere, Robert and Jeff break through the front window on a motorcycle and proceed to gun down a bunch of skinny blue werewolves milling around the lobby. Jeff explains that he only plays the part of a comic relief coward after being a mercenary for so long: his real place is on the battlefield, and he's almost shocked at himself by how much he's enjoying the fighting. Robert explains that everyone is passionate about something, whether it's fighting, booze, women, or gay dudes, so it's natural enough to want to pursue it without causing too much trouble for those who have to clean up afterwards. Getting some real mixed messages about this pep talk; are you sure Sara's your main love interest here, Bob? Jeff agrees to get a drink afterwards, not making it clear whether he was picking up on any subtext or not, and the two continue to get to work filling Temu Castlevania monsters full of lead. Ryu, meanwhile, has restored telepathic communications with the little girl and promises to find her, instead entering a room of mutated bodies in specialized pods and a terrified scientist. Kicking him out, Ryu destroys the lab with a special shinobi bomb packed with ninjaglycerin, which pisses off Friedman to no end despite his smug demeanor while watching Ryu and co. on his monitors wrecking shop earlier. Robert and Jeff are doing fine, at least until Jeff gets ambushed by Beastman from the He-Man cartoon and takes a bite to the leg, insisting Robert go on without him while he fends off the rest of the Masters of the Universe before they can make another reboot. Robert leaves him to his fate as an ominous explosion rocks that whole floor of the building.

It's like Need for Speed, except it's an Urge for Sturge.

Heck of a situation if these things popped out during Friedman Pharmaceuticals's "Bring Your Child to Work Day".

That's two Game OVA episodes on the trot with a motorcycle crashing through a window. Can I keep the streak going?

Ryu, meanwhile, has found Friedman's hideout (and also Irene is there, which Ryu's a little surprised to discover; I get he didn't hear about the abduction but I think he should've at least assumed she got nabbed the moment he took his eyes off her) and Friedman explains he managed to power this whole Monster Mash business with an Evil God Orb he reverse-engineered from Ryu's fight with Jaquio. It's like one of those plasma globe things, only more evil. Robert shows up to deliver gun justice, but Ryu urges caution what with Irene being kept prisoner. Not that it matters, as Friedman is instantly dispatched from behind by Bucky-Wise, a man who has every reason to hate the world from the day he was named onwards, whom reveals himself to be the true mastermind. He'd also kidnapped Friedman's daughter to properly incentivize the good doctor to contemplate the Orb on his behalf, which maybe still doesn't explain why Friedman was acting as a stereotypical mad scientist villain if he was being coerced into doing evil this whole time (hey, you can easily get lost in the sauce with scenarios like this). Bucky-Wise then turns into a dumb looking Piccolo monster thing and kicks Ryu's ass for a bit, only for Ryu to get a second wind after the monster injures both Irene and Robert as they try to save their imperiled ninja pal. With his last ounce of strength, Ryu manages to skewer Bucky-Wise in his now-yucky guise, who then fucking dies. Unlucky guy.

Struggling to stay conscious, Irene and Robert make their way to where Ryu fell down into the lobby area after his desperation attack, joining up with a still-fine Jeff and that Friedman daughter they nominally rescued at some point, and Irene cries over what is a clearly dead Ryu even though he's only two games into a projected trilogy. Not so fast, says the disembodied voice of Tecmo's marketing department, and Ryu sputters to life to Irene's relief. Sara's already outside ready to welcome Robert with a punch to the jaw for leaving her tied up, but Robert's so grateful to have lived through yet another Evil God nonsense tour that he proposes to her on the spot. While everyone basks in the warm glow of the Confirmed Not-Gays happening in front of them, the completely emotionally-detached-from-everything daughter of that dude who was murdered in front of her, whom no-one is keeping an eye on, picks up a shard of the Evil God that ol' Fucky-Fries was waving around as it glows ominously in her hand. But it's probably fine. Kids usually bounce right back after trauma like that. Freeze frame on Ryu and Irene kissing: another mission has been successfully ninja'd, and now they're all gaiden out of there to go grab a beer at Bradley's. "I'm buyin'!", says a resurrected Jaquio from the shadows. Cut to credits.

"Where's this going, buddy? Because I might have to dramatically fake a heroic sacrifice depending."

Damn, I think you guys got him. He's in terrible shape (of water).

I think Euripides once said that, sure.

So that was something. The action and animation is generally pretty good (and as violent as you'd hope from any ninja media) but they struggled to make that story work in the mere 45 minutes they were afforded. I don't know if Jeff was in the games but I know both Robert and Irene were, as talking heads that frequently filled in Ryu on what was happening between his getting his ass pecked to death by eagles. Though I'm obviously ignorant of the finer details, it feels like the worst aspect of this OVA was the character assassination of Irene. She's depicted more like a lovesick ingénue office lady than a hardened CIA agent with combat experience. I know she gets kidnapped a lot in those games but I always figured her for more of an Ada Wong than an Ashley Graham. I suppose they needed to emphasize the emotional journey that Ryu goes through when, during the final confrontation with the villain, he eventually decides Irene means more to him than the role of Dragon Ninja—even if the latter is kinda important for the whole survival of the species thing—so presenting Irene as some skittish fawn constantly on the edge of tears is meant to hammer home her innocent charms but it still felt like they did her so wrong in this. A ninja can fall for a badass femme fatale just as easily, after all. Hell, especially if they both have "murdering" in their OKCupid profiles: in my personal experience it's hard to find matches with that albatross hanging around your "interests" section.

Does it do right by the games? Well, I guess we'll find out in just a moment.

The Game(s)

Nothing too outlandish here; I did consider playing the Master System version of Ninja Gaiden given it recently acquired RetroAchievements support and it was a platform I visited many times last year, but I think I'll go the more expected route and instead play the first NES game.

Ninja Gaiden (1988 JP/1989 NA) was developed and published by Tecmo, of Tecmo Super Bowl fame, and is a semi-sequel/semi-remake of the original arcade game. (Incidentally, in that game Ryu has to foil the machinations of a sword-wielding descendant of Nostradamus called Bladedamus, and oh my god that sounds incredible.) For this Ninja Gaiden, Ryu has to stop a cult led by Jaquio and gets both helped and hindered by mysterious figures throughout: a sinister statue also features prominently in the story. This version of Ninja Gaiden was later ported to PC Engine and was included as part of a remastered trilogy for SNES; a Super Ninja All-Shuriken edition as it were.

Anyway, I'm stoked (if a little apprehensive) about finally playing a Ninja Gaiden so let's dive right into it:

Very similar to the OVA so far.

They only wait until Stage 2 before they start throwing out tricky challenges like this tiny platform over a pit.

Now what's a Knife Ghoul like you doing in a place like this?

Birds and instant death pits. My favorite combination. The game's too; I saw it a lot.

This old dude lasted all of five minutes before losing his statue to the cult. Also is it Ninja Dragon or Dragon Ninja? Buddy? Oh, you're not breathing.

Love a nice establishing shot with lots of panning but the story made it sound like archeologists only found these Amazonian ruins a few years ago. It's 500 meters tall though...?

Jaquio is actually some evil French dude, and this snake-like headdress makes me think the devs were inspired by Belloq from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hey, there's nothing that movie can possess which cannot be taken away.

I eventually managed to get to 5-2 before my patience ran out, but as the goal was to give up at 6-1 (where it stops letting you continue from sub-stages) I made it about as far as I wanted to. You definitely need a certain obstinate mindset to truly appreciate Ninja Gaiden's relentless horseshit enemy spawns and death traps, one that I think still persists today with Souls and (to a greater extent) "rage games" like those Bennett Foddy and the Kaizo ROM hack community toss out into the world to provide all the self-inflicted misery aides burgeoning masochists need to finish. The games, I mean; they need that obstinate energy to finish the games. Either way, there's still plenty of admire about Ninja Gaiden even to this day: the fluidity of its controls was extremely rare for the era and the music is top-notch. Going back to a Castlevania connection I chanced upon during the OVA review, I wouldn't be surprised if they were going for a similar tack here in giving the players adequate tools to overcome some incredible harsh odds placed against them. After all, it had already worked for the shoot 'em up genre for years.

Does the anime do right by the games? I'd say so. Ryu nearly dies in the OVA after an enemy attack forces him to fall off a building and that's about as accurate to the playing experience as I encountered. Poor characterization aside, I don't suppose anyone who played Ninja Gaiden (NES) was expecting anything other than swordfights against weird monsters bookended by scenes where people stood around and talked bullshit about statues and evil gods for five minutes at a time, and that is precisely what they received here.

That's going to do it for any and all biotechnologically lab-grown game/anime mutant chimeras this time, and I leave you with some advice that may come in useful someday: When trying to resurrect your evil god with a Malevolent Orb make sure you have a patsy lined up to draw the Dragon Ninja's wrath away from you. That's not just wise, it's Bucky-Wise™.