“I sure hope something makes sense soon,” Batman’s son and sidekick Damian Wayne (Yuki Kaji/Bryson Baugus) says while taking a seat in the Batmobile to respond to a report of a “yakuza hurricane” hitting Gotham City in the first minutes of the anime film Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, now streaming on Max. It’s the first of many meta acknowledgements that nothing will make sense in the sequel to Batman Ninja’s hour-and-a-half runtime, but that Damian and viewers are still in for a very fun wild ride.
Batman Ninja director Junpei Mizusaki and writer Kazuki Nakashima reunited for the sequel, with Shinji Takagi joining as co-director, delivering another zany mashup of Batman characters and anime tropes. This outing tilts the balance further toward DC Comics storylines, for a more coherent plot than its predecessor’s. That’s admittedly a low bar, given that Batman Ninja involved Batman enlisting an army of monkeys to fight mecha piloted by his rogues gallery. The animation and music team are also the same, keeping the quality of the action, which moves at a breakneck pace, complete with speed lines and suspense-building fight tunes.
Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League reveals traveling to feudal Japan in the first movie had some big consequences akin to DC’s Flashpoint storyline. Japan is no longer on Earth but is instead floating over Gotham, raining down jetpack-wearing yakuza who all sport identical white suits and have the same haircut. The invasion is led by yakuza versions of the Justice League, akin to the Crime Syndicate in the 2010 animated film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. That film’s sequel, Justice League: Doom, revealed that Batman had studied the weaknesses of all of his team members. That’s also true in Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, though this film emphasizes that the yakuza versions are dumber and less powerful than their real-world equivalents, making it even easier for Batman (Joe Daniels/Koichi Yamadera) and his allies to defeat them with a series of “science ninja techniques.”
The blending of American and Japanese styles provides opportunities for some highly creative action sequences and costumes. Kuraku, The Man of Steel (Takaya Kamikawa/Aaron Campbell) looks incredibly cool wearing sunglasses, a red coat, and blue robes, making him an imposing presence even before he starts unleashing his powers. A duel between yakuza Aquaman, Ahsa, the Aqua Dragon (Akio Otsuka/Cyrus Rodas), and yakuza Wonder Woman, Daiana Amazone, the Eagle Goddess (Romi Park/Molly Searcy) has some surprising pathos and lets both characters show off the breadth of their powers. Ahsa shows up on the back of a giant koi fish, while Daiana uses a parasol as a shield while standing on a swan boat.
The frantic pace and huge cast of Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League means many of its characters are thinly sketched, with the writers relying on the audience’s knowledge of DC Comics to fill in the rest. Nightwing (Houston Hayes/Daisuke Ono) gets a magical girl transformation sequence and glowing suit used to fight the Green Lantern Zeshika the Emerald Ray (Ayane Sakura/Annie Wild), but Red Hood (Akira Ishida/David Matranga) and Red Robin (Kengo Kawanishi/Nathan Wilson) don’t have a chance to distinguish themselves. Damian spent Batman Ninja sporting an awful haircut and talking to monkeys, but he’s much better suited to his role of providing irreverent comic relief throughout Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League. A scene where he mocks his grandfather Ra’s al Ghul (Kazuhiro Yamaji/John Swasey) for his latest overly complicated plot while the supervillain bemoans Damian’s preference for California rolls over traditional sushi is a hilarious way to deliver exposition.
Only days have passed in Gotham between the films, but Harley Quinn (Rie Kugimiya/Karlii Hoch) has developed more of an independent streak with Daiana’s help. It’s a clever pairing given the Amazon princess always seeks to protect and empower women, and a way to push Harley towards her canonical alliance with the Bat-Family. While the rest of the Yakuza League are pretty evil, Daiana adheres to the yakuza’s traditional chivalrous code of ninkyō. She will explain this half a dozen times over the course of the film.
Image: Warner Bros. Japan
Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League has a tendency to belabor points. There’s an extended gambling metaphor used to explain the difficulty of disabling a machine that somehow doesn’t involve Zeshika, even though being a gambler is the only personality trait the film gives her. But beneath the clumsy writing is a surprising earnestness that comes from a deep well of love for the heroes. Ahsa has been confined to a lake, but longs for the ocean he sees in the world below. Batman has fought Superman in plenty of movies, but he deals more psychological damage here as he attacks Kuraku for lacking the grit and courage of his Justice League equivalent.
While many of the recent DC animated films have been too serious, Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League fully embraces the silliness of both comics and anime. Daiana preps for her duel by filming a music video. Batman’s butler Alfred Pennyworth (Hōchū Ōtsuka/David Harbold) offers tactical advice to the Bat-Family in the form of a film based on the ‘80s anime Voltron. Yakuza are fired at the earth like bullets.
Characters throughout Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League regularly provide commentary on how weird the film gets, from Harley’s shocked reaction to Diana singing, to the Bat-Family pointing out Bari, the Fleet of Foot (Nobuyuki Hiyama/Benjamin McLaughlin) is just The Flash in a hat. It’s an acknowledgement that Nakashima, Mizusaki, and Takagi know exactly what they’re doing. Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League doesn’t have to make any sense in order to be awesome.
Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is available to stream on Max.
