YMMV / Batman Ninja

• Can't Un-Hear It: Anime fans might recognize The Joker's Japanese voice actor, Wataru Takagi, as the same actor who played Okuyasu Nijimura in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. Considering the film goes with one of the more sinister Joker portrayals, and Okuyasu is (for most of the series) a very sweet, dumb-but-likable best friend character, it makes Joker just that much more creepy.
• Fanfic Fuel: Or perhaps "Fanart Fuel" (as well?). Just imagine what other Batman villains like Mr. Freeze or The Riddler would've looked like in Feudal Japan.
  • The Reveal that the Penguin's footsoldiers are literal penguins in samurai armor.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why was Gorilla Grodd in this movie? Well, Rule of Cool is one reason certainly, but looking into it deeper there is another reason. Joker is clearly the movie's version of Oda Nobunaga, he is even called by the same epitaph as him, Dairoukuten Maou^note the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Nobunaga's right-hand man, who succeeded Nobunaga in uniting all of Japan, was a man named Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whom Nobunaga nicknamed Monkey. Grodd fills Hideyoshi's role in the movie, so they had a literal Monkey, play Monkey!
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Most portrayals of Bruce's relationship with the Robins in later titles haven't been always that close, usually strained. Here, while lamenting the loss of the Batwing, the Batmobile, and the Batcycle, Bruce admits that alongside his mind and spirit, he warmly adds that he has all of them for help, Alfred and Selina included (in the English dub trailer).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Big O has been described as "Batman: The Animated Series as a Humongous Mecha anime" and features a protagonist named Roger Smith. Nearly two decades later, a straightforward Batman anime appears (with Humongous Mecha and a climax built entirely around them) and the title character's English voice actor is Roger Craig Smith.
  • In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Terry the new Batman states, "I was never a Robin". Terry's voice actor, Will Friedle, voices Tim Drake, the third Robin in this movie.
  • A monkey cannot stand against a human? Well, Dio, since you're the monkey now, you might want to revise your words...
  • Tony Hale plays the Joker in this feature, and would later play Dr Psycho in a Joker spin-off show.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • There are some people who only want to watch this solely for the fact that all four Robins are appearing at the same time and for the first time in an animated movie.
  • The film also supports an impressive posse, all veterans to acclaimed anime projects: An animation studio, opening credits director, and composer who all worked on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the screenwriter for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill, and character design and English-language screenwriting from the creator (and producers) of the Afro Samurai manga, series, and film. More than a few fans were drawn in simply by being fans of the creators' other work.
  • Others are just here for the artistic re-envisioning of Batman's allies and enemies as Japanese shoguns and warriors.
• Macekre: 90% of the plot being rewritten for the English version based solely on the animation alone didn't get that version much love from anime fans used to modern localization standards. It doesn't help that the official subtitles don't match with the Japanese version either, leading to a fansubbed version.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Gorilla Grodd is an ingenious primate supervillain bent on conquest. Initially planning to use his Quake Engine to displace Gotham's villains in time and leave the city open for him to conquer, Grodd quickly adapts after Batman's interference leaves Grodd himself trapped in Feudal Japan with the rest of the villains, gaining the loyalty of an army of monkeys and secretly providing each of the other villains with the means to build mecha-fortresses. Manipulating Batman into helping him usurp Joker's army and resources, Grodd backstabs the Dark Knight and reveals that he has already courted an alliance with Two-Face, setting himself up as Japan's most powerful warlord. After easily anticipating Two-Face's betrayal and besting the other villains, Grodd reveals his masterstroke: the technology he provided allows him to control the other villains' minds, and, using their mechas, Grodd plans to conquer Japan and reshape history to his liking. After his plan is hijacked by the Joker and Grodd is saved by Batman, he shows his gratitude by saving Robin's life and providing Batman with the means to defeat Joker.
  • The Joker is, as always, Batman's chaotic and unpredictable arch-enemy. Transported to Feudal Japan by Grodd's Quake Engine, Joker quickly becomes Japan's most powerful warlord, planning to conquer the country and turn it into "a land of needless suffering and pain". Upon Batman's arrival, Joker easily predicts the Dark Knight's attempt to spy on him and proves to be a capable fighter, using a his own skills and back-up to drive Batman off. When Batman attacks his fortress with the Batmobile, Joker reveals that he has turned his castle into a giant mecha that he uses to destroy Batman's vehicle and weapons, as well as having Harley Quinn pose as a threatened bystander to trick Batman into leaving himself vulnerable. After being bested by a team-up between Grodd and Batman, Joker seemingly kills himself and Harley only to reveal that they have hypnotised themselves into an amnesiac state to trick Batman into disregarding them as a threat, all while farming a plant that restores their memories after blooming. Joker then hijacks Grodd's master plan before nearly defeating Batman in a final duel.
• Memetic Mutation: Pretty much anything related to Jason's red hood.
• Narm:
  • For some viewers, Damian's hair. While many understand that it is in fact a historically accurate hairstyle there are quite a few people who've admitted that they find it too silly to take seriously due to modern standards.
  • Speaking of terrible haircuts, Bruce tries to blend in by disguising himself as a Christian missionary... with a Batman symbol shaved into his tonsure. Not only does it look ridiculous, but it completely defeats the purpose of his disguise.
  • Likewise, Jason's red hood just looks ridiculous to some viewers— and is also historically accurate.
  • Damian using a magic flute to summon armored monkeys? Alright. The monkeys standing on each other's shoulders to form a giant robot monkey? This is getting silly. Bats join forces with the monkey to form a giant Batman? Check please!
• Narm Charm:
  • Bane as a sumo wrestler. He looks ridiculous, but it's so over the top, it's likable.
  • Joker's Humongous Mecha is utterly ridiculous and insane, especially given it has a hot air balloon for a head, but given it's the Joker's and he's acting as the Big Bad of an anime movie, who would expect anything else?
• Older Than They Think:
  • Generally, it's pretty rare for Joker and some of the other mentally insane Arkham rogues to learn Eastern martial arts that enable them to somewhat even the odds with Batman in a fight. However, an even earlier instance of this than Batman Ninja occurred in The Batman, where the Joker and the Penguin were Adaptational Badass characters who were extremely proficient martial artists, with Penguin being explicitly established as having gained his fighting skills from the Far East.
  • Odd personality shift aside, one of the issues people had with Damian in the movie was him having a monkey sidekick. In the comics, Damian was an animal lover and went as far as adopting lost animals into the Bat-Family. He even adopted a cow at one point.
• One-Scene Wonder: Again, Bane as a sumo wrestler. Who fights Batman in a Powered Armor.
• Shocking Moments: Many were shocked to see a Batman anime movie in general, and the sheer awesomeness of the first trailer.
• Signature Scene: The combination of the villains' mecha castles to form a Humongous Mecha is one of the most memorable and sited parts of the film.
• So Bad, It's Good: This isn't a bad movie, if you aren't taking it seriously.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The campy and over the top setting that heavily relies on Rule of Cool, combined with the movie's glitzy color palette bring to mind Batman: The Brave and the Bold. It also helps that the movie has elements in it that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of the cancelled cartoon, such as the members of the Caped Crusader's Rogues Gallery piloting thematically appropriate mechas designed for them, which later on combine into a gigantic mecha with Joker's face, to which Batman responds with a giant made out of monkeys, which then gains the help out bats to become a gigantic version of Batman himself.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • None of the villains besides The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Grodd get that many lines and are pretty much interchangeable.
  • Many fans felt that it was bizarre to include all of Bruce's children except for Cassandra Cain, who actually has Asian ancestry (albeit Chinese as opposed to Japanese).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The idea of the Joker hypnotizing himself sane so that he could fool Batman could make a pretty interesting storyline all in itself, but it's only a minor plot point here.
  • The idea of Batman retold in a Jidaigeki setting could be a great story, as shown in Elseworlds stories like Gotham by Gaslight. However, the film instead makes it a time travel story where Batman and his rogues gallery travel back to the past, and they develop Schizo Tech that lets them build giant robotic castles. And while the idea of Batman as a Super Robot Anime is also pretty great, trying to mesh it with the setting they went with didn't really work out that well.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Gorilla Grodd is normally an enemy to The Flash, and though he's treated as a general DCU villain these days, he's not exactly the first that comes to mind when someone thinks "Batman villain".
  • Other than Batman: Under the Red Hood, Jason Todd has always been ignored or turned into a Posthumous Character by animated adaptations of the Batman Mythos, making his addition to the main cast a pleasant surprise.
  • While Tim Drake has appeared in animated adaptations before, it's almost always as Robin even after he abandoned the identity. This is one of the few adaptations to feature him under his current identity, the Red Robin.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Batman Ninja has Scenery Porn, thanks to the feudal Japanese art style.
• Woolseyism: Due to time constraints, the dub team had to work entirely from a heavily summarized and poorly translated version of the script, meaning a lot of the dub was essentially brand new dialogue, written entirely based on the animation. Most fans agree that they did a pretty good job though.

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