In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki

birdlandmemories Aug 8, 2022

7

A decent Slice of Life all things told. I came into the series expecting a bit more action, but this is a laid back show that's a bit on the slower side. Let's talk about it some.So our setting is the Akane Village, an all-girls village comprised of female ninja. In this village, there are usually clans of 3. Our main character is Tsubaki, the leader of Team Dog (all the teams have animal names). Tsubaki is one of the older students in the village and is interested in learning about men. In the village, men are sort of a forbidden topic. You're not allowed to interact with them, but at the same time are not allowed to joke about them either, as their aren't to be taken lightly.It's established this is because many years ago, male and female ninja would leave their villages in search of marriage, never to return. Eventually, this threatened the populations for the villages, so a ban on interaction was placed. This essentially sets the current timeline.Real quickly, I had a lot of questions about the village because logically, some things don't make sense. A few of the questions that popped into my mind: How does the village recruit new members? Eventually some of the older members (Mokuren, Tsubaki, Benisumomo) will graduate from the school, so how are new team leaders determined? How did the original members find the village or were they adopted into it? There are only 2 teachers in the school (Konoha teaches what is essentially a middle school while Hana teaches what's essentially a high school) so what happens after all those students graduate? Does the village disband?Yeah, maybe this isn't the best series to think about logically because there are some holes. And truth be told, outside of Rindou's addition to Team Dog in episode 6, not much changes from the beginning to the end. Still, like I said, this was a decent watch, and that's primarily because the show is pretty light-hearted. The jokes hit more often than I expected, and the actual premise (daily life around the village and each village team getting their own half-episode) was cool. Really, as the series goes on, the "men" premise gets more and more in the background until it's essentially relegated to comic relief.I don't think there will be a season 2, but if there was I'd be interested in it. As long as the show sticks to its light-hearted, daily life around the village theme I think it'll work fine.

krofire Jul 31, 2022

8

Studio CloverWorks’ 2022 fantasy is quite the charmer with female characters modelling somewhat reminiscent of those in Shin-Ei Animation’s 2018 “Teasing Master Takagi-san”. The title character is a teenage student in an all-girl Ninja-training village in the dim-distant past. Those of us who are not used to this genre may laugh out loud at the absurdities in the visuals here. The girls lounge around all day with seemingly little or nothing to do. The worst punishment they can suffer is being forced to dust the library. Their clothes are washed and food appears on their plates magically. All this in an isolated village where contact with men is forbidden. So, yes, it is a silly childish fantasy view of martial arts training in which the children have magical powers like invisibility, breathing fire or, yes, flying. So, if we ignore the immense silliness of the whole venture what’s it all about? The girls believe that men are their enemies. Men are ugly, smelly and stupid; a foe to be defeated at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there are no such opportunities and their two teachers try and suppress the girl’s enthusiasm for combat with men. This is true for all the girls apart from Tsubaki who has a strangely different view of the opposite sex. She is quite obsessed by men. Despite knowing nothing about them she views the topic with fascination. The mere thought of the opposite sex makes her heart race and she wants to know more. Are they really as bad as the other girls say? One day she tricks her head teacher into revealing the truth: the girls and boy Ninja training camps were split up years before to stop them coupling up and eloping. Sworn to secrecy things are not helped with a new student transfers in from the men’s camp. The story is one of romantic curiosity for a girl going through the pain of growing up ahead of her peers. Of course, the idea that children regard the opposite sex with dislike and aggression somewhat reflects real life. Curiosity and interest comes with maturity yet the chance to make the tale allegorical seem lost in the desire to play on the antics of the girls. The central theme is of humorous curiosity by Tsubaki whilst she has to put up with the high jinks of the roommates Sazanka and Asagao. They are a boisterous lot continually getting into arguments and fights. Just like the real thing these girls like teasing each other and have a fiercely competitive streak when it comes to which is the best team or who is the cutest girl. The show is highly entertaining but doesn’t really reach any satisfactory conclusion. There are few, if any, clever plot twists. It sadly stops way short of realising its true potential. Most of the story-telling seems wrapped up in trivialities. Whilst the characters are totally adorable they seldom convince as Ninja-warriors. They are strong and independent, head-strong and often arrogant. The show leaves the audience searching for its meaning. We deserved more. We deserved better.