Ninja Scroll was one of the first anime movies that I had watched before I had started to really get into Japanese anime. I had seen the dubbed version released by the company called Manga. After watching that and both episodes of Ninja: Resurrection, I definitely preferred Ninja Scroll over Ninja: Resurrection.
The main character is a vagabond warrior named Jubei who hit by a shuriken tipped with a poison. He’s given a task, to take out this one person he thought to have killed several years prior if he wants to find an antidote. Thoughout the story, Jubei is accompanied by the kunoichi or female ninja known as Kagero. She gets molested twice in Ninja Scroll.
Molesting Kagero isn’t a good idea because she has a poison that’s permanantly in her bloodstream. However, Kagero is unaffected. Kagero is basically her lord’s poison-taster. Meaning, she has the skill of detecting poisons and what type of poisons they are.
Though the anime is appealing to teenagers and adults, this is something you wouldn’t want to let your kids watch due to the graphic sex and violence.
There’s a wide variety of antagonists that both Jubei and Kagero come across. It’s mainly Jubei who comes across and fights these people while Kagero is in the sidelines or taken as a hostage. For example there was a giant with stone skin in the beginning that Jubei managed to kill. He wielded a large double-bladed sword of Western style that could be thrown like a boomerang and used it to kill numerous ninjas in the beginning whom were Kagero’s friends.
He was the first person that attempted to rape Kagero. But he did kiss her. Which is how most people can get poisoned. Unfortunately, the giant was the first one to die and he died in an instant. There was pretty much no exciting fight scene to prelude his demise.
There’s Benisato who seems to be a "snake-lady" because she can molt as a way to escape her enemies. And she has done that a few times when fighting Jubei. There’s Yurimaru who is homosexual with the ability to emit electricity through wire. Zakuro is a scarred female that wields explosives. The main antagonist is a man known as Gemma who Jubei said he had beheaded.
Half-way through the series, it’s revealed how Gemma survived after he was "killed" by Jubei. Gemma had mastered the "reincarnation" technique long before meaning he can reattach his limbs including his head. With such antagonists such as Gemma, it makes Ninja Scroll a great anime to watch.
However, there is depictions of sex and rape present which is the other reason Ninja Scroll isn’t for the younger audiences. She got raped by the rock giant. And she was sexually molested Shijima while under captivity in order to lure Jubei into a trap. There was a scene where Kagero’s superior was having sex with a concubine at the same time debriefing her on her previous assignment.
Asides from the sex, there’s a lot of gory-violent goodness packed throughout the movie. Such as the rock giant drinking the blood from arms that he torn off from Kagero’s friend with brute strength.
If you can look past the sex, rape, and molestation, then you can definitely enjoy Ninja Scroll. Keep in mind that certain crowds of viewers. Intellectuals will find this an interesting piece of work. Liberals might find it interesting. Feminists around condemn Ninja Scroll because of the sex, rape, molestation, and objectification of females. Right-wing neocons would condemn Ninja Scroll in general because they’d deem it as "Anti-Christian".
But it’s still a great anime. I prefer this over Ninja: Resurrection any day of the week. But they could’ve cut down on the sex just a wee bit.