Cute and silly ninja and not-so-ninja nonsense, best suited to the younger viewers or those who enjoy inane, slapstick comedy.
2004 saw the release of the 12 part anime series 2×2=Shinobuden from studio Ufotable and director Hitoyuki Matsui. It tells the tale of Shinobu, a cute, well-meaning but quite dense girl who is training to be a ninja under the guidance of her master Onsokumaru – who just happens to be a lecherous, anthropomorphic, shape-shifting, talking yellow ball, who is able to manipulate and string her along anyway he wants.
Kaede Shiranui on the other hand is just a plain old normal high school girl who gets caught up in this crazy world where just about anything goes, when she found herself confronting a not quite as invisible as she thought Shinobu who was tasked with stealing a pair of her panties in order to qualify as a ninja (She had to choose 1 out of a 1000 possible tasks).
What follows is a crazy and over the top slapstick spectacular, which combined with Onsokumaru’s lecherous and ecchi antics, is bound to have you giggling out aloud if this sort of silliness does it for you.
The visuals are crisp and clean with very simple lines and bright colours, but it is well animated and brings across the humor, silliness and fast pace of the show extremely well. Similarly, the sound track and voice artists capture the necessary tone to perfection.
So, if you fall into this demographic of anime viewer, the extremely silly ninja-themed 2×2=Shinobuden should be able to pull a chuckle or two from you!
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Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2×2%3DShinobuden