Ninja Scroll

Ninja Scroll (1993) is a Japanese action and dark-fantasy anime you can watch online on iFILM. Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri made it at Madhouse, and the film grew into a cult favorite among Western anime fans over the decades that followed.

Feudal Japan. Jubei is a masterless ninja who sells his blade to anyone with gold or a cause worth the risk. In a province gutted by plague he rescues a female ninja named Kagero from a poisoned clan and, almost by accident, kills one of the Eight Devils of Kimon — a band of warriors with inhuman powers. To the remaining seven, he is now a target. Behind it all sits a plot to topple the shogunate, and Jubei is dragged into it whether he likes it or not. Each devil fights differently: one melts into stone, one commands swarms of wasps, one feels no pain at all.

Kawajiri draws violence without softening it — blood, inventive deaths, and frank eroticism mark this as anime made for adults. The hand-drawn animation is dense and heavy with mood in a way few films attempt now. It lands for fans of samurai tales and anyone hunting old-school anime. Stream Ninja Scroll (1993) online on iFILM.