Legend of the Mystical Ninja #1: Goemon The Good ADV 100 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 12/30/2003 Reviewed: 11/29/2005

A long time ago, before Metal Gear was "solid" and before anyone had ever dreamed of making a franchise based around the stealing of cars and raping/killing of women, the focus of videogames were on simpler things. It was a heady period between the release of Atari 2600 games based on Custer's rape of the Indians and Little Tony's rape of Miami hookers on the PS2. Back then things were simple, all you did was defeat ninjas and aliens and gangbangers, all of whom were dead-set in their desire to rule the earth with an iron fist. There was no loosey-goosey morality in Nintendo games. The question I ask to you is if the addition of complex and overwrought storylines worth the loss of one of gaming's most storied and important components? Of course, I'm talking about that delicious fruit that is co-op. My buddies Greg, JL, and I would often sit down to a game of Legend of the Mystical Ninja for the Super Nintendo game console. Players would assume the mantle of Kid Yin or Doctor Yang and go to town with their extended yo-yo or pipe, defeating the evil farmers and ghost cats in the world during their quest to... save someone or something or some place. I don't know what, exactly, we never really beat the game.

There was something magical about that little thing, though, something that made it great. That "spark" was the ability to do it with two people, like so many other games of that time period. My overwhelming nostalgia for that Super Nintendo classic and my good times with Greg and JL forced me to pick up the animated series of Legend of the Mystical Ninja. The fact that ADV was having a 75%+ off sale might have help as well. It certainly helped ease the blow when my fears were confirmed whilst watching it: Legend of the Mystical Ninja is just a kid's show, and has relatively little to do with co-op or the killing of ghost cats. In this universe the Mystical Ninja characters really ARE game characters, but, as often happens in these things, something gives them the ability to appear in the real world. Now in modern day Japan their enemy is the notorious Seppukumaru, a dastardly villain who is trying to take over the world for the reason that all good villains try to take over the world: he just wants to. Seppukumaru is a jokey villain, like an animated version of a Sentai super-badguy or something. This is only solidified by his 'hilarious' attempts to commit suicide after any one of his treacherous villain-plans fails. If I'm remembering my two years in Japanese class correctly (I'm probably not) 'Seppukumaru' translates into 'to ritually commit suicide'. So... there's that.

 

Despite tackling such deep issues as self-mutilation, Mystical Ninja is not a very daring kids show. The characters are all cutesy and boring. There's a brave girl and a shy girl and a robot that never gets anything done, a spunky little kid who all the minions from the game world try to help do well in school and get laid, and his hot mom and the father figure that's in the first episode but then mysteriously disappears for the rest of the show. And then we've got our two main characters. Irrepressibly naive Goemon (us Americans knew him as Kid Yin) and fat comic relief Ebichu (the cosmic Dr. Yang). The gang spends their time going on crazy adventures and having in lieu of getting jobs and supporting their families. Every once in a while they destroy an evil machine gone awry at the behest of Seppukumaru. It's the kind of charmed life that only exists in a six year old's mind. Also I guess there's a robot now that needs to be fed rice balls to have his special powers activate. I'm notoriously forgiving when it comes to giant robots, but that plot point was a little tough for even me to swallow.

But it's a kid's show, and I am not a kid. I don't know how many times I've said this, probably quite a few, so maybe I have nobody to blame but myself. It's just... with my life going as is right now, I just have a whole where pleasures like Contra and River City Ransom used to sit. Fun times with the old pals, Greg and JL, sitting around and debating the choice between grass skirts and wooden sandals. Was there a preference in defense between the two? What, exactly, was the point of it all? Was it really worth writing a whole FAQ about the concentration minigame?? I don't know what I was trying to do when I bought Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I don't know, maybe I thought I could rekindle some of that wonderful nostalgia while my good buddy Greg rots away in California, performing service to senior citizens for $4 an hour. What a jerk! They guy thinks he's so great, out there administering viagra and changing diapers while Yin and Yang languish in my bedroom closet without a second glance. I imagine Legend of the Mystical Ninja is fine for your child growing into the awkward school age, but it's not very useful as a sublimation technique for your irrepressible ghost cat mastication desires.