The version I’m currently reviewing here is a re-release by Section 23/Sentai Filmworks of their own 2012 release. This movie has been re-released 4 times as far as I can tell over the years. Most of these I’ve re-bought in the intervening years, but when it came out in a 10 th anniversary edition DVD in 2003 I don’t know why but I never acquired it. I traded in all my anime, comedies and action flicks. Unfortunately, in the mid-2000s I had to get rid of it when money was tight. All I remember now is one day having the VHS, and having it until it first hit DVD in the late 90s.

I have no direct memory of getting that VHS, but I assure you I did eventually buy it, though I seem to think that destined purchase didn’t actually occur until many years later. It just didn’t roll through my mind casually destined to be chucked somewhere deep and dark where it would eventually become forgotten altogether, no, when I saw the name of this movie, my mind branded it into every corner and onto every firing synapse it could.Īmazon states it hit VHS in June of ’95, which must be around the time I saw it on MTV.

I finally noticed during one of the snippets the name of the movie- Ninja Scroll. Were they planning on airing it? I never had any idea. I couldn’t understand why they were showing it either. I can’t remember if MTV was airing an anime movie, or series, or what, but they kept showing snippets of Scroll before and after the commercial breaks, and the moment I set eyes on it my jaw dropped. For me it was during a marathon of The Maxx in 1995. Trust me, if you’re an anime lover, you never forget the first time you saw Ninja Scroll.

And you bet this qualifies as a memory movie for me. It’s up there with Vampire Hunter D (1985), Akira (1988) and Ghost In The Shell (1995), just to name three. Ninja Scroll is one of those movies that have reached anime classic status.

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