Ninja Scroll Plot
Ninja Scroll Introduction
Ninja Scroll is an anime that was released in 1993 and was written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri.Ninja Scroll Plot Summary / Synopsis
In feudal Japan, the Yamashiro clan has been mining gold from a mine kept secret from the government. The Yamashiro clan sends a ship carrying gold to the Shogun of the Dark as payment for his protection. The Shogun of the Dark intends to use the gold to buy advanced weapons and overthrow the government. However, the ship carrying the gold runs aground in a storm.
Dakuan is a government spy who has been sent to find information about the gold mine. Jubei, a wandering ninja, reluctantly agrees to help Dakuan in exchange for an antidote after Dakuan poisons him. Five years ago, Jubei had killed Genma, the now leader of the Eight Devils of Kimon. However, Genma has since reincarnated himself back to life.
A female ninja named Kagero has been sent by a nearby ninja clan to investigate the village. She joins with Dakuan and Jubei because the three have the same mission. As the journey progresses, the Devils of Kimon separately launch attacks on Jubei, Kagero and Dakuan. However, the three survive until they eventually find the grounded ship and realize what is going on.
A new ship soon arrives to carry the gold from the grounded ship to the Shogun of the Dark. As the ship is being loaded, Kagero is fatally stabbed by Genma, who then departs on board the ship. Jubei finds Kagero and the two kiss before she dies. Kagero has an immunity to poisons and so the kiss acts as an antidote and cures Jubei of his poisoning.
Jubei swims out and boards the ship. He and Dakuan then cause a fire to start it sinking. By now all of the Devils of Kimon are dead except for Genma. He and Jubei then fight on board the sinking ship. Genma cannot be killed because of his regeneration abilites but he ends up engulfed in molten gold which then hardens, trapping him inside. Genma, the ship and the gold then sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Ninja Scroll Plot in Detail
Jubei Kibagami
In feudal Japan, a lone ninja swordsman named Jubei Kibagami is walking over a bridge when he is ambushed by three enemy warriors. Jubei easily and nonchalantly defeats them and continues on his way.The Shimoda Village Plague and Kagero
Nearby, the people of a small coastal village named Shimoda suddenly and mysteriously begin to die. The Mochizuki ninja clan soon organises a group of their ninjas to investigate the cause of the village's plague. A female ninja named Kagero, who usually serves only as the food tester for the clan's leader, insists on being part of the investigative team.Tesai
Not long into their investigation, a giant man named Tesai, who has rock-like skin, massacres almost all of the ninja team. Tesai carries a giant double-ended sword which he throws at his adversaries like a boomerang. Leaving Kagero alive, he takes her back to his home and begins to sexually assault her. Jubei appears behind Tesai and interrupts by asking him some questions, before throwing a ninja star into Tesai's eye, allowing Kagero to escape. Tesai pursues and attacks Jubei and Kagero but he is soon interrupted by a man named Yurimaru who forbids Tesai from continuing the chase. Yurimaru tells Tesai that his words carry the weight of "Lord Genma's" orders.Kagero stoically thanks Jubei, believing she now owes him a debt, and the two then part ways. Kagero returns to her clan and reports to the leader what happened to the ninja team.
As he continues to wander alone, Jubei is soon ambushed by Tesai, who then proceeds to dish out a one-sided beating. However, something seems to affect Tesai as his rock-like skin begins to crumble. Enraged, Tesai throws his double-ended sword at Jubei who jumps out of the way. Jubei counters by throwing his own sword which cuts Tesai's hand in half. As Tesai's sword comes spinning back to him he is unable to catch it with his cut up hand. Instead his sword embeds deeply into his forehead, killing him.
Dakuan
A small man named Dakuan, who had been watching the battle, compliments Jubei on his skills. But he also reveals that the reason Tesai's skin began to fall apart was because of his earlier physical contact with Kagero. After being a food tester for so long, Kagero was exposed to so many poisons that she herself eventually became toxic. Now anyone who has sexual contact with her will become poisoned. Dakuan also explains that he is a spy for the Tokugawa government and that Tesai is just one member of the Eight Devils of Kimon. The Devils are working for the Shogun of the Dark who is trying to overthrow the government.Later on, a female member of the Eight Devils of Kimon named Benisato tracks Jubei, seeking to kill him in revenge for Tesai's death. Benisato lures Jubei into a trance but Jubei snaps out of it when someone throws a ninja star into his arm. Jubei attacks Benisato with his sword but she decoys him with a cast-off skin, similar to a snake's, and escapes. Dakuan emerges and tells Jubei that the Devils will keep after him to get their revenge. He also explains that the ninja star he threw at Jubei was coated with a poison which will kill Jubei in a few days. If Jubei will join him in his government mission and help defeat the Devils then Dakuan will give him the antidote and 100 pieces of gold. Jubei has no choice but to agree.
The Yamashiro Clan's Gold Mine and Himuro Genma
It is then revealed that five years ago the chief retainers of the Yamashiro clan were secretly keeping gold for themselves from a hidden gold mine. The head of the Yamashiro clan, who was supposedly going to report the mine to the government, ordered a ninja team led by Himuro Genma to kill the chief retainers. However, the head of the Yamashiro clan still did not report the mine to the government after.At this time, Jubei was one of the Yamashiro clan and part of the ninja team who killed the chief retainers. Genma later ordered the ninja team to kill each other, so as to cover up knowledge of the gold mine. While Jubei refused, the other ninjas followed the order. When they attempted to kill Jubei he was forced to kill them in self-defense. Later on, as Genma was riding on horseback, Jubei jumped out of hiding and decapitated Genma to avenge the ninja team's deaths.
Dakuan now tells Jubei that Genma had told the Shogun of the Dark about the gold mine. Dakuan also explains that the Yamashiro clan is now paying gold to the Shogun of the Dark for him to help them keep the mine a secret from the government. Previously, government spies had tried to infiltrate the Yamashiro clan to find out information about the mine. However, all were killed by the Devils of Kimon who the Shogun of the Dark has hired. Dakuan further claims that Genma is still alive and leading the Kimon Devils but Jubei rejects the idea.
Kagero Joins Jubei and Dakuan
Jubei happens upon a Buddhist temple. Inside he finds it is a trap set by Benisato who unleashes dozens of snakes. Kagero appears behind Benisato and holds her at knife-point, demanding she get rid of the snakes. After the snakes are gone, Kagero questions Benisato about what's going on. Before Benisato can talk she is electrocuted to death via a wire wrapped around her neck by Yurimaru, Genma's second in command in the Devils.Having saved Jubei's life, Kagero now feels she has repaid the debt she owed him. Kagero then meets Dakuan who persuades her to join him and Jubei since they share the same goals. As the three make their way through Shimoda village they find all the villagers dead. They conclude that someone who wanted to keep people away had poisoned the water wells and killed the villagers to make it look like a plague.
Mushizo and the Wasps
Jubei, Kagero and Dakuan are then attacked by swarms of wasps. While fleeing, Jubei spots the source of the wasps, another Devil named Mushizo who has a wasp hive for his back. Mushizo releases more wasps against Jubei who dives into a river to escape them. Jubei then swims through the river until he is below Mushizo. Springing upwards out of the water, Jubei cuts off Mushizo's leg, causing him to fall into the river. The wasps remaining in Mushizo's back sting him to death as they desperately try to escape from the water.During their fight, Mushizo implied to Jubei that Genma was able to reincarnate himself from death. Jubei is now shocked as he realizes that Genma might still be alive after all.
Utsutsu Mujuro
Jubei recalls that men riding horses came past on the night that there was a large storm recently. He then looks for a spot where he can get a better view of the surrounding area. While searching, Jubei and Kagero come across Hanza, who was a member of Kagero's investigating ninja team. He has been blinded and is wandering towards the edge of a cliff. Kagero tries to help him but he explodes. Hanza had been stuffed with gunpowder by Zakuro, a woman from the Eight Devils of Kimon, to create a trap. However, Jubei and Kagero managed to jump off the cliff to avoid the explosion and are now hanging by a wire which Jubei keeps attached to his sword.Climbing back up the wire, Jubei and Kagero see Utsutsu Mujuro, a blind swordsman and member of the Devils, holding Jubei's sword. He challenges Jubei to a duel, which Jubei accepts. Jubei moves the sword fight into a bamboo forest and begins cutting down several bamboo trees, hoping to distract Mujuro's hearing. As the two fight, Kagero tries to attack Mujuro with her knife but she misses him, leaving her knife stuck in a bamboo tree. Jubei yells at Kagero to stay out of it. Eventually Mujuro gets the better of Jubei and attempts to bring his sword down on Jubei to finish him off. However, Mujuro's sword is blocked by Kagero's knife which is still embedded in the bamboo, allowing Jubei to counter and stab him, winning the duel.
The Cargo
Continuing their search, Jubei finds a ship that ran aground during the large storm. He realizes that everything that's been happening must be related to the cargo that the ship was carrying. Dakuan later tells him that the cargo on the ship was gold which had come from the gold mine that they had spoken about earlier. It was being sent from the Yamashiro clan to the Shogun of the Dark as payment for his help. The Devils of Kimon had made it look like there was a plague in Shimoda village which is near the grounded ship. This was to keep people away so that others wouldn't find out about the gold and the goldmine.Kagero is captured by Shijima, a Devil who shoots a large steel claw and who can clone himself, control people's minds and turn into a shadow. Shijima uses Kagero as bait to lure Jubei. Jubei comes to rescue Kagero but she attacks him, as her mind is being controlled by Shijima. Jubei throws his sword into Shijima as he is turning into a shadow, killing him and releasing Kagero.
Believing that she again owes him a debt for saving her life, Kagero offers to sleep with Jubei. She reveals to him that Dakuan had told her that this was the antidote to Jubei's illness, to "fight poison with poison". Jubei hesitates but then leaves when he notices a ship coming in to the shore.
The Ship
The ship arrives at the nearby harbor and ninjas who serve the Shogun of the Dark begin loading it with the gold which was recovered from the grounded ship. Meanwhile Dakuan and Jubei watch from the roof of a nearby building. Just then, Kagero's Mochizuki clan arrives on the scene and Kagero begins to report to the clan leader what is happening. Suddenly the leader stabs Kagero with his sword and then shapeshifts into Genma. Genma had killed the real clan leader days ago and then taken on his form. Seeing what happened to Kagero, Jubei screams out in horror, giving his position away. Wave after wave of the ninjas then attack Jubei but he cuts through all of them in a rage.Yurimaru ambushes Jubei and throws a wire noose around his neck, pulling him up so he is hanging from a roof beam. Yurimaru, who has the ability to generate electricity, then shocks Jubei repeatedly with electricity through the wire. A rat walks near Yurimaru and then explodes. It had been packed with gunpowder by Zakuro, supposedly as a trap for Jubei. Yurimaru is killed but Jubei manages to escape by cutting the wire with his sword.
Kagero's Death
Jubei runs to Kagero and pleads for her not to die. She opens up to him and admits that she had fallen in love with him. Jubei kisses her before she dies, curing his poisoning.Sabotaging the Ship
The ship carrying the gold has now departed, along with Genma onboard. Jubei swims out after the ship and climbs aboard, intending to sink it.On the ship, a lord who works for the Shogun of the Dark explains that the Shogun plans to use the gold to buy advanced weapons which he can use to overthrow the government. However, Genma has different ideas. He plans to use the gold to fund a ninja army to overthrow the government so that he can rule Japan himself. Genma kills the lord and takes over the ship.
Down in the ship's cargo hold, Dakuan is preparing to sink the ship when he is intercepted by Zakuro. Jubei arrives and uses Zakuro's gunpowder to blow her up, setting the ship on fire.
Jubei vs Genma
Genma goes down into the hold and is met by Jubei who is seeking to avenge Kagero's death. However, Genma's regeneration abilities make him seemingly invincible as he can recover from any of Jubei's strikes, even reattaching his arm which Jubei cuts off. The huge Genma beats Jubei severely but Jubei manages to drive his sword into Genma's stomach and then up through his head. A flood of molten gold comes pouring through the ship. Jubei climbs out of its way but Genma, who has been stopped momentarily while his body regenerates from Jubei's strike, is engulfed by the liquid gold.As Jubei climbs away, a gold encrusted Genma jumps up and grabs ahold of Jubei's leg, in one last desperate attempt to kill him. Jubei cuts Genma's arm off, causing him to fall backwards into the liquid gold again. The ship and its gold sink to the bottom of the ocean, along with Genma who is now trapped in the hardened gold and unable to move.
Epilogue
Afterwards, Jubei sits on the wreckage recovering while Dakuan talks to him, reflecting on what has happened. Jubei tells him that their partnership is now over and that he never wants to see him again. Jubei then resumes his lone wandering, now with Kagero's headband tied around his sword.Back to Home