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DC villains aren’t known for the practicality of their evil schemes: laughing fish, stealing stuff by twos, leaving behind a clue in the form of a riddle, things of that nature. But it says something about the sensibility of Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League that, when confronted with the villainous plot of the main bad guy (which involves firing gangsters into the air with a giant gun), a kidnapped Damian Wayne quips, “This is so dumb. You guys are out of your damn minds.” You may hear “Batman fighting yakuza” and think it sounds like a badass crime drama, but this is not that. And it’s all the better for it.
Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is a gleeful tribute to American comic book nonsense and – this is meant with nothing but affection – stupid anime tropes, even more than its 2018 predecessor, in which the Bat-Family went back in time to feudal Japan and had to fight multiple robotic castles fused together into a giant Joker mech. There’s an impromptu musical number so one character can explain her emotions, one hero gets a Super Sentai-esque suit upgrade that’s never explained, and the trusty Batwing is replaced with a needlessly complicated, multi-vehicle combiner thing that’s introduced in a genuinely incredible 2D-animated homage to Super Robot cartoons like Voltron.
That sequence in particular may be the standout moment of Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, which revolves around the Dark Knight battling evil criminal versions of his closest friends. Presumably due to the time-wrecking events of the previous Batman Ninja movie, Japan has disappeared from the Earth and reappeared floating in the sky above Gotham City. Batman needs a way to fly up to it, so Alfred introduces… not the new Bat Phoenix combiner vehicle itself, but an OVA about how cool the Bat Phoenix is. The entire lengthy start-up sequence of everyone being carried to their seat by the kind of giant tubes that anime fans have seen countless times isn’t really happening within Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League. It’s just Alfred saying “Look at this video I made.” As Damian says: It’s so dumb, but it’s also very fun.
Nobody involved in this project seems to have taken any part of it particularly seriously, but they do play it as straight as they would if this were a more normal Batman story – which makes it all the more entertaining. It’s a movie that starts with the Gotham police force fighting off a “Yakuza Hurricane” (think Sharknado, but with gangsters), and everyone acts like that’s a normal thing. Batman Ninja takes a while to get goofy, leaving its intended tone a little unclear. Its sequel doesn’t bother checking to see if you’re in on the joke. You either are or you aren’t, and if you are, you’re in for quite a ride.
Comedy aside, this is also an action movie, and a pretty good one at that. Granted, Batman or the Bat-Family fighting the Justice League is a thing we’ve seen many, many times now, but there’s some added depth here due to the fact that the Yakuza League isn’t necessarily evil. Batman doesn’t want to kill or even imprison them, he wants to try and save their souls, which ties in with the movie’s repeated references to “ninkyō,” or the supposed code of honor among yakuza.
The character designs aren’t quite as dramatic as the samurai armor and katanas of Batman Ninja (a present-day setting will do that), but the eponymous Yakuza League members all pull from a slightly different aesthetic, and they’re all great. The yakuza Superman wears formal blue robes and has a red coat over his shoulders (to mirror his cape, of course), and he completes the look with big aviator sunglasses to make it clear that he’s a gangster. It may be one of the best “evil Superman” looks ever. Going with the Jessica Cruz version of Green Lantern rather than the better known Hal Jordan or John Stewart opens up some interesting costuming avenues, too. She wears layers of green robes with some kind of maniacal-looking teddy bear strapped to her back, but the standout feature is her hair, which is held up with pins that look like the Green Lantern emblem and were clearly conjured by her power ring. It’s a thoughtful design that takes her powers and personality into account.
If there’s something negative to say about Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, it’s that it doesn’t have a whole lot to offer beyond the face-off promised in the title. It’s junk food, like a lot of superhero stuff and a lot of anime, but it’s delicious and tooth-meltingly sweet as far as junk food goes. And at a time when popular culture is dominated by superheroes, concepts like this one are somewhat rare. The audience for a movie with Batman in it is so big that a less serious outing like this runs the risk of alienating viewers who expect something big and important from the Caped Crusader. It’s a positive sign that there’s still space for silly fun in this fictional universe.
Case in point: This movie doesn’t even really care about Batman Ninja canon. The previously defeated Joker naturally appears in Yakuza League, but it’s just to help get Batman out of a scrape so they can someday fight each other again later. Batman’s reaction? “That’s dumb.” Everything’s a little dumb in this movie, but Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is about how much fun it can be when everything is a little dumb.
