Ninninger Episode 8: It's the Fuuka Show!

If you've been tagging along with the Ninninger recaps so far you may have noticed that while I've never called the show outright bad, it has repeatedly failed to reach a level of quality I'd call good. That all changed this week when the focus finally shifted to our MVN (Most Valuable Ninja) Fuuka. Alright, maybe she's not the most valuable but she's definitely on the high end. Let's not forget that the actress (Yuka Yano) is also doing an ace job as well as being cute as a damn button. How bout we take a look at her good work?

Our tale kicks off with Fuuka and Nagi going to school. She's deadset on keeping all her ninja activities secret from her friends as she just wants to be normal. We get to learn a decent bit here as we find that the girl has no idea what she wants to do in the future. Nagi on the other hand is aiming for a nice & stable government job that will allow him to continue being a ninja on the side. Meanwhile, the three older ninja start the day by defeating that clock cat who somehow returned after last weeks beating. Upon returning home they decide to practice ninjitsu by playing hide & seek.

Eventually the younger ninja return home with Fuuka's two lady friends in tow who get invited in by Takaharu before he and Kasumi have to go fight that damn cat again. We, the well-informed audience are made aware that the watch portion of the cat can just rewind a few hours every time he's defeated. Our heroes sadly lack this knowledge as they bring the watch home for study which allows the beast to ransack their house in search of the end shuriken before taking the friends hostage and running off to the year 2005 with Take & Fuuka in pursuit.

After a brief chat where Fuuka laments that she can't have friends over like regular kids she figures out that the cat must have gone to their old house (the one that went boom at the start of the series). Once there, they meet up with their childhood counterparts. Young Fuuka actually tricks the monster by pretending to be scared so he'll come out of hiding. This is where our girl remembers that she really wanted to grow up and be a badass ninja.

What follows is quite the sequence of events as Fuuka reveals her ninja techniques to rescue her friends and get them back to the proper year before leading the team into battle and tricking the monster into revealing his weakness. To make things even better, the show has finally learned to have a sense of humor about itself. A criticism amongst viewers has been that Takaharu is constantly stealing the spotlight. Here that's used as a joke as his sister takes charge, which totally throws him off. Especially when she tosses him out of the pilot seat in their jumbo robot. They even fight over who gets to have the final victory pose.

In the end, Fuuka fully accepts her role as a ninja and her friends dig it as well. A well earned ending for a fine tale. Oh and I can't forget to mention how we also got our first look at the sixth ranger. He's a cowboy.....which would have worried me earlier in the series but now I'm thinking they might be able to pull this off.

Truly this was the most solid episode Ninninger has shown us so far. It told a complete story with real emotional growth. Had the good sense to make fun of its own shortcomings. Even Kasumi came off better this week. We'll know if this upward trajectory holds as episode 9 is already out. Back to report on that, soon. TTFN.