Crew
Directors – Junpei Mizusaki & Shinji Takagi, Part Directors – Gento Fujiwara, Takeshi Ishiuchi, Tanakobu Mizuno, Elsa Nakamichi, Daisuke Sajiki & Susumu Yamaguchi, Screenplay – Kazuki Nakashima, Music – Yugo Kanno, CGI Director – Takafumi Utsunomiya, Production Design – Elsa Nakamichi. Production Company – Warner Bros. Animation.
Plot
Batman and Robin have returned from the journey to feudal Japan via the Quake Engine. Batman discovers that Japan is now missing, along with the other members of the Justice League. Gotham City is then attacked by dozens of Yakuza falling from the sky. Batman finds that Japan is now located up on the sky but due to the effects of the Quake Engine only he and Robin can see it. He and Robin fly up to discover an alternate Japan ruled by Yakuza gangs. They are then attacked by the alternate world equivalents of Aquaman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Harley Quinn, among others, who are in the service of the Yakuza. Batman discovers that Ra’s al-Ghul has used the Quake Engine to fold time and create an alternate history where Japan is ruled by Yakuza clans and the Justice League has been imported as alternate figures. Ra’s is the head of the major Yakuza clan and has Yakuza Superman, Kuraku the Man of Steel, as his chief lieutenant. Batman’s only hope is in aligning with Diana Amazone, the Yakuza world Wonder Woman, who defends the moral code of the ninja from her all-women island in the midst of a lake.
DC Comics has a title called Elseworlds, which consist of alternate retellings of familiar DC characters – where we get gender-reversed versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or the characters are placed into different milieus such as rewriting them as pirates, vampires, in the Victorian Era, or reconceived in terms of film noir, German Expressionism, the Arthurian legends etc. There have been several films spun off from Elseworlds with Batman: Gotham By Gaslight (2018), Superman: Red Son (2020) and Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023).
Batman Ninja (2018) was not one of the Elseworlds works but was an original work to the screen that gave Batman the Anime treatment, transplanting Batman and various familiar characters back to feudal Japan. Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League is a sequel. Some influence in both of these, particularly when it comes to this sequel, seems to have come from the Elseworlds story Shogun of Steel (2002) that imagines the formation of the Justice League in feudal Japan.
The film opens with what comes across as a wilful bizarreness that gives it a real WTF quality – Gotham City being invaded by dozens of Yakuza falling from the sky; Japan for some reason gone missing and relocated upside down in the sky, although only Batman and Robin can see it. And then a little later there is talk about alternate timelines (which are apparently different from the multiverse that is referred to elsewhere) and about Ra’s al Ghul having folded time over and plucked the Justice League out of their natural element and into an alternate timeline Japan that is dominated by Yakuza clans. The rationale behind all of this is none-too-believable.
The film’s whole conceit is seeing various of the Justice League transferred into a Japanese-themed world. There is a wacky amusement to this – The Flash wears a kasa hat; Green Lantern (the Jessica Cruz version) is outfitted in a kimono; Superman wears cool dark glasses like a Japanese gangster; and most bizarrely Harley Quinn runs about on a motor scooter. The unfortunate downside of Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League is that these alternate takes seem to be the entirety of the film. There is nothing more to it than these bizarre takes on the characters and some odd supporting characters and then having them all meet in a big punch-up.
Things become even more bizarre when Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League starts trying to mimic various styles of Japanese film. Wonder Woman has a song while walking in a kimono twirling umbrella like the heroine of a classic Japanese movie, even accompanied with karaoke subtitles. Alfred offers a plan to the Bat Family where they all pilot vehicles that come together as a giant Transformer robot like Gigantor (1963-6) or Mazinger Z (1972-4). And other characters get power-suit upgrades in a reference to assorted Japanese tv superheroics.
Trailer here