The first video game movie is a sci-fi blast

By Drewsch
| Announce 1 hour ago

Back when I did the Super Mario Bros. video For this channel – you should watch it because it’s a good video and doing so helps prevent me from getting homeless – I mentioned possibly making a video about the first real video game feature movie.

Before I can even do that, I have to say that this is not about The great mission to save Princess Peach! or Running Boy: No Himitsu Star Soldier. Not because I don’t like or discount animation at all, but because those are smaller productions more like special TV programs than big feature adaptations with a real budget.

For that, we go back to the ’80s and watch what is still one of the best video game movies ever and proves that a video game movie curse was never initially.

We’re talking about the real first video game movie, Mirai ninja.

Mirai ninja In the Namco Arcade Game in 1988 released in Japan alone, so it’s fair if you’ve never heard of it. In the game, you play as a resurrected ninja robot that has to prevent their leader’s bad empire and resurrection. That reminds me, I need to replay Cyber ​​-coat. That game is rocks.

Anyway, the Mirai ninja Arcade Game was developed with the intention of releasing a companion feature film, so this was not about adapting an existing game in a film. Instead, the game and the film were made to praise each other directly.

The Japanese title of the film would be Mirai Ninja: Keigumo Kinin Gaiden, Translated as Ninja in the future: The Side Story of the Cloud Joy Cloud Device. Bless the Japanese and their wonderful titles.

The film would have a number of different titles depending where it was released. Across the pit in the UK, it was Robo ninja. My wonderful neighbors got to the north Warlord. Sorry, Canada, you deserved a better title. And here in the United States, and that’s how I came to know, was Cyber ​​ninja But I’m going to call him back his Japanese title because I’m Weeb Loser.

Now, before actually talking Mirai ninja Himself, I think I need to correct a waiver from a previous video. In my video on Guyver: a dark hero – I would also love you to watch it so that my beautiful kitty does not starve to death – I neglected to mention the term tokusatsuused in Japanese live-action productions to indicate heavy use of special effects.

Over time, tokusatsu It also became a term that was relevant to a certain style of producing special effects, such as what is seen in Japanese TV series as Cyclist came or the Super Sentai Series. And Mirai ninja are so pure tokusatsu So you can get it. I was able to watch those who explode sparks over and over again.

Since the game and film were produced together, the Mirai ninja The film deliberately tried to be as loyal as the game could arcade. So much so that the film’s director and co-writer, Keita Amemiya, also worked on the character designs for the game. All of this leads to a film that could not be more loyal to their video game source material. The first phase of the video game is largely adapted directly for the opening credit sequence, and even the music of the game gets a new orchestra for the film at times.

So a basic story Mirai ninja are going to seem very familiar to anyone who even the smallest familiarity with…

The film begins with text saying, “Once at a time, in a distant future…”, there is a bad empire that kidnapped a princess dressed in white, a fraudulent mercenary is employed to save them, there is a bad emperor who is a big floating head, I need to go on? A compulsory statement of “Samurai Cinema, Star Wars, was influenced specifically Akira Kurosawa’s The hidden fort”Before someone in the comments wanted” um, really “me.

A more “Not Star Wars” part of the story relates to a soldier who dies at the beginning of the film and is resurrected as a ninja robot by the dark overlord clan. This is our hero, Shiranui, who is trying to reach the dark overlord fort to restore his body in front of her and the princess is used to resurrect the dark overlord.

You don’t get much more simple than that, and that’s the best thing Mirai ninja in terms of writing. At 75 minutes, it does not over -complicate itself. As Joe Bob Briggs would say, “There is not much conspiracy to go in the way of the story.” This is about Robo Ninjas and Baddies Techno shooting lasers and slicing each other with swords.

Which is the real best thing about Mirai ninja. This is a pure Saturday morning cartoon craziness in the real world. And it does exactly what the video game is exactly. He does not need to jam Black jack into it to make it as apparent as possible. He can reflect and embrace the simplicity of his video game while continuing to tell a functional velodramatic story about Shiranui thanks to the audience knowing that he is actually a brother of another character in question. It’s nothing new but it works.

And if you hang on story and characters Mirai ninjaGo ahead and punch as I sunbathe in the edo attack pedestrians and my man, Shoki, the big bad henchman that ends like the ship for the resurrected dark overlord. It has head tentacles that stab you if you try to sneak up on it! Shoki Rules.

Shiranui rules. Mirai ninja fucking rules.

And the only reason that more people didn’t feel that way back when Mirai ninja Released in 1988 is because the film remained in Japan because the arcade game was not exported to other countries. He received a home video and relief called English in the ’90s on VHS and a DVD statement in Japan in the 2000s, but has not had a loving recovery than was better released on Blu-ray.

And he needs so many reasons. When people mourn for “the curse of the video game movie” and blamed so many adjustments for decades starting Super Mario Bros.they need to know about Mirai ninja. The first live video game movie was not cursed at all. In fact, it was produced as well as it could have been back in 1988.

Keita Amemiya would go on to direct similar tokusatsu Movies like ZeiraTwo Cyclist came Movies, and one other film that I will 100% make a video on if this one is doing well. For Mirai ninja It was his first theatrical feature, needs to be preserved for his filmography.

And this is the first live-acting video game movie, not Super Mario Bros. That fact should only allow Mirai ninja Tons of admiration, respect, and a very modem home video statement to audiences worldwide.

You can find a copy of Mirai ninja Out here at Cyberspace, but hopefully we can all look forward to a day where a lovely new version of high definition can be made. The first video game movie deserves nothing less.

Y’all like these types of videos for lesser -known flicks or Japanese genre stuff? I love doing ’em even if no one else seems like them, so let me know in the comments and like the video because that’s going to tell us, “Do more things like this!” Subscribe to the channel and I will give you a scritch to my kitty. Thanks for watching and hope you back next time on a huge freakin robot.