3/5 Another series falls victim to a rushed, frenetic movie version
  by Ana Mardoll (United States)
Wrath of the Ninja / B00000IBUG

*Spoilers*

Unfortunately, it's often easy to tell when an anime movie is a complete series distilled into a single feature film, and "Wrath of the Ninja" is a good example of this. The movie starts off well, with the initial and hostile meeting of two of the (as yet unknown) chosen trio of ninjas, only to have their battle interrupted by a new, and frightening, common opponent.

Despite this interesting hook in the beginning, though, the movie quickly rushes into gibberish, falling victim to doing too much in too short a time span. After episodic events such as an enemy attack, the film will leap forward several seasons, with a quick exposition voice over that leaves far too much unexplained for the uninitiated to follow. The result is a film that will be unsatisfying for everyone - fans of the series will be irritated by how much was cut; new viewers will be confused and finally bored with the sequence of apparently unconnected events that leave no real emotional impact in their wake.

"Wrath of the Ninja" isn't a *bad* movie in the traditional, awful sense - but it's rushed and frenetic and confusing. In order to meet the feature film length, motivation and character development have been almost entirely cut. In its place, the writers have dropped a bunch of clichés and stereotypes to prop up the action, and I suppose if they were happy with a mediocre, cliché-ridden film then good for them, but most viewers are going to be disappointed, and it's particularly infuriating to be lost for the entire movie because the politics and warfare strategies couldn't be explained a little further, but they DID find time to have the Wangsty male ninja hit up on the Serious female ninja with the obligatory "you're not being feminine enough" guilt stick. Oh, yeah, and the movie commits the cardinal sin of the "Bait and Switch Boss" trope, which is truly bad enough in video games but should never, ever be used in movies.

I wouldn't really recommend "Wrath of the Ninja", but it's not the worst movie in the world. Oddly, it's one of the few anime movies where the English subtitles for the hearing impaired actually match the English dubs a little bit, which is pleasant in and of itself.

5/5 oh how I missed you!
  by J. Davidson
This was one of the first animes I ever owned growing up and when I wore out the VHS copy I loved so much, i never thought I'd get to watch it again! It is a true classic in the ninja style. Attacks, parries and lots of monsters getting killed! A must have for anyone who like the ninja genre

5/5 Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden Movie DVD
  by L. Pino (New York, NY)
Excellent DVD, interesting storyline, and great animation. Received in perfect condition, and quick and easy transaction.

5/5 A relatively pleasing anime.
  by Michael Gmirkin (Beaverton, Oregon, USA)
I recently purchased a bunch of miscellaneous anime, and had a viewing session over a few days.

Wrath of the Ninja actually was one of my more favored of the bunch. I watched the "movie" version. This is a relatively classic anime. The animation is good. I enjoyed the voice acting as much as most other decent shows/OVA's out there. I definitely preferred this over Ninja Cadets!, and far and above Harmagedon.

Spriggan (Special Edition) was another matter. I rather liked Spriggan, despite a less-than-perfect ending (I still thought the anime was better overall than Akira; by my preference anyway). I figure that, despite being of different genres Wrath of the Ninja was on par with Spriggan. I haven't watched the OVA feature included on the special edition yet, but I assume it will be of as high of quality if not higher quality than the "movie" version.

In all, I think this is worth a "buy" rating. Certain more so than Harmagedon or Ninja Cadets mentioned above.

4/5 be ready to pause
  by S. Campbell
this was a good buy. the movie of coarse was good, but i liked the mini series a little better. it goes a little more indepth to the story and explains a few things that were skipped. but hold a finger on the pause button, the subtittles run a bit fast and its hard to read it all in time. but well worth it.