“Batman is the essence of samurai, Wayne-san. You would do
well to remember that.”Smarting from his defeat in “Night of the Ninja,” Kyodai Ken (Robert Ito) retreats to Japan to seek out a deadly martial arts technique guarded by Bruce Wayne’s sensei. Sensei Yoru summons Bruce to Japan with the winking hope that Bruce might enlist the help of Batman in safeguarding the secret of kiba no hoko and saving Yoru’s star pupil from Kyodai Ken.
I had a lukewarm reaction to “Night of the Ninja,” which introduced Kyodai Ken to The Animated Series, and so I had been putting off “Day of the Samurai” for some time. Indeed, I had at one point considered combining “Night” and “Day” into one post to get them out of the way. I’m glad I didn’t, however, because it turns out I have a lot of thoughts about “Day of the Samurai,” which isn’t quite a new favorite episode, but it’s certainly gone up in my estimation and is a marked improvement over its predecessor – largely on the beauty of its visual style.
The real star of this episode is director Bruce Timm, who guides this episode into a riveting ocular spectacle. Timm gets a lot of credit – and rightly so – for his hand in designing the look of the show and most of its characters (hat-tip, though, to Mike Mignola’s Mr. Freeze and Kevin Nowlan’s Killer Croc), but Timm also does yeoman’s work directing individual episodes. “Day of the Samurai” is the only Timm-directed episode not also written by Paul Dini, but it displays all the virtuosic artistry you might expect from the show’s co-creator. Timm imagines Japan as something out of Blade Runner, all swooping angles and towering advertisements, but he juxtaposes the city with the pacific dojo and its idyllic landscaping. Ever the master of a visual metaphor, though, Timm sets all this with the looming backdrop of the rumbling Mount Kajiiki; it’s essentially Chekhov’s caldera, as we expect the volcano will erupt before the episode ends, and setting the climactic duel in the heart of the volcano is damned inspired. (Sidebar: “Day of the Samurai” was animated by animation studio Blue Pencil, who only animated one other episode – Riddler’s “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?”)
Steve Perry returns to writing duties for another pass at Kyodai Ken, and while I had lamented that “Night of the Ninja” was overfull of good ideas with not enough development, “Day” is the exact opposite, an exercise in streamlining that lasers in on Batman as samurai. There are only five speaking characters in this episode, so the plotting is necessarily sleek, and everything flows logically without needing to hit the pause button and inquire, “Hang on a minute?” Moreover, it’s like Perry read my mind twenty-some years ago and foregrounded the notion of Batman as samurai in a compelling contrast to Kyodai Ken as the codeless ninja. The samurai subtext becomes metatext as Bruce Wayne wonders about whether his nocturnal vigilantism is another iteration of the ninja way, and the slick manner in which the script handles this question is a testament to Perry’s prowess. It also demonstrates once more the seamless way Batman can fit into any story; you can’t put Superman or Spider-Man into this tale (though I’d have liked to see Wonder Woman as a different kind of warrior for Kyodai Ken to face).
As polished as the episode is and artfully constructed though it may be, Kyodai Ken still hasn’t landed for me. In a sense, he’s a less successful version of Ra’s al Ghul, an Eastern figure of mystery and martial proficiency, but he’s demonstrably not as strong or intelligent as Batman. He never quite poses a challenge to the quick-thinking and fleet-footed Dark Knight, and his greatest skill seems to be that he’s occasionally difficult to find. He’s petulant and fairly easy to outthink, so I’m not terribly bothered by this being his last episode. One wonders, though, at the lost potential had his character gotten a stronger introduction that positioned him as a proper menace; conversely, one could also imagine an episode that plays up his clear disadvantage and how that rage at his own impotence makes him dangerous. Instead, he’s just sort of there.
Though its villain is far from the best of the bunch (check back in two weeks for said bunch), “Day of the Samurai” is a treat to behold, some of Timm’s finest work and with an insular script that hits all the right beats in a tight twenty minutes. We all know how great Batman: The Animated Series can be as a superhero cartoon, but “Day of the Samurai” is a good case study into how good the show can be at being something else, at trying on a new hat for the day.
Postscript – this episode makes me wish I’d been keeping track of Kevin Conroy’s greatest hits in each episode. From changing voices mid-sentence in “If You’re So Smart” to his heartbreaking gravitas in “Beware the Gray Ghost,” Conroy has earned every accolade he’s garnered for his definitive take on Batman. Here, though, it’s his pronunciation of “samurai,” which elongates into four feudal syllables and demands instant replay. It’s that compelling.
Writer: Steve Perry
Director: Bruce Timm
Villain: Kyodai Ken (Robert Ito)
Next episode: “Terror in the Sky,” in which our creature features continue, and we return and begin again with Man-Bat.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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