Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is an impossible movie to spoil. Following 2018’s Batman Ninja, a movie where Gorilla Grodd used an earthquake machine to travel back in time with Arkham’s most notorious inmates to Edo-period Japan in order to transform the world into a planet of monkeys, Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League takes place the very next day. To the surprise of our heroes, Yakuza soldiers from a Japan floating upside down over Gotham have been training on the streets for a month. From there, Batman, his Robins and a couple of surprise allies find themselves in an alternate timeline forged by another enemy where the heroes of the Justice League stand together—almost—as his personal Yakuza family.

But knowing all of that won’t reduce any of your enjoyment of this movie. For all its aesthetic trappings, it’s fairly straightforward by superhero standards. It’s an impossible movie to spoil because the appeal isn’t about the plot. Like Batman Ninja before it, it’s purely 110% about the vibes. This is the follow-up to an experiment of what happens when you let two accomplished anime studios run wild on the DC Universe with a love and passion for what makes both DC and their own art form so wonderful, combining them in surprising ways like an artisanal sushi roll worthy of Ra’s al Ghul’s sophisticated palate. Because breaking down exactly what happens in this movie would fail to do it justice, here are a few of the individual things we loved about it.
 

Style Clash

The original Batman Ninja was a film with two distinct animation styles: a heavily stylized 3D aesthetic which was used for most scenes, and a calligraphic, sketched style used to highlight one of the most emotionally tense moments at the heart of the movie. Both styles return in Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, but with greater significance and interplay than before. Here, the 3D style is used to represent the people and places of our Batman’s world, and the sketched out 2D style stands in for the world and figures of the inverted Japan which our heroes explore—a conceit the film continues to play with in surprising and inventive ways as the story develops, suggesting a reality still in construction with designs to overwrite our own. This is a movie that thrives within its own visual language.

Teddy Baz

There’s a lot to love about the individual touches on the Yakuza League designs we see. The mafia heavy vibes off “Kuraku,” the man of steel; the hard-scrabble Japanese fisherman look of “Ahsa,” prince of the seas; the badass tattoos off the bare shoulder of Princess “Daiana.” But the look book winner in this sophomore outing is hands down our girl “Zeshika” Cruz, who on this world appears to have channeled all her anxiety into pure fashion. The accent piece that brings it all together? The giant, overstuffed teddy bear hanging off her back sporting the colors of her Prime Earth bestie, Green Lantern Simon Baz. Villains need emotional support, too.

The Hair Jokes

One of the more stand-out choices from the original Batman Ninja was the traditional Edo-period haircut they gave Damian Wayne. It’s…a tragedy. You almost can’t look away from it. After becoming a bit of a meme, it’s clear that the production team on Yakuza League was as aware of the joke as we were—with the reversion of Damian’s hair to his more traditional style serving as the film’s crucial first clue that something was wrong with the time stream again and as a comic focal point through Damian’s scenes in the movie. From the very start, Yakuza League makes it clear that they know what you’re here for. So get ready for more.
 

Grandpa Ra’s

Ra’s al Ghul is a favorite among diehard fans of the Bat-Family for a lot of reasons. Not just because of his Machiavellian manipulation tactics, or the way he challenges the “Detective” in Batman on an unrivaled level. It’s the little things that fans love about the Demon’s Head the most. His flair for the dramatic, discarding his shirt before a swordfight. His endearing love for endangered animals. His extremely weird, ill-advised hookups. The fact that he was at Woodstock, for some reason.

In casting Ra’s as the mastermind behind the Yakuza League timeline, the creators of Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League demonstrate a better understanding of the character than most: what we really want is to see him as a kind of weird grandpa. One who will abduct his grandson, for instance, just to take him to a nice sushi restaurant so he can experience true culture—and berate him when he insists on the gauche menu choice of a California roll. One who will rig up a giant gacha machine as a death trap, as he fires his foot soldiers like living bullets out of a literal giant gun. Ra’s al Ghul is a huge weirdo in this one, and that’s the way we like it.
 

Speed Racers

Much of the west first came to know anime through Speed Racer, captivating early audiences with a brand of action that didn’t leave anyone bleeding (at least, overtly). From there, works from Initial D to Redline have made the racing genre a staple of action anime. So, when you’ve got a Batmobile that makes the Mach 5 look like a soapbox derby car, and an evil Justice League with the Fastest Man Alive, how do you not take advantage of that?

One of the film’s best action sequences features a partnership between longtime rivals Red Hood and Red Robin outmaneuvering the Flash on wheels through skills, strategy and guts—not to mention a few gimmick guns in Jason’s holsters that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Adam West series. We’d also be remiss not to mention that between both looks that Red Hood sports in this movie, this is probably the best our boy has ever looked outside of comics.
 

Daiana’s Big Solo

There are a lot of big emotions going on in Yakuza League, but perhaps the richest is the deep friendship between Ahsa and Daiana, royalty from two different worlds, friends in their youth forced apart by their warring families. Here, the iconoclastic Daiana sides with the otherworldly Bat-Family against Ahsa’s crime world ruling Hagane family, bringing her at odds with the man who perhaps means the most to her. On the eve of their inevitable battle, Daiana expresses the guilt she feels weighed against her duty and honor in the only way an Ama Zone warrior truly could: through the power of karaoke. In one of the most jaw-dropping scenes of the movie, Daiana bursts into a heartfelt Japanese solo that bears the full truth of her feelings—much to the utter perplexment of the visiting Harley Quinn. When even Harley is left speechless, that’s when you know it’s all really gone off the rails.
 

Batman vs. Superman

There was no mystery about what the title match of this stacked fight card was going to be. When you’ve got Batman versus a Justice League, you save your A-Listers for last. The Batman vs. Superman fight here is no disappointment, recontextualizing the genre trappings and conventions of their most memorable duels in a way that makes it feel straight out of your favorite battle manga. The climactic reveal of Batman’s maneuverings to outsmart Kuraku in combat feel right out of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure—appropriate for the animators of that series’ iconic intro sequences. But just like in all the best shonen, these two hot and cold running bitter rivals can only leave the battlefield with a newfound respect as lifelong allies.
 

Authentic Absurdity

There are some surprises in this movie that are so great that it would be a shame not to let you discover for yourself—like the way the animators incorporate Nightwing’s classic “Discowing” suit. Or the Vending Machine Technique. Or, best of all, the Bat-Phoenix scene. (We’ve got a feeling that you’ll be watching the Bat-Phoenix scene a lot.) What ties all these elements together so well is that unlike many attempts to capitalize on the stylistic conventions of Japan from the perspective of Western comics, Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League comes from the animators who are embedded in that industry. Nothing is played up at anyone’s expense. Nobody is laughing at anyone else. The absurdity comes from a place of love for both of our deeply regarded cultural trappings. Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League works because absolutely everyone is in on the joke and knows how it works. Come join the fun.
 

Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League is now available to own on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and Digital. It’s also available in a two-film digital collection that includes both Batman Ninja and Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League.

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.