[Fish Sandwich]

Ninnin Rewatch! 17 + 18

Episode 17 begins the turning point for Starninger's relationship with the rest of the team that takes a couple episodes to fully play out. The Ninningers (and by extension the audience) finally get filled in on his tragic backstory, and in light of him nearing the deadline on Yoshitaka's offer, make it clear they're happy to have him around and that's there's no bad blood between them regardless of who becomes the Last Ninja, since they're already competing against one another anyway. The episode ends with Kinji missing the deadline and leaving for Hawaii. Hang on a second...

Episode 18 actually makes it a point to use the original narration in the opening, which is a nice touch, though Kinji's still in the role-call. The plot is pretty much straight out of the first quarter of the show, too, with a simple MotW story that builds on Yakumo's character by showing his more embarrassingly childish side. It's pretty solid all-around, assuming you dig Ninninger's style of humor. Kinji ends up getting dragged back into the fight and when he's about to leave at the end, the rest of the team tell him not to give up and offer to help convince Yoshitaka to take him on. Combined with the last episode it's nice to see how much everyone cares about Kinji at this point. And why shouldn't they? He's totally awesome.