Batman Ninja Trailer Shows The Dark Knight Like You've Never Seen Him Before

When we first wrote about Batman Ninja, the upcoming full-length animated film starring the Caped Crusader, we thought it sounded interesting. 

The idea of seeing how Batman would operate as a stealthy assassin in feudal Japan intrigues enough on its own—but we weren't counting on the movie looking as bugnuts insane as its first trailer appears to be.

As far as its story is concerned, Batman Ninja appears to follow the adventures of Bruce Wayne in the distant, far east past after being transported with his family, friends, and enemies through time. Also making the trip is nemesis the Joker, who here sports a stunningly striking design that fits right in with the opulent and ornate surroundings. Whether this is an actual instance of screwed-up space-time or a pretext on which to hang a classic Elseworlds-style story is currently unknown, but the reasons why don't really matter when the results look this good.

Takashi Okazaki, who previously designed characters for Afro Samurai, was the character designer on this feature length cartoon, and he deserves major credit for his work reimagining classic Batman characters like the Joker, Catwoman, Nightwing, and Robin into the mixed-up, gorgeous reinterpretations on display here.

Batman Ninja is a collaborative project between Warner Bros. Japan and Warner Bros. Entertainment, and at the time of its original announcement, it was stressed that the feature would be examining Batman as a character through a Japanese cultural lens, not just showing Batman having a Japanese adventure. At least as far as the look goes, the team behind this movie has clearly accomplished that.

Batman Ninja is directed by Junpei Mizusaki of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and written by Kazuki Nakashima of Kill La Kill, with the English script being written by Eric Garcia and Leo Chu. The film will be out sometime in 2018.