Ninja High School (film)

Ninja High School is a 2018 American action adventure comedy science-fiction film based on the comic series by Ben Dunn -who was an executive producer on the film- and published by Antarctic Press. Several previous attempts had been made in the late 90s and early 2000s to bring the comics into other media, with an animated series being considered at one point. A feature film was eventually announced as "near-complete" in 2017; it was released the following year, to mixed reviews but considerable box office earnings. A sequel, titled Ninja High School II: The Wrath of Leanna, is currently slated for 2023.

Plot
Jeremy Feeple, a Japanese-American teenager who lives with his mother Anna and his younger brother Ricky in the Midwestern town of Quagmire, is accosted at school on his eighteenth birthday by Ichi Ichinohei, a Japanese kunoichi he knew when they were kids. Ichi follows Jeremy home; Anna, who is also a kunoichi and used to be a member of the Ichinohei clan, explains to Jeremy that she made a promise to marry her first-born son to her master's first-born granddaughter when both were of age, so that the granddaughter would become the Ichinohei clan's new leader. Ichi, who does not love Jeremy, keeps manipulating him and invading his privacy in an effort to get him to fall in love.

The next day, Princess Asrial of Salusia, home planet of the Royal Interstellar Salusian Conglomerate, arrives to Earth and demands Jeremy marry her to put Earth under the Conglomerate's jurisdiction and protect it from Asrial's enemies, the Zardon Empire. Ichi defies Asrial, who possesses superhuman strength, and both become locked in a fight that destroys much of the town -part of which is fought "quietly" in the local public library-. Jeremy is able to get them to stop by convincing them that they're going against his wishes. Professor Steamhead, Jeremy's teacher, offers Asrial to stay at his house.

In Japan, Lendo Raibaru, head of the Raibaru Ninja Kabushikigaisha, learns that Ichi is staying at Jeremy's house. Jealous, Lendo, who desires Ichi and hates Jeremy, immediately sets up an RNK branch in Quagmire -by launching an entire building across the world like an intercontinental ballistic missile- and sends an army of ninja to attack the house, giving them specific orders to bring him Jeremy so he can kill him. Anna, Ricky and Ichi easily fend off the ninja attack; Asrial takes advantage of this to whisk off with Jeremy into her personal Scout Ship in outer space, where she attempts to force their marriage. The ship is attacked by Zardon fighters, and Jeremy, who feels he must help somehow, saves the ship by doing evasive manuevers. After a brief conversation about consent, Asrial apologizes to Jeremy and both return to Earth. Steamhead proposes a way to solve the conflict: both girls will participate in a competition to be held in a week, and Jeremy must marry whomever wins. Jeremy is not happy about any of it, but feels that he has no choice but to play along.

Asrial's father, King Jerka, who looks down on Earth and all Earthlings, sends three Salusian agents to find his daughter and bring her back. Throughout the movie, the three get involved in all sorts of humorous misunderstandings because of their ignorance of Earth culture and customs. Meanwhile, Lendo accepts an offer from his associate, Dr. Hossenpfeffer, to ask Hossenpfeffer's mysterious "benefactors" for help; these turn out to be the Zardon armada that had previously attacked Asrial's ship. Led by Commander Thraz, the Zardons offer Lendo their help in killing Jeremy if his company helps them kill Asrial. Lendo reluctantly agrees. That night, Zardon soldiers begin teleporting to Earth secretly.

During the subsequent week, Jeremy is very corteous and friendly to both of the girls, simply out of his good heart. Neither really loves him, only reciprocating because it'll help them fulfill their respective goals (leading her clan for Ichi, annexing Earth for Asrial), but both appreciate the good deeds he does for them. The day of the competition, where the goal is to be the first to find a secret ring and bring it to the school campus, Jeremy and Steamhead are captured by Lendo's ninja, taken to the dungeons beneath RNK Quagmire, and replaced by robot clones. Lendo arrives in the dungeons to kill Jeremy personally and orders Steamhead taken away for another purpose; as he's taken away, Steamhead overhears Lendo's remarks about the superiority of his pure Japanese blood vs. the "degeneracy" of Jeremy's mixed heritage. Lendo gives Jeremy a sword and challenges him to defend himself; he does, but his fencing technique is barely holding out against Lendo's far more brutal ninjitsu.

Ichi finds the ring, but meets the Jeremy robot, who tells her he doesn't love her and she should marry Lendo instead. Meanwhile, the Steamhead robot tricks Asrial into facing a cyborg of Hossenpfeffer's making called the "Hokuto no Kenterminator", who -much to her surprise- easily overpowers her; she is saved by Arnie, one of Jeremy's classmates. Elsewhere, the real Steamhead is taken to a brainwashing station where he meets Hossenpfeffer, realizing he works for Lendo. Steamhead escapes and takes control of the Jeremy robot, making it say gibberish (chiefly, "The world can be saved by steam!", the professor's catchphrase); Ichi then realizes the ruse. As she determines the Kenterminator is RNK-made, Asrial realizes the robot duplicates are made of a special Zardon alloy, and they conclude the RNK and the Zardons are working together. The real Steamhead meets them and reveals Hossenpfeffer is a former Nazi who has been feeding fascist ideology to Lendo. Hossenpfeffer had reported Steamhead to the Nazi authorities for having a Jewish grandmother, prompting Steamhead to flee to America and embrace "rational selfishness", which he preferred to fighting the Nazis in his own country. Asrial recognizes fascism as the driving ideology of the Zardon Empire, and both she and Ichi realize they've truly fallen in love with Jeremy when they both express a wish to save his life.

Ichi, Asrial, Steamhead, Arnie, and Jeremy's family assault the RNK Quagmire building, but are captured -along with Jeremy, who had managed to outwit and escape Lendo earlier- and thrown into the deepest dungeon to await execution. After Jeremy has a talk with the girls about his feelings of being forced into a commitment he's not ready for, they apologize, reveal they had ulterior motives the whole time, and confess their newfound love; they also agree that each will accept Jeremy's decision no matter who he chooses to marry. Steamhead also acknowledges the failure of his selfishness and realizes what he should have done before. The group is rescued by King Jerka's Salusian agents, who, on Asrial's orders, send a distress signal to the Royal Salusian Fleet.

The group fights their way into Lendo's office, where Jeremy and Steamhead reveal to Lendo that Hossenpfeffer is a Nazi. Thraz and Hossenpfeffer then activate the infiltrated Zardons on Earth and signal the orbiting armada to prepare a laser bombardment. Lendo, still bent on killing Jeremy, forces him into another confrontation, and Arnie has a final fight with the Kenterminator, but Thraz and Hossenpfeffer escape into space before Steamhead can deal with them. Thraz betrays Hossenpfeffer, throws him out an airlock, and orders the complete extermination of all Earth creatures. While Asrial, Ichi, and Jeremy's family fight the Zardon and RNK forces on land, Thraz's flagship is successfully attacked and destroyed by the arriving Royal Salusian Fleet and its starfighter squadrons, and the rest of the Zardon armada retreats in defeat. Arnie destroys the Kenterminator for good, and Jeremy finally finds and brings out the inner strength he needed to defeat Lendo, giving him a single kick to the face that sends him flying over the horizon.

Ichi and Asrial's families arrive; Ichi's grandfather declares his pride in his granddaughter and names her leader of the Ichinohei clan, but she declines, wishing to spend more time with Jeremy. King Jerka tries to persuade his daughter to leave Earth, but she refuses, having seen the Earthlings' true worth. Jeremy remarks "my life will never be the same" as he, his family, and the girls go back home to catch reruns of Speed Racer.

The film ends on a post-credits scene which reveals Hossenpfeffer is alive, captured by an unseen Zardon.

Characters

 * Jeremy Feeple, a Japanese-American teenage boy who lives in Quagmire with his mother Anna and his younger brother Ricky. He often traveled to Japan in his childhood to visit the Japanese side of his family; there, he met Ichi and Lendo, and developed a fondness for both Japanese and American pop culture such as movies, TV shows, cartoons, and comic books. He's unlucky, but disinterestedly selfless, never expecting anything in return from his good deeds. Some of his favorite movies include Star Wars and the Godzilla series. The scene where he explains what Super Sentai is to three classmates is speculated to be the hook for Zetraman, a sentai-esque superhero team from the original comics, to appear in the sequel. In the comics, he had no Japanese blood.
 * Ichi "Ichi-kun" Ichinohei, a Japanese kunoichi who arrives in Quagmire and begins harassing Jeremy, trying to get him to ask her to marry him. Her grandfather Kudasai Ichinohei arranged her marriage to Anna Feeple's first-born son. Initially, Ichi does not love Jeremy, and only wants to marry him to become the leader of the clan, planning to divorce him afterwards. It is only because of Jeremy's good nature that she ends up falling in love with him.
 * Princess Asrial, a Salusian royal. Salusians are an alien species of anthropomorphic skunks who are currently at war with the Zardon Empire. She initially only wants to marry Jeremy so the Royal Interstellar Salusian Conglomerate (RISC) can annex Earth, a planet they look down on and regard with paternalism and even disgust. Eventually she falls in love with Jeremy and realizes the true worth of the Earthlings in their willingness to help the fight against the Zardons.
 * Lendo Raibaru, also called Raibaru-san. Japanese CEO of the RNK (Raibaru Ninja Kabushikigaisha). He has long desired to marry Ichi for the power and prestige it would bring his family if it was related to the most powerful ninja clan in Japan; he also hates Jeremy, whom Ichi always seemed to prefer, and is obsessed with killing him. In the comics, his name was Lendo Rivalsan and his company was named the Rival Ninja Corporation; the names were changed for the film adaptation.
 * Doctor Helmut Hossenpfeffer, Lendo's associate and right-hand man who created a cyborg called the Hokuto no Kenterminator and has secretly been contacting the Zardons to facilitate their invasion and conquest of Earth. He is a former Nazi who reported Prof. Steamhead to the German authorities for having a Jewish grandmother. He manipulates Lendo into the Nazi ideology, convincing him that it's a neutral, objective worldview which seeks only the best for their countries. His name was not "Helmut" in the comics, and, like Steamhead, he was a professor.
 * Commander Thraz, a character created for the movie. The leader of a Zardon space armada sent to Earth by the Emperor to conquer it, enslave the native population, and kill Asrial, he and Hossenpfeffer become allies over their similar end goals. His name is a reference to Count Zarth Arn, the villain from the 1978 Italian film Starcrash.
 * Professor Johann "Steamhead" Steamhein, Jeremy's professor of "steamology" at Quagmire High School. He escaped from Nazi Germany after having been reported to the authorities by his rival, Dr. Hossenpfeffer, for having a Jewish grandmother. Once settled in America, he became an Objectivist and solemnly swore that he would never again care about anyone in the world other than himself. He sees the error of this at the end of the movie, once he realizes how far Hossenpfeffer's reach has gone and what it means for his new homeland. Is utterly convinced of the miraculous scientific properties of steam (early on he bargains with Asrial to be made ruler of a planet of boiling oceans, which he hopes to utilize in his steam experiments), believing it will save the human species some day.

The cast of characters also includes:


 * Anna Feeple, Jeremy and Ricky's mother. She's from the Japanese side of the family, and met Jeremy's father Robert by chance one day. She has raised her sons on her own ever since Robert disappeared down a mouse hole one day and never returned. Promised her ninja master, Kudasai Ichinohei, that her first-born son would marry his first-born granddaughter when both were of age. In the comics she was not Japanese, and in fact was something of a putative niece to Kudasai.
 * Ricky Feeple, Jeremy's brother. Unlike Jeremy, Ricky is into ninjitsu and has received extensive training from his mother. He's a fierce warrior beyond his age, and a bit of a snarker.
 * Arnie, one of Jeremy's classmates at Quagmire High School. He is a parody of Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo; a muscle-bound soldier with a deep voice who always attends class shirtless and in military pants and boots, carrying guns. Develops a rivalry with the Kenterminator.
 * Kudasai Ichinohei, Ichi's grandfather, Anna's old ninja master, and head of the Ichinohei ninja clan.
 * Rumiko Ichinohei, Ichi's grandmother and Kudasai's wife. Her character was created as a cameo by Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, which were Ben Dunn's primary inspiration when creating the original comics.
 * King Jerka, Asrial's father, king of Planet Salusia, and leader of the RISC.
 * Captain Soandso of Asrial's Scout Ship, and one of her closest confidents.
 * Jaka, Baka and Nestor, three Salusian agents sent by King Jerka to retrieve Asrial.
 * The Hokuto no Kenterminator, a cyborg built by Hossenpfeffer to kill Asrial for the Zardons. He is a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 from the 1984 film The Terminator, dressed as Kenshiro, the main character of the manga Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star); even having Kenshiro's trademark Ursa Major-shaped scar on his chest. Develops a rivalry with Arnie.