You think you know the story of Gotham City. You know the story of Thomas and Martha Wayne the most generous and altruistic wealthy people since Mansa Musa who tried to clean up the city while taking the high road. You know of their son the sole survivor of their homicide who donned the cape and cowl rto continue their work on the low road. You know about the secret society that tried to bring Gotham to ruin the district attorney who fell from grace and the clown who tried to usher in a new society of chaos. You know that tall muscled dude in a mask who spoke like the lovechild of Adam Sandler and Sean Connery. You think you know the road Bruce Wayne travelled to become a symbol of hope and you think you know the way his presence drove the city to madness but there are countless untold stories and every time you walk the streets of Gotham you run the risk of writing one of them yourself. From the teenage skaters recounting their encounters with a legend to the true evils lurking in the depths of the sewers here youll find six tales that will give you a better understanding of a city drenched in despair and the man who has vowed to protect. Here youll find six untold stories... Of The Batman. Batman: Gotham Knight is a very curious entry into the caped crusaders legacy as its one of a long line of animated DC comics films but its not officially a part of that line up. Technically speaking this OVA is canonically a part of the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy and it supposedly takes place between the first two films as a sequel to Batman Begins and a prequel to The Dark Knight. Taking a cue from The Animatrix Gotham Knight is an anthology that meant to expound upon the fictional universe its a part of adding to the established lore and at the time building hype for the second movie in the franchise... Although The Dark Knight wound up being way more successful than Matrix: Reloaded well get to that. Much like The Animatrix Gotham Knight consists of stories that were written and conceived by Americans and then directed and produced in Japan by established anime production companies making it an official anime... Not to mention the first Batman anime beating Batman Ninja by over a decade. Compared to The Animatrix which wound up being probably the peak of its franchise before things started going downhill Gotham Knight is almost the exact opposite sandwiched between two genuinely great films before itself being forgottn by time. There are plenty of reasons this might have happened... We were already used to animated Batman by the time this OVA came out and while Batman the Animated Series is arguably one of the greatest cartoons ever made Mask of the Phantasm did extremely poorly in theaters despite being an awesome movie in its own right. So is the fact that Gotham Knight has faded from the zeitgeist a result of people not taking animation seriously or a result of people not wanting to sit through over an hour of something theyre getting for twenty minute episodes? Or considering just how fondly remembered The Animatrix still is to this day is it just the result of Gotham Knight not having all that much to offer? Well the only way to find out is to revisit it and thats what Im going to do. Much like my Lucky Star OVA review Im going to go over each of the six segments see what I like and dislike about them and figure out what my thoughts on this OVA are as a whole. Before I do that though I should address one aspect of the film that marks it as distinctly western and thats the dub. One of the biggest differences between American and Japanese animation is that in the west we use a style called Prelay which is where you record actors reading their lines and then animate over it. In the east they use ADR which is the opposite... The animation is done first and then the actors record their lines to lip flaps. Gotham Knight was done first in prelay with the studios in charge of animating it basing their work around already existing dialogue with almost universally positive resultssegment four has some obvious lipsynch issues. As far as the cast goes they didnt really hire any anime voice actors for this... Batman himself is played by his most legendary voice actor Kevin Conroy as this was years before Deidrich Bader would assume the role. He is just as amazing as you remember. Certain other wellknown Batman actors are also present although theyre not always playing their iconic characters... Scott Menville doesnt play Robin and Will Friedle isnt playing Beyond and it is weird hearing them play multiple nonwhite teenagers apiece. Kevin Michael Richardson is awesome as always and there are standout performances from less recognizable actors such as Parminder Nagra Jim Meskimen and George Newbern. Anyway lets get started with the first tale Have I Got a Story for You. This is the story of four teenage skateboarders telling each other tall tales about a Batman fight that they each only witnessed part of and their experiences are shown to us as they remember them from their own unique perspectives with each tale giving us a different version of Batman. The first kid the only girl of the group talks about Batman as a living shadow referring to his stealth tactics. The second a young boy describes him as a literally bat monster referring to his brutal and often monstrous appearance. The third one likely the youngest of the group describes him as a robot a reference to his use of gadgets and superhuman abilities. Finally the fourth kid after expressing disbelief at not having an experience of his own to share is given the opportunity to save Batman from his enemy showing us the mortal human Batman really is. Whats notable about this segment is that it bears a strong resemblance to one of the most popular episodes of the animated series which cant be a coincidence because that episode is included on the DVD and its a really strong concept to open the OVA on. Having said that it also has a really distinct visual style that feels heavily dated. I remember quite a few anime from the mid2000s that had this really ugly KlaskyCsupo character design style and animation that used broken and inconsistent models to keep costs down and surprise a lot of those titles were all directed by the same person. If you havent heard of Michaels Arias hes one of very few nonAsian American born anime directors even if he only has a few titles under his belt. He was involved in some of the segments of this OVA along with portions of the Animatrix and he directed a film I was able to get about five minutes into before turning it off Tekkonkinkreet. Yeah I figure there are people out there who like the runny eggs aesthetic and I can tolerate it in small doses but if you use it more than Toradora did Im not a fan. And Michael Arias used it a lot in his few directorial efforts. The characters are kind of hideous as a result but in contrast Gotham City looks amazing. It feels appropriately dirty and overcrowded but with plenty of signs of futuristic technological progress. It feels weird seeing such uly characters populate such a beautifully grimy world but I dont know maybe the dissonance of that juxtaposition was what they were going for. Also while I think the story and concept of this segment are really strong the dialogue feels distinctly like an old white writer trying to capture some kind of stereotypical urban teen flavor. The slang on display here can get pretty awkward but thankfully its just in this segment. The second segment is titled Crossfire and it tells the tale of two members of Jim Gordons MCUOh the irony or Major Crimes Unit transporting a criminal to Arkham. One of these cops is whingeing about Batman until they wind up in the middle of a turf war between two of Gothams major gangs and Batman himself swoops in to save them. One thing youll notice is how much better this segment looks than the last one which is primarily down to the fact that its animated by Production IG and while it doesnt look like a very expensive short it still looks pretty good with the way its directed. There isnt a whole lot to it story and plotwise until you realize who most of the characters are. To start this segment stars Salvatore Maroni and Yuri Dimitrov two gang leaders who were set to appear in The Dark Knight although they look nothing like their film counterparts. One of the cops is Anna Ramirez also from the film and her partner... Well his name is Crispus Allen and while he has nothing to do with the Nolanverse outside of this OVA hes a pretty interesting character in DC as a whole. He has connections to Batman Superman and Green Lantern and would go on to become one of the hosts for antihero The Spectre. Its nice to see him get some representation outside the Gotham TV show but he does feel lowkey wasted in a role that doesnt even acknowledge a fraction of his lore. Anyway its a fun segment but kind of forgettable outside of introducing some minor characters for The Dark Knight. Segment three is called Field Test and Im gonna say right off the Bat this one has charm to spare... And Im not talking about how bishounen Bruce Waynes design is. Lucius Fox invents a device that uses magnetism to block bullets. Bruce tests it out by essentially using it to fuck with a land developer during a golf tournament whom he also suspects of murder before donning it in costume to intervene in yet another gangland turf war between Maroni and Dimitrov. Im not familiar with the studio Bee Train... I know they were a short lived subsidiary of Production IG who went under in 2011... But their work in this segment looks pretty crisp and polished a far cry from the way the OVA started. In addition to the highly attractive character designs they do a lot of work with shadows and fog to make the environments feel immersive. Its a somewhat light hearted story that has quite a few laughs to offer especially in the way Batman resolves the feud between Maroni and The Russian it might be my favorite... And because I dont have a lot to say about it I might as well use this opportunity to point out that while Kevin Conroy is consistently good throughout the OVA he sounds especially cool playing as Bruce in his playboy persona reciting what is probably some of the best sounding dialogue in the entire film. The fourth segment In Darkness Dwells has a pretty simple story. A religious figure is kidnapped and brought into the sewers by Killer Croc and handed off to Scarecrow. Out of the three major Batman villains who appear in Gotham Knight two of them appear here so youd think that it would be really cool but unfortunately... I really dont like this one. First and most obvious is the aesthetic which is bafflingly unappealing. The animation is cheap and derpy the aesthetic is overstylized like its trying to compensate for the lack of a budget and the action is sloppy looking at best. When Madhouse gets cheap they get REALLY cheap and this drew the short straw. On top of all that the dialogue is overwritten Batman comes off as way chattier than usual explaining things to Gordon that you wouldnt think he would find it necessary to explain but really hes doing it as exposition for the audience. Theres also the idea that Scarecrows toxin can transfer via biting which seems questionable at best... Its the kind of logic youre conditioned to ignore in a zombie story and I dont see no Solomon Grundy in this segment. Allen and Ramirez are back though they contribute nothing. Killer Croc looks like shit and while the inclusion of Scarecrow does make it an official part of the Nolanverse he also kind of falls flat. The fifth segment thankfully is a lot better. After being shot in the abdomen while traversing the sewers Batman must try to escape despite his serious wound. While making his way to a point where Alfred can collect him he reflects on some of the lessons he learned in his travels before becoming Batman... First from a stint in the middle east performing surgeries without anesthesia and then a period of several months that he spent with an Indian woman named Cassandra who taught him how to manage his pain. Produced by the same studio as the first segment and using largely the same style I have to admit it looks a lot better here. The animation is a lot more grounded the characters look way more human in their design and it probably features the best looking action in the OVA at least so far. As much as previous segments went out of their way to set up characters for The Dark Knight it is nice to see at least one that offers a serious call back to arguably the best part of Batman Begins... I am of course referring to Bruces travels abroad training a backstory that was so engaging that Man of Steel would later rip it off. We get a further look at his past and how it has influenced the hero we all know and love and the best part is that both settings we see him in are extremely interesting especially his lessons with Cassandra a character Im surprised hasnt appeared anywhere else in DC comics. Or if she has please let me know. And then Gotham Knight ends with a bang... Literally... With Deadshot a segment that wraps up a lot of the previous segments quite nicely. Batman has evidence that the man he was golfing with previously hired a hitman to kill a protestor so he gives it to Gordon to transport but the Russians hire that same hitman to stop him. If this segment looks familiar thats because it was directed by an uncredited Yoshiaki Kawajiri director of such classics as Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and while I dont know why he went uncredited it might have something to do with this being his final directorial effort before spending the last thirteen years as a storyboard artist. Its especially confusing because you can take one look at this segment and see that it looks exactly like Bloodlust... And I mean that in the nicest way possible like that style was fucking MADE for Batman and its kind of a travesty that we only got this one brief taste of it. I guess it doesnt feel quite final enough to be a strong finale... They paired Deadshots use of guns to Bruces childhood trauma and his overall philosophy on firearms overall which kind of adds an extra layer to it but it doesnt feel entirely organic or even entirely necessary. In comparison the previous segment ended on a much more powerful shot making the same point. I know its kind of cliche but I would have expected it to end with a bit more of a Dark Knight tease... Not necessarily a Joker reveal maybe something involving Harvey and Rachel? Still its a fun segment and it looks amazing. So now that Ive gone through the whole OVA for the first time in over a decade what do I think of it? Honestly it holds up. Its not perfect it has some issues throughout but as a whole its still pretty badass and it has a lot more to offer than just the novelty of being the first Batman anime. The segments are connected in several different way both obvious and subtle ultimately telling a complete story while never straying too far from it. There are also a ton of cool easter eggs from the comics and other deeper lore and its intriguing to see the dark knight explored from so many different perspectives and in so many different styles. I think what I like most about it though is that while every other Batman adaptation goes for the biggest stories and the most exciting spectacle possible in order to drive ticket sales Gotham Knight feels more like a marriage between the Nolanverse and the Animated Series... A title that takes his recently reinvented character and follows him through some of his lesser adventures recording the daily grind he had to go through while progressing from one supervillain entity trying to take down Gotham City to another. These are the stories that transformed a sophomoric costumed vigilante scratching away at the corruption of the system into the asskicking veteran who tested his convictions against a driven harbinger of chaos and for that I highly recommend checking this one out. I give Batman: Gotham Knight a 7/10.