Before we dive into more Ninjago, a few important notes. When I was writing the majority this review, season 8 had just started to air on TV in the U.S. Now, even though season 8 has just finished airing, I will not be talking about it. That also means that any speculation for season 9, which will air in Australia in just a matter of weeks, will not be in this review. All of this will be covered when I write part 3 later this summer, and part 4 will talk about season 9 after it airs in the U.S. sometime this fall. I would also like to give a shoutout to Turbo who got THE Brent Miller, voice of Zane, to read part 1. I definitely was not expecting that. Brent, if you're reading this, thank you for your time, and would you maybe consider talking about my blog on your channel? You don't have to, I just thought I would ask. For everyone else, if you have not already done so, please go back and read part 1, as I will be picking up right where I left off. I split it in half because both parts together are 24 pages long. Click here to read part 1.
Season 5: Possession takes place maybe six months after season 4. Wu has retired and has started a tea shop. He tells the ninja to go bring in customers, which they do. But while they’re showing off their powers to tell people about the business, a ghost possesses Lloyd, who is investigating a break-in at the museum. Since Lloyd gave the ninja his golden power to unlock their elemental powers, they become powerless. They ask Wu about it, but possessed Lloyd attacks them, using the wind as a weapon. The ghost wants Wu’s staff, since it belonged to the First Spinjitzu Master. They make an imprint of the symbols engraved on the staff and hand it over, barely managing to escape on the Bounty, and Wu tells them about his first student, Morro, the Master of Wind. Wu thought Morro might be the Green Ninja, but when the Golden Weapons didn’t react, Morro got mad and decided to go out and find the tomb of the First Spinjitzu Master to prove Wu wrong, but Wu never saw Morro again. Wu never realized that the map was written on the staff, and he has no idea how to read it. Misako tells them that the first symbol means airjitzu, a martial art that allows the user to take flight. The ninja head to Stiix to confront a thief, Ronin, who has the scroll of airjitzu. Morro summons some friends from the Cursed Realm, and one of them attacks the ninja. During the fight, they accidentally discover that water can defeat a ghost, because ghosts can’t pass through something that’s always changing, always flowing. Meanwhile, because the list of elemental powers wasn’t long enough, Wu and Misako tell Nya that like her brother, she too is an elemental master: the Master of Water. They start to train her to use her powers, but she struggles with it a lot, and is hesitant to give up her Samurai X identity to become a ninja. At Stiix, they search Ronin’s shop for the scroll, and also find that somehow the fangblades were recovered after the Great Devourer incident and the Blade Cup was restored for whatever reason. Ronin tells them about aeroblades made from deepstone, which will destroy the ghosts. The ninja get a job repairing a dock to try and earn enough money to buy the scroll, but a fly ruins everything. They try to steal it, but lose it to Morro, so they decide to head to the temple of airjitzu to learn it. They manage to learn it, but due to a curse on the temple, Cole is turned into a ghost. He struggles to accept his new form while the others practice airjitzu. Misako tells them that they need to go to the Cloud Kingdom, which is a different realm, and obtain the Sword of Sanctuary, which can tell you your opponent’s next move before they do it. They convince Cole to come along and climb the Wailing Alps to get to the portal. Morro and his friends also climb the mountain to gain access to the portal, and they try to slow down the ninja. The ninja use airjitzu to reach the portal in time, while Morro misses it. The others capture one of Morro’s friends and interrogates him, however, Ronin made a deal with him to try and get out of his debt. Ronin frees him and Morro and his gang take a “back door” into the Cloud Kingdom. The ninja arrive in the Cloud Kingdom and learn that the monks there write everyone’s destiny, but somehow Morro escaped his destiny and now is messing things up for everyone. They also learn that he wants the Realm Crystal, which will allow the user to travel to all of the sixteen realms without the use of a portal, and Morro is working for the Cursed Realm, aka the Preeminent, who wants to destroy the other realms. The head monk, however, agrees to help Morro to save himself and tries to get rid of the ninja. They escape and go after the Sword. Morro manages to get it first and escapes to Ninjago with the ninja hot on his trail. Lloyd manages to fight Morro’s possession long enough to hand the Sword over. However, Ronin betrays them and takes the sword to Morrow to pay off his debt. Morro, once he finds the location of the tomb, possesses Ronin and tricks the ninja into going to the wrong place and nearly kills them, but Ronin manages to get a message to the ninja with the real location: under the ocean. They head there and start their search for the tomb. Along the way, they come across the fortune telling ice and they all see reflections of their future selves except for Cole. (I personally think this is because he’s a ghost and technically dead and therefore has no future.) They pass the first two tests, but so does Morro. They manage to trap him, but he releases Lloyd and escapes. The ninja find the Crystal, but are forced to hand it over to save Lloyd. Morro returns to Stiix and opens a portal for the Preeminent. The ninja agree that Nya is their best bet, since Morro doesn’t know she’s the Master of Water. They sneak into Stiix, where the green ninja is captured, but it’s really Nya in disguise. The ninja put up a valiant fight, but the portal means that any destroyed ghosts simply return a few seconds later. The Preeminent arrives and drags Lloyd to the Cursed Realm. Inside, Lloyd finds Garmadon, who gives his son some words of advice. Lloyd then escapes and battles Morro, across some of the sixteen realms. Meanwhile, the ninja struggle to take out the Preeminent. They manage to lead it out to sea, but the water has no effect on it. Nya confronts her fear of failure and unlocks her true potential in the form of a giant water tornado (that somehow doesn’t kill Cole who is standing right next to her). Morro returns to Ninjago just in time to see Nya drown the Preeminent, who grabs Morro and drags him under. Wu tries one last time to save his former student, but Morro doesn’t want to be saved. Instead, he hands Wu the Crystal and says good-bye. With Morro and the Preeminent gone, Wu uses the Crystal to bring Lloyd home from whatever realm he is trapped in. Lloyd says that with the loss of the Cursed Realm, Garmadon too is gone forever. They celebrate their victory and look towards the future.
Season 6: Skybound takes place not long after season 5, probably only a couple of months. A lot of people hate this season, and for good reason. It starts off interesting enough, but as the season goes on, things are revealed, and the ending is a huge cop out. Dareth is taking advantage of the ninja’s newfound fame after the defeat of the Preeminent by using them as the face of various projects. Nya isn’t happy that she’s considered the girl ninja, even though the guys insist that she’s an equal partner. She also insists that she will not date anyone, which of course upsets Jay. While trying to hide from fans, Nya refuses to hide because she’s mad at something Jay said. Meanwhile, Clouse managed to escape from the Cursed Realm, and he’s discovered in Stiix. He finds a teapot with the djinn Nadakhan inside. Nadakhan grants whoever frees him three wishes, and he tricks Clouse into wasting his three wishes and traps him inside the teapot. Nadakhan travels to Ninjago City and learns that his crew were trapped in separate realms after Soto trapped him in the teapot. So he decides to frame the ninja for various crimes and steal the Realm Crystal. In Stiix, the ninja learn about the crimes, and the people quickly turn on them. Misako tries to get them out on the Bounty, but the police capture her. The ninja decide to split up to get out of the town. Meanwhile, Nadakhan approaches Wu and Misako and traps them both in the teapot. The police commissioner hires Ronin to hunt down the ninja and bring them in in exchange for a clean slate. He easily tracks them all down and manages to capture them while Nadakhan gets his hands on the Crystal. He uses the Crystal to get his crew back together. They go to Djinjago, Nadakhan’s realm, which is being destroyed since it was the sister realm to the Cursed Realm. Nadakhan gets his hand on the Sword of Souls before they head back to Ninjago, where he decides to trap the ninja in the Sword. Meanwhile, the ninja run into Captain Soto, who tells them that he captured Nadakhan the first time with Tiger Widow Venom, but he won’t tell them where it is until he is out of prison. So the ninja manage to break out (though why Cole doesn’t just turn invisible and phase through the walls is unknown) along with Soto. Soto tells them that the map to Tiger Widow Island is on a lantern on Nadakhan’s ship, the Misfortune’s Keep. The ninja split up in pairs to try and locate the Misfortune, but they’re tracked down by Nadakhan whenever they’re alone. Nadakhan is fascinated with Nya since she looks exactly like his deceased lover, Dilara. Jay is ambushed by Nadakhan and tricked into wishing for money. Turns out, Ed and Edna aren’t Jay’s real parents, but his adopted parents, and his real dad was a famous actor with a giant mansion and everything. Weak. Nadakhan then tricks Jay into wishing that he wasn’t alone, and Nya appears. They regroup with the others and learn that the pirates are attacking Ninjago City. They rush in to help and manage to get the map and destroy the Crystal. Unfortunately, Nadakhan gets Kai alone, takes him to the past to see his dad, tricks Kai into making three wishes, and traps him in the Sword. Sinkholes start to appear all over Ninjago, which is Nadakhan stealing parts of the land to rebuild Djinjago in the sky. The ninja relocate to Jay’s mansion to figure out a plan, and take Jay’s newly inherited boat to the island. During the journey, they sail into a storm and Zane has to go below deck since he is attracting lightning to the ship. While there, Nadakhan confronts him, and despite Zane’s attempts to outwit the djinn with logic, he is captured. The boat crashes aboard the island, where Cole tells everyone that Jay told him that he saw Nadakhan and made two wishes because he wants to be with Nya. Everyone is understandably pissed at Jay and make him extract the venom. He does, but Nadakhan and the pirates attack them. Jay gets kidnapped so Nadakhan can force him to use his final wish, leaving the others stranded. Jay resists, and Nadakhan tells him that if he marries Nya, then he will have the ability to grant an unlimited number of wishes for himself. Lloyd, Cole, and Nya try to build a raft to get off the island, but Ronin and the police find them and rescue them. They tell the ninja that Jay managed to get a message in a bottle to them that explains everything. They scramble to come up with a plan, and decide to disguise themselves as pirates to sneak aboard the Misfortune. Cole manages to sneak into Nadakhan’s quarters with the poison, but finds and rescues Jay instead. They, along with Nya and Lloyd, are soon captured. Nadakhan asks for Nya’s hand in marriage, but she refuses. Everyone but Jay starts using their wishes to try and outsmart Nadakhan. Why they don’t simply wish everyone out of the Sword, then wish the Sword away, or wish Nadakhan and his allies unable to use it is unknown, but Nadakhan forces a crewmember to wish Cole and Lloyd into the Sword while Jay and Nya manage to escape. They land on Dr. Julien’s prison island. There, they discover Echo Zane, who agrees to help them. Jay also decides to wish Nadakhan into a human so he won’t be a djinn and his powers will be useless. Meanwhile, the crew finally realizes that once Nadakhan has infinite wishes, he will get rid of them, but Nadakhan stops the mutiny before it gets going. Another wish from Clancee means that the pirates now know where Jay and Nya are hiding. They have enough Traveler’s Tea for one of them to escape, and Nya pushes Jay through the portal. He winds up in the junkyard, where his dad tells him to find new friends to help him. So he gathers Echo Zane, Soto, Skylor, Dareth, Ronin, and the police commissioner to help him fight. Everyone but the commissioner hitches a ride to the clouds on a piece of land that’s being pulled up. Jay tries to use his last wish, but Nadakhan stays out of earshot. However, Nya does convince Nadakhan to leave the Sword behind during the wedding ceremony, allowing Jay to take it. He willingly gets captured in the Sword, frees the other ninja, and just barely manages to escape. They try to stop the wedding, but they are too late. Nadakhan’s crew tries to help the ninja, but he starts to banish everyone, because obviously evil djinn is evil. He makes Dilara’s spirit possess Nya, but the ninja manage to take back the poison. They manage to shoot Nadakhan with it, but Nya is also hit. She dies and (because the writers couldn’t come up with a better way out) Jay uses his last wish to erase the entire season, so nothing has changed. Except Jay and Nya end up together. And a few buildings are still floating. Other than that, nothing has changed. Worst ending ever.
Day of the Departed takes place a few months after season 6. DotD and season 7 were not written by the Hageman brothers, but instead by David Shayne. By this point, Cole has been a ghost for one and a half seasons, or about a year, which is a really long time to be a ghost. The ninja are headed towards Ninjago City, but Cole is struggling with fading in and out. They get to the museum to buy lanterns for the Day of the Departed, a holiday that’s like Halloween, El Dia de los Muertos, and the Chinese Lantern Festival all rolled into one. At the museum, Dr. Saunders tells them about the Yin-Yang Eclipse and the new villain exhibit. They wander around the museum a little bit, with everyone forgetting about Cole because they can’t see him. This upsets Cole (of course) and he’s prompted to go see Yang at the Haunted Temple, totally forgetting that he apparently promised his dad they would meet up to light a lantern (presumably for his mom, but we may never know for sure). The other ninja and Wu each go back to their own homes to remember loved ones who have passed. Meanwhile, Cole confronts Yang, who tricks the ninja into attacking him, but really he releases the spirits of their past enemies. The spirits, consisting of Chen, Morro, Samukai, Kozu, and Cryptor, possess the mannequins at the museum, and they each go after a ninja, except for Kozu who goes after Dareth. Yang tells them that if they want to remain in Ninjago after the Eclipse ends, they must defeat the ninja. Pythor joins in for kicks and goes after Lloyd and Misako. The ninja each win their respective battles. Morro claims to have unfinished business with Wu, but in reality he tells Wu about Cole’s situation with Yang. Back at the Temple, Cole fights Yang’s students while Yang opens a rift that will allow ghosts to become mortal again. Cole manages to break Yang’s influence over his students, and they all make it through the rift. While fighting, Yang tells Cole that he didn’t want to be forgotten, which is why he made himself and his students ghosts in the first place, but Cole says he would’ve been remembered as the inventor of airjitzu. Cole, who understands the pain of being alone, wants them both to go through the rift, but Yang says the curse requires someone to stay and haunt the Temple, so he throws Cole through the rift just as the other ninja, who finally realized they forgot about him, show up to help. Cole makes it through the rift and returns to his human form, but he’s left with a scar on his face as a reminder of what happened. He also gained new powers in the form of an earth punch. The ninja decide to make Temple their new HQ, now that all the ghosts (except for Yang, but only Cole knows he's still there) are gone.
Season 7: Hands of Time picks up a couple weeks after Day of the Departed. (So that every other sentence isn’t “I hate time travel,” I will rant about that later.) A vortex opens above the ruins of the monastery, and Acronix falls through. Wu is waiting for him and they start to battle. The ninja are at the museum helping to clean up the mess Dareth made on the holiday. There they find pictures of Kai and Nya’s parents, and also of a battle at the monastery that occurred forty years ago. Dr. Saunders tells them about the Hands of Time, twins who could control time itself, but he dismisses it as a myth. While Wu battles Acronix, a Time Blade falls from the vortex, causing everything to skip ahead one minute. Acronix gets his hands on it and punches Wu with it. The ninja realize the source of the time skip is at the monastery and race there. They find Acronix there and realize Dr. Saunders was wrong about the battle in the museum. They battle, but Acronix escapes. They save Wu from falling off the side of the cliff, and take him back to the Temple He tells them about how after the Serpentine Wars, Krux and Acronix decided that their element was superior to all the others and tried to stage a mutiny, but Wu and Garmadon stripped them of their powers and created a vortex in time to hide the Time Blades, but the twins followed the Blades into the vortex and were lost in time. At the museum, Acronix meets Dr. Saunders, who is really Krux. Acronix is fascinated with all the new technology while Krux is annoyed by it. They decide to return Ninjago it its former glory by making a Vermillion Warrior crash Cyrus Borg’s debut of his new BorgWatch. The ninja battle the Warrior, but the Time Twins send in more Warriors. They manage to kidnap Borg and knock Zane offline. They take Zane to the Samurai X Cave to reboot him while Kai goes to the museum to try and learn more about the helmet they took. At the Cave, Nya, Cole, and Jay discover that Acronix took Borg and he’s working with Dr. Saunders. They head to the museum, leaving P.I.X.A.L. to try and fix Zane from inside his head. Meanwhile, more Vermillion are made and ordered to take architects, tailors, engineers, and other craft people. Jay and Cole try to stop them, but fail. Kai learns that Dr. Saunders is Krux, who tells Kai that his parents were traitors right before Nya joins in the fight, but the Time Twins still get away with Borg. Wu tells Misako that because he was hit with the Time Blade, he’s rapidly aging (viewers may notice his beard getting longer as evidence of this). The Vermillion start to take any metal they can find, including trying to take Zane apart. The ninja ignore Lloyd’s orders to stay and protect Wu to try and find answers. Nya and Zane regroup with the others to fight the Vermillion and fix Zane, but P.I.X.A.L. gets deleted. The ninja chase the Vermillion to an amusement park, except for Jay, who heads to his parents’ junkyard. The second Time Blade appears, and everyone races to get it first. The ninja manage to get it and head back to the Temple, where they start playing with it. Except for Kai, who’s distracted by a symbol in the Vermillion armor. He and Wu both recognize it, but before Wu tells them about it, they’re attacked by Krux, Acronix, and the Vermillion Warriors. They take the Time Blade from the ninja as well as Wu. Kai realizes that the symbol is his parents’ blacksmith symbol. He goes to the old shop to confirm his theory, while Nya confronts the person who stole her Samurai X gear in the Cave. The others go to the museum to track down the Time Twins’ lair and manage to find the path in the sewers. They bump into Skales, who knows where the lair is, and he also tells them that the Vermillion are related to the Great Devourer. Kai realizes that his parents are not dead like he thought, and tells Nya. The two head to the lair to meet up with the others. They split up to rescue everyone, but Kai detours to find and confront his parents despite Nya’s protests. Borg finishes building the thing to hold all the Time Blades just as the third one arrives. They retrieve it while Ray and Maya tell their kids how Krux captured them and forced them to work for him or else he would hurt Kai and Nya. They also tell their kids that the fourth Time Blade, the Reversal Blade, fell out of the vortex with Krux forty years ago, and is hidden in a place that needs both the Masters of Fire and Water to reach it. Krux and Acronix force Kai and Nya to retrieve it out of the Boiling Sea or else they won’t be able to save Wu. They get it, but can’t get to Wu to heal him, and Ray is hit with the Forward Time Blade. Meanwhile, the others find Borg. Borg tells them about how the Time Twins’ time machine works and how to disable it, so they take him to the machine to do that. Krux and Acronix return, stop them, and start the time machine. Kai, Nya, and Wu follow them through the vortex on their dragon. They go back to the monastery forty years in the past, right after Wu and Garmadon hid the Time Blades in time. Kai and Nya pose as their parents and help fight, but the Time Twins win and make it so technology doesn’t exist in the present. They then escape into time. Nya remembers how the Reversal Blade fell out of the vortex, so she finds it, cures Wu, and they undo the recent events allowing them to follow the Time Twins into the vortex. They restore the present, and Wu yanks the Reversal Blade out of the time machine. He throws it along with Kai and Nya out of the vortex so they can save Ray. The machine can’t operate without all four Time Baldes, so Wu, Krux, and Acronix are lost in time. Kai and Nya save their dad, then the ninja appoint Lloyd as their new master. They vow to find Wu.
From the beginning, the animation of the show has been really good, and it’s only gotten better as time has moved on. The animators pay such attention to detail, that you can follow footprints and tracks in the sand and snow. There's textures in fabric and scales. There’s scratches and reflections in the metal on their weapons and armor, and the reflections move as the characters move. If a character is standing next to or across from another character, but the camera is not on them, you can still see their reflection in the armor of whoever is on screen at that moment. In season 3, I love how the Overlord's cape moves with him, and fades into nothingness because it's made from his magic.
Another detail is when Lloyd in the green ninja outfit before his growth spurt. He’s too small to fit into it, so they show it bagging around his ankles, and the sleeves are cuffed up so he can use his hands properly. The animators also have to animate the 2D faces on the characters’ 3D heads. I don’t know how hard that is to do, but it works. If you look closely, you will see that Wu has a 3D mouth. They also designed some of the characters in a way that implies that they’re overweight. (Granted, I never really played with LEGO growing up, so I don’t know if this is a new thing or not, but it’s still a good effect.) Some of the best animation comes during the battle scenes. Ninjago has always had exciting action sequences. One of the best is the Final Battle at the end of season 2.
Lloyd is transformed into the Ultimate Spinjitzu Master, and he summons his elemental dragon. It looks like a dragon that’s made out of a golden energy, which is what it’s supposed to be. When it moves, the energy flows behind it in a golden light. Dragons have been a staple of the show since the pilot episodes, but this dragon is one of my favorites to look at. Two other strongly animated elements throughout the show are fire and water.
In the early seasons, they did a good job with those elements, but if you compare the fire and water from season 2 to season 7, you will see a clear difference. As time went on, the overall animation got better, and the action sequences are a perfect example of that. Now, it’s not always perfect, like sometimes one of the ninja will be in the wrong outfit, or there will be two of a background character shown on screen at the same time, or the wrong voice will come out of a character. But it’s still highly impressive. The animators didn’t have to go to all the extra lengths, since it is a kids cartoon, but they did, and it adds an extra layer of realism to Ninjago.
I love the music in the show as well. Jay Vincent and Michael Kramer do a wonderful job of composing the music for everything you see on screen. I usually don’t pay much attention to a soundtrack, and I almost never listen to them outside of the show/movie, but this soundtrack is amazing. While everything does relate back to the main Ninjago theme, every score has its own unique feel. Like the toy line, you can tell it was influenced by East Asian cultures, but it has a modern feel to it. It’s very calming, but also exciting. Personally, I love “Falcon Chase” the best. Every time the falcon appears, I’m excited to hear this music playing in the background. Not every character has their own theme, but the ones that do have very appropriate themes. Dareth, though I loathe the character, has an extremely appropriate theme song. Ed and Edna’s theme song is upbeat and amusing, just like they are. The car chase car chase theme is a popular song I know. And part of what made Zane’s death and funeral so good was the score on top of the emotional writing and delivery. You can tell that they love their jobs and have fun with some of the songs they create.
Misako, voiced by Kathleen Barr, is Lloyd’s mom and Garmadon’s wife. In season 2, her role as the group’s historian sort of helped the ninja in their quest, even though she had really bad timing when remembering certain facts. Like when she remembered that the Helmet of Shadows controlled the Stone Army. She didn’t remember that until after they had lost the Helmet, the Overlord had taken control of Garmadon’s body, and 99% of the people in Ninjago were turned evil. She does know spinjitzu, but rarely uses it. After season 2, her role became… cheerleader? Wu’s sort of love interest? It wasn’t until season 5 when she became somewhat useful again, but even then her role wasn’t that big. She’s just there for moral support half the time. Honestly, she’s a pretty useless character, but unlike other useless characters, I like her. She’s known Wu and Garmadon for a long time, and even though she seemed to like Wu more, she still decided to marry the obviously evil brother. Her marriage to Garmadon is interesting to say the least. Even when Garmadon is about to push the button to turn Ninjago into his own image, she pleads with him to do the right thing. Even after Garmadon’s death and despite her feelings for Wu, she would never date him because of her love for her husband.
I love P.I.X.A.L, voiced by Jennifer Haywood. Built by Cyrus Borg to be his Primary Interactive X-ternal Assistant Lifeform, P.I.X.A.L. quickly formed a bond with Zane and started to help the team on their missions. She was very briefly controlled by the Overlord, but Zane hacked her with his techno-blade and returned her to normal. P.I.X.A.L. and Zane’s relationship is the only relationship in the series that I like, and since they’re both robots, they could be together literally forever. She was dismantled between seasons 3 and 4, and when Zane found her, he placed her hard drive inside him so he wouldn’t be separated from her. From his head, she continued to help the team out any way she could. However, during season 7, she is seemingly deleted. She starts off very logical and cold, but after Zane gives her half his power supply, her humanity starts to come out. She can have her sassy moments, like when Kai was chasing the nindroid convoy. Mostly, she just wants to be useful and assist the team on their missions. She can handle her own in a hand to hand fight, but she really shines when she uses her computers to help the team out of difficult situations. Currently, she is “offline,” but we’ll see what the future holds.
I have never been a fan of Dareth, voiced by Alan Marriott. He’s annoying and stupid most of the time. He started off owning the dojo where the ninja trained Lloyd, but starting in season 3, he’s done a variety of other jobs, including subbing at the ninja school, managing the Royal Blacksmiths, and owning a bar. He calls himself “the brown ninja” because he wants to help, but- putting it nicely- he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He thinks he’s a big deal because he’s friends with the ninja and he tries to help. Try being the operative word. He sort of helped during the Final Battle because he found the Helmet of Shadows and put it on, but all he did was make the Stone Army not attack the ninja. They were zero help during the Battle and made it maybe two stories up the tower before they were taken out by Nya. I don’t understand why the ninja keep indulging him. I don’t like this character, and I don’t know why they keep bringing him back.
Skylor, voiced by Heather Doerksen, is another character that I’m not a big fan of, but I know she has a huge following. She was a villain in disguise, but ended up changing her mind. She and Kai are sort of a thing, for whatever reason. They never actually kissed, and after season 4, she’s had about one cameo per season. She’s not as annoying as Dareth, maybe because unlike Dareth she actually has some skills and can kick butt when she needs to. However, I won’t be heartbroken if she never makes another appearance. There’s a rumor that her relationship with Kai will be explored some in the future, but we’ll see if that’s true or not.
Ronin, voiced by Brian Dobson, is a thief that the ninja met between seasons 4 and 5. He runs a pawnshop in Stiix and mostly sells what he’s stolen. He was interesting at first, but as the series went on, his role became less important and it became harder to fit him into the story. Such is the fate of many secondary characters. He just kind of dropped off the face of the earth in the middle of season 7. Will he return in the future. I like him more than Dareth (although that’s not saying much), and he could be useful in the right circumstances. But like Skylor, I won’t be heartbroken if we never see him again.
Cyrus Borg, voiced by Lee Tocker, is an inventor and P.I.X.A.L.’s creator. He used to be a human, but when the Overlord returned, he turned the man into a cyborg. I’m guessing Borg still has some of these “upgrades” and he just made them less noticeable. He’s disabled, with what exactly we aren’t told. But he is in a wheelchair, so my guess would either be a muscle disease or a spinal injury of some sort. We’ll probably never know. He used to have these high-tech artificial legs that sort of resembled a spider, but after the whole Overlord thing, he started using a regular wheelchair. He managed to invent most of the technology we see on screen starting in season 3, including the nindroid army. Granted, that was mostly the Overlord controlling P.I.X.A.L., who stole and modified the design from Zane. The show would have you believe that it took him less than two years to design and create all of his inventions, but I think the more likely explanation is that he was working on that and all the other technologies for years, and once he managed to invent the tech he mass produced it, and that was after he simply moved his lab into the tower that he had built. After season 3, he shows up periodically with new vehicles or something for the ninja to use. It isn’t until season 7 that he plays a crucial role in the plot again. And even then he doesn’t get that much screen time. I don’t know if he will appear in future seasons or not, and while I hope he does, I don’t know what else they could do with him.
Master Chen, voiced by Ian James Corlett, and Clouse, voiced by Scott McNeil, are the villains of season 4 and the leaders of the Anacondrai Warriors. These are two of my favorite voice actors in the show, so I was very happy when they were both cast as the villains of season 4. Chen is my favorite villain of the show (so far, we’ll see what happens with season 8), simply because of how off the wall crazy he can be. He is obsessed with his chair, which has many buttons for him to push that allow him to do random things. Chen gets bored easily, and he’s been known to throw temper tantrums when he loses. Basically, he’s a three year old in a grown man’s body. Clouse is Chen’s right hand man. He is everything Chen is not. A practitioner of dark magic, he often asks Chen to allow him to use his magic to put things in their favor. He gets annoyed by Chen’s antics, but he never oversteps his boundaries, and he always tries to get Chen to do things the easy way (his way). They work well together and balance each other out. Even though season 4 made it seem like Chen and Clouse needed every element for their plan to work, they clearly didn’t, since time, wind, water, creation, and destruction weren’t used. (And those are just the ones we know. That list could still grow!) And Garmadon was on the island, so it’s not like they didn’t have access to destruction or didn’t know about it. Unfortunately, they will most likely not return in future seasons, due to them being banished to the Cursed Realm, which was destroyed by Nya. Yes, Clouse managed to escape and is now a ghost, but they already did a ghost season, and Chen was brought back on the Day of the Departed, so the odds of them bringing these two back again are slim to none.
Morro, voiced by Andrew Francis, was Wu’s first student. Wu took him in along with a couple other street children shortly after Garmadon left to go train with Chen. Morro was the Master of Wind, and he believed that he was destined to become the Green Ninja. When Wu told him no, he was not the Green Ninja, he set out to prove destiny wrong. This ends with him dying. So he becomes a ghost and possesses Lloyd, because how else will he become the Green Ninja. But because he died without passing his powers onto someone else, he was the last Master of Wind. Unless the wind picks someone else to be the new Master of Wind, but this is very unlikely since elemental powers are hereditary. Though Jay did once use wind (this was before they started adding in all the secondary elements), so it might be possible. He and Wu have an interesting relationship, but this is what made him hand over the Realm Crystal right before he was pulled into the water and destroyed. He was given the chance to come back again on the Day of the Departed, but he helped Wu out and returned to the Departed Realm with no hesitation. He is popular among the fans, but I highly doubt he’s going to appear again.
Nadakhan the Djinn, voiced by Scott McNeil, is the smooth talking captain of the sky pirates. Originally from Djinjago, his realm was tied to the Cursed Realm, and when it was destroyed, Djinjango was also destroyed. As a result, he is the last living djinn. He was a very interesting character. He wasn’t the first person to use magic, and the idea of genies twisting the words of wishes is nothing new. But I can’t think of another genie/djinn that was a pirate. He was the prince of Djinjago, but when he fell in love with the human Dilara, his father banished him. So he became a pirate. He and the crew of the Misfortune’s Keep often fought Captain Soto and the crew of the Destiny’s Bounty. Eventually, Soto was able to trap Nadakhan in a magical teapot and banish the crew across the sixteen realms. As a villain, he was ruthless and maniacal, but he was also suave and sophisticated, so that his victims would trust him enough to make their three wishes. He was a huge threat to the ninja, until the cop out that is the season finale happened. I still like Chen and Clouse better, but Nadakhan is a close second. I would like to see Nadakhan return in the future, but like so many other villains, I don’t think he will.
Krux, voiced by Michael Daingerfield, and Acronix, voiced by Ian Hanlin, are the Time Twins. They used to be elemental masters a long time ago, but after the Serpentine War, they decided that their element was superior to all the other elements and staged a coup. After they were stripped of their powers, they tried to go into the time vortex to get them back, but Krux didn’t make it. He knew his brother would one day return, so he created the Dr. Saunders identity and got a job at the history museum as curator. I really liked how the two brothers bickered over technology. Acronix, having missed out on the last forty years, quickly becomes addicted to all the latest gizmos and gadgets, while Krux is very resistant to change and doesn’t understand how to work everything. What I really liked, though, was that we were introduced to Krux before season 7. He showed up in DotD as Dr. Saunders, and we had no idea that he was evil. Of all the villains, Krux and Acronix might actually show up again at some point. They were lost in time with Wu, and I highly doubt that season 8 will conclude with him still missing. They could easily show up in season 8 with Wu, and the ninja will have to battle them one last time. It’s possible, I just don’t know how likely it is to happen. But it would be interesting to see the Hageman brothers’ take on the Hands of Time.
Dr. Julien, voiced by Mark Oliver, is Zane’s creator. He died before the start of the series, but was resurrected by Samukai and forced to build the Skulkin Army vehicles. During his imprisonment, he built Zane’s brother, Echo Zane. However, Echo Zane was locked away in the basement and did not escape with Dr. Julien when the ninja found him. Echo Zane was found by Jay and Nya in season 6 and escaped from the prison, but when Jay reset the timeline, Echo Zane was sent back. Probably one of the saddest things in the series is the fact that Echo Zane will most likely never be found again, and will be left to rust away in the lighthouse prison. Dr. Julien was very happy to see Zane again, since he loved the robot like a son, and he did what he could to help out during the Final Battle, but he was mostly forced to stand on the sidelines and watch. He was killed off between seasons 2 and 3, so unless they show him in flashbacks or resurrect him again, we won’t be seeing him anymore. But death is less a permanent state of being and more like a temporary inconvenience in this show, so who knows, we may see Dr. Julien again one day. Interesting fact: Dr. Julien’s name is never once mentioned in the show, and in the credits he’s listed as “the tinkerer.” As far as I can tell, his name first appeared on lego.com, but I can’t confirm this. He loved Zane very much and tried to spare his son the pain of his death (the first time) by turning off his memory switch.
Lou, voiced by Kirby Morrow, is Cole’s dad. He’s a singer and dancer that performs with a group called the Royal Blacksmiths. Lou really pushed Cole into the performing arts path, but Cole resisted. As someone who has a piano and band teacher for a mom, I can understand both sides, but like Cole, I never wanted to make a career out of music. Once Cole made it clear that he was going down a different path, Lou eventually came around, and he forgave Cole for lying to him for years relatively quickly. Like, maybe ten minutes at most. There’s only one episode in the whole show where Lou appears for more than two minutes and has more than two lines. When he does appear, he’s mostly stuck in the background. We know almost nothing about Cole’s mother. We can assume, based on how elemental powers work, that she was the Master of Earth before Cole was born, but this is unconfirmed. Especially since a previous Master of Earth was shown to be a guy that isn’t Lou. If the guy is Cole’s grandfather, then he would’ve had to have had Cole’s mom immediately after the Serpentine Wars, and she would’ve had to have Cole when she was young, not much older than nineteen or twenty. Where she is currently is unknown, but Cole hasn’t once mentioned anything about her. At all. Will we ever find out anything about her? Your guess is as good as mine.
Ed and Edna, voiced by Colin Murdock and Jillian Michaels, are Jay’s adoptive parents. They run a junkyard, and Jay got his love of inventing things from Ed. They can be a bit overbearing and embarrassing at times, but it’s just because they love Jay. They’re almost like grandparents to him. They have similar personalities to Jay, and when it was revealed that he was adopted, the fans had a fit. And I agree that it was a stupid decision to have Jay be adopted. I have nothing against adoption, but in this case, I think it took a lot away from their characters. I can understand why they went with the adoption thing, but I think it could’ve worked if one of them was the past Master of Lightning. After season 6 was erased, Jay remembered everything, which means he knows he’s adopted, but Ed and Edna don’t know that Jay knows he’s adopted. Aside from Misako and Garmadon, Ed and Edna appear the most out of all the parents, which is fine since I like them. They’re quirky and upbeat and fun. They love each other and they love Jay, who loves them back. Their jalopy is something else. It has so many attachments, and it runs well enough to enter a race, but it looks like it’s being held together by duct tape (or possibly LEGO pieces). I always enjoy seeing these two, and I hope they’re brought back soon.
Ray and Maya, voiced by Vincent Tong and Jillian Michaels, are Kai and Nya’s parents. In addition to being blacksmiths, Ray used to be the Master of Fire, and Maya the Master of Water, but these traits were passed down to their children. After the Serpentine War, they opened up a blacksmith shop in a small town and raised their family. When Kai was about five and Nya three, Ray and Maya were taken by Krux and forced to forge weapons for the Vermilion Army. Even though the family has been separated for fifteenish years, they will do anything for each other. Although it does take Kai a minute to realize that Krux was lying (shocker) and they weren’t traitors. Who raised the kids is unknown, though a babysitter is mentioned at one point. Kai and Nya worked in the shop until Wu found them during Samukai’s attack. In the pilot episodes, Ray is just described as “an honest man” that Wu knew, and it’s not implied that he once had powers. The pilot episodes, at least in my opinion, also implied that Kai and Nya were older kids or young teens when they lost him, not five and three years old respectively. I have no idea if they’re going to come back in future seasons or not. Like Krux and Acronix, it’s totally possible. I mean, with Wu lost in time, they could take the opportunity to help train the ninja. I’m sure they would want to reconnect with their kids and not have to fight someone at the same time. Although, they are like fifty-five to sixty years old (I’m assuming they were about fifteen to twenty during the Serpentine War, which was forty years ago), so maybe they’ll want to retire. If anything, I’m sure they’re going to live by “the past is the past, but there’s always the future.”
The First Spinjitzu Master is the creator of Ninjago and the father of Garmadon and Wu. He died many years before the series started and has only been shown in flashbacks. His face has never been shown outside of drawings, but if you look closely in “Tick Tock,” you can briefly see part of his face when he’s caring for a young Garmadon. We have no idea who his wife was, since neither Garmadon nor Wu have ever once mentioned their mother. We do know that he had protectors in the form of the first elemental masters. He forged the Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu at some point, and he was the only one who could handle their power at once, at least until Garmadon used dark magic to achieve that goal. He also created the realm crystal, created the Dark Island and banished the Overlord there, and he invented spinjitzu. He loved his sons and taught them the art of spinjitzu. He lived for thousands of years before he died. It is possible that we will learn more about him in future seasons, but unlikely.
A hot topic of debate is how old the ninja are. Some people say they were as young as 14 in the pilot season, while other people say they were 16-19 in those episodes. Even the voice actors don't know how old they’re supposed to be. We do know that seasons 6 and 7 took place 3-4 years after the pilot season. Also, the ninja do seem a tiny bit more mature in the pilot season than they do in season one, almost like they were aged down a year or two. I’m guessing that changes were made when they were writing season 1 as they established each ninja’s personality. In my calculations, I’m basing everything off by how old they are in season 1, not the pilot season. I start the ninja off at 15, since 14 seems a little young, but they don’t seem to be quite mature enough to be 16. However, they do know how to drive. They aren’t in school, though that may be normal in their culture for primary education to be finished at an early age. After all, we don’t see many kids above Lloyd’s age in the first season still in school. Nya isn’t that much older than Lloyd at first, but she’s not in school and he is. Maybe once kids hit a certain age, say 10 or 13, they’re expected to pick a trade to learn. Cole once mentioned that his dad sent him to a performing arts school, but we don’t know if that’s a form of primary education, secondary education, or postsecondary education. (Juilliard is a thing, and I know parents sometimes force their children to attend certain colleges for reasons specific to them.) Therefore, my official calculations for the ninja ages are as follows: pilot-15; season 1-15; season 2-15; season 3-16; season 4-17; season 5-18; season 6-18; Day of the Departed-19; season 7-19; season 8-20. Nya is two years younger than Kai, so she was 13 in the pilot season and is now 18. Zane was probably built around the time of the Serpentine Wars, which took place 40 years ago, so Zane is mostly likely 40 in the Pilot season and 45 in season 8. Cole may or may not be a year older than Jay and Kai, since he was the first one recruited by Wu, and he was the original leader of the team, but it is not clear. It has been said that a week will have passed between seasons 8 and 9, so in season 9 they will still be 20. Lloyd started off the series as a child, probably around 9 or 10 years old, but was aged up in the middle of season 2, and he’s supposed to be around the same age as the ninja. It is implied, though, that he is still the youngest, so physically he might be 14 when he’s aged up in season 2, and 19 in season 8. (Note: A few days ago, Brent Miller announced that he would be interviewing Tommy Andreasen, the creator of Ninjago. A lot of people want Brent to ask him how old the ninja are, so we might get an answer from him then. However, in my opinion, unless it’s stated in the canon, their ages are up for interpretation.)
Now, Lloyd was aged up in season 2, because Garmadon used his Megaweapon to bring back an extinct creature to hunt down and destroy the ninja. Long story short, the ninja were turned into kids when this happened, but restored to their proper ages with Tomorrow’s Tea. However, Lloyd was also hit with the tea and aged up. The next episode had Garmadon go back in time to prevent the ninja from forming a team in the first place. The past gets drastically changed, and the only way to restore the timeline is to use the Golden Weapons to destroy the Megaweapon. This removes the Megaweapon from the timeline, and possibly the Golden Weapon too. Time is an element, so it’s possible that the timeline restored the Golden Weapons in season 1, and they were simply lost between seasons. Either way, LLOYD SHOULD BE A KID. When the ninja return to the present, Lloyd is still a teenager, despite the Megaweapon never existing. Most of the characters have no knowledge of the Megaweapon. Except for the Serpentine somehow. Despite what happened, they still remember the Megaweapon, even though no one else ever knew about it in the first place. The Megaweapon was removed from existence, so the ninja were never turned into kids, so there is no reason why Lloyd is a teenager for literally the rest of the series. I REALLY HATE TIME TRAVEL. David Shayne did a good job writing season 7 while the Hageman brothers were working elsewhere, but time travel is just too vulnerable to plot holes.
Like I said earlier, dragons are a huge part of the show. They were introduced way back in the pilot season as the guardians of the Golden Weapons, each one commanding one of the main elements. Once the Golden Weapons were acquired, they each quickly became the pet of their respective ninja. In season 1, the four dragons merged into the Ultra Dragon. This means that they became one dragon with four heads, and each head could breathe one of the elements. Ultra Dragon disappeared for no apparent reason after season 2, but rumor has it that we will see him again in the future. The Overlord became a giant dragon during the Final Battle. In season 4, all the elemental masters were able to unlock their own elemental dragons, and later they realized they could combine these dragons into fusion dragons (fire and water, water and lightning, etc.). The figurehead of the Bounty is a dragon. The ninja all have a dragon symbol that resembles their element on most of their uniforms, and their DX suits have a dragon that goes all the way down their bodies. Heck, both Ninjago and the Dark Island are shaped like dragons in a yin-yang symbol. There’s probably more dragon imagery that I’m missing, and I’m sorry if I missed something obvious. I like the dragons, they can have very cool designs and they look real to the world of Ninjago. There’s so many details on each dragon shown that it’s impossible to list them all. Each dragon has individual scales that you can really see in close up shots, and the elemental dragons are very unique. I love the dragons, and I hope that more dragons are introduced to the show soon.
Fun fact: Literally every single love interest on the show was once evil. P.I.X.A.L. was controlled by the Overlord virus, Skylor was working with her evil father, Nya was corrupted by dark matter, then later she was possessed by an evil spirit. Even Nya kisses Jay’s evil twin before she kissed him. And Jay and Cole were both turned evil during the Overlord’s attack during the Final Battle, so Nya’s love interests were once evil as well. I’m not counting Wu and Misako since Misako is married to Garmadon who was once evil! (Although Wu was evil for a little bit in season 3, so it could count.)
Apart from all the relationship drama, I really enjoy this show, and I’m excited to see where it will go and how long it will last. Ninjago has one of the biggest and best fan bases I’ve seen for a cartoon. The writers are amazing at making it interesting for both kids and “older kids,” and I trust them to know when and how to end it when that time comes. I just hope they keep the relationship drama to a minimum. Unless they give Cole a real love interest, keep the relationship drama out of my ninja show!
I’m SJ, and these are my real thoughts on LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu.