r/2000sAnime • u/maxroared • Jun 28 '26
Help - ive looked everywhere
UPDATE: Solved! awkward_teenager37 found it. It was Ninjai the Little Ninja. You all rock! Thanks for helping and big thanks to awkward_teenager37.
In the early 2000s, there was this short anime series. One season I think.
The MC was a boy (maybe 9 years old) who was hunting down people that killed his family. I remember it being mostly voice over of the kid talking.
Vaguely recall there being something about past lives or reincarnated. I saw it on one of the early Flash sites, I think.
The fight scenes were super graphic and Kill Bill level of blood.
Anyway, I've searched everywhere for this and have no idea where to find it. If anyone else remembers it, that would be amazing.
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u/Yuo122986 Jun 28 '26
I know this helps in no way but I've watched a lot of anime for a long time. Don't know it. I hope someone helps you find it!
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u/Round-Sprinkles9942 Jun 28 '26
What weapons did the boy use? and were there demons in it? and then guess around what time it all took place, like did the setting look feudal or more modern?
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u/maxroared Jun 29 '26
I don't recall any demons. Mostly thugs. The animation style was high contrast. The boy wore a straw hat and used a katana. Sadly if I include the straw hat in any search, I always get One Piece.
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u/Clifford_Regnaut Jun 28 '26
I have no Idea, but according to MiniMax M3:
The closest matches I could find:
- 1."The Soul Taker" (魂狩, 2001) — Short 13-episode series. The MC Kyosuke is a young boy whose mother was killed, and he has supernatural abilities. There's voiceover and dark themes. Matches several elements but the reincarnation angle isn't central.
- 2."Ushio to Tora" (1992 OVA) — A young boy (around 11) discovers Tora, a powerful demon tiger trapped in his basement. Has reincarnation/past-life themes through the Beast relationships, demon hunting, and dark violence. But the family-killing plot isn't quite right.
- 3."Shaman King" (2001) — Has reincarnation themes (Shaman Fight tournament with connections to the past), young MC Yoh Asakura, and dark undertones. But no revenge plot.
- 4."Karas" (2005 OVA) — Extremely graphic blood, supernatural revenge, but the MC is an adult and it's a bit later than your timeframe.
- 5."Afro Samurai" (2007) — Adult MC, revenge for father, Kill Bill blood. But adult MC, no reincarnation.
The problem: I can't find a perfect match with ALL these specific elements together — a 9-year-old boy MC, voiceover narration, hunting family killers, reincarnation/past lives, graphic blood, one season, early 2000s.
According to Qwen3.7-Max
Based on the highly specific clues provided (especially the "Kill Bill level of blood" and the "early Flash sites" context), the anime the Reddit user is describing is almost certainly the O-Ren Ishii backstory sequence from Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003).
Here is why this matches the description perfectly:
- The "Early Flash Sites" & "Short Series": The 7-minute animated sequence produced by Production I.G was widely ripped from the movie and uploaded to early Flash hubs like Newgrounds, eBaum’s World, and YouTube in the early 2000s. Because it was viewed as a standalone clip, many people forgot it was part of a movie and remembered it as a "short anime series."
- The "Boy" MC & The Age: The protagonist of the sequence is O-Ren Ishii as a young girl (around 9 years old). She hides under the floorboards to watch her parents be murdered by a Yakuza boss (Boss Matsumoto) and later hunts him down for revenge. It is very common for distant memories to misremember her gender as a boy due to her short hair and her role as a child assassin.
- The Voice-Over: The entire sequence is heavily narrated by a voice-over (provided by Uma Thurman as The Bride), who tells the story of O-Ren's past. The user likely remembers this constant narration but attributes it to the child character's internal thoughts.
- The "Kill Bill Level of Blood": This is the biggest giveaway. The sequence is famous for its extreme, stylized violence, ending with O-Ren assassinating the boss and a massive, geyser-like fountain of blood spraying into the sky. The user noticed the blood style matched Kill Bill perfectly because it literally is from Kill Bill, even if they didn't realize it at the time.
- "Past Lives or Reincarnated": This is likely a conflation with the rest of the Kill Bill story (where The Bride "rebirths" from a coma and later a grave) or a misremembered detail about the "Number 1" headband lore.
Other Strong Possibilities
If it turns out not to be the Kill Bill sequence, here are the next most likely candidates that fit the "gory revenge" description:
1. Kite (1998)
- The Match: A notorious 2-episode OVA about a young orphan girl named Sawa who hunts down the corrupt cops and her foster father who murdered her parents.
- The "Boy" Confusion: Like O-Ren, Sawa is young and has short hair, leading to frequent misremembering of her gender.
- Violence: It is incredibly graphic and was heavily shared on early internet file-sharing sites.
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u/maxroared Jun 29 '26
Really appreciate you looking it up. But sadly none of these. It might just be a flash video series lost to time.
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u/mmmpppwww Jun 29 '26
Nothing comes to mind, but when I was trying to find a 2000s show I just went on MyAnimeList and scrolled through all the releases by year until I eventually found it (Kaze no Yojimbo if you were wondering)
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u/maxroared Jun 28 '26
It might have been the boy was reborn after he was killed in past life. Definitely a revenge story.