Black Fox (Movie)



Black Fox (公式サイト, BLACKFOX) is an original feature film produced by six-year-old Japanese animation studio 3Hz. The World Premiere of Blackfox was August 30 at the 2019 Crunchyroll Expo. The film was premiere in Japan on October 5, 2019.

Story
Living in a ninja residence tucked away in a corner of a futuristic city is Rikka, the eldest daughter of a Ninja clan, who looks up to her father — a researcher — very much. Carrying on with her life normally, Rikka’s home came suddenly under attack one day. Driven into a corner, what would she do to overcome this crisis? Rip darkness to pieces and become “BLACK”!

Plot
Rikka Isuragi is a young girl living at her family home, who happen to be the descendants of ninjas, at the edge of Brad City. While expected to follow in the steps of her grandfather, Hyōei Isurugi, and become the next head of the family, she instead wants to be like her father, Allen Isurugi, who's a renowned robot scientist. One day, Rikka returns home from school for her birthday to find it being attacked by a hit squad led by her father's former colleague, Lauren, to obtain his research, including three animal drones - Oboro, Madara, and Kasumi. Hyōei tries to fight back, only to be restrained and mortally wounded by an esper Lauren is controlling. Allen is also shot and dies, but not before having the drones take Rikka to safely. Afterwards, Rikka vows to find those responsible for her family's deaths and bring them down.

Six months later, Rikka - now going by the alias "Lily" - is living in a small apartment with her roommate, Melissa, while working as a detective-in-training. In private, however, she is secretly working with the animal drones to find information about her family's murderers. Learning a company named Gradsheim was responsible, Lily checks out one of their facilities, only to be caught by security. She is fortunately helped out by a girl named Mia, who vouches for her, and the two become fast friends. That night, Lily infiltrates the facility to steal back her father's research, but is caught by Lauren and the esper. During the ensuing battle, the esper is revealed to be Mia - who's further revealed to be Lauren's daugther. Recognizing Lily as Allen's daugther, Lauren goes into a jealous rage towards his former colleague and uses a control collar to order Mia to kill her. However, this causes her powers to go berserk and destroy the facility, though Lily manages to escape with Mia while Lauren flees.

Discouraged by Oboro, Lily can't bring herself to kill Mia and brings her to her apartment where Melissa helps her recuperate. While their friendship has been somewhat soured upon discovering each others true identity, Mia feels bad for getting Lily involved in her problems and calls her father to pick her up. However, he instead sends a military drone created using Allen's research to kill Lily. Teaming up, Lily and Mia lure the drone to the former's family home, where they take it out using one of the house's ninja traps. However, Lauren - having used his research on Mia to make himself an esper as well - then attacks them and destroys the house. Blaming herself for never standing up to her father, Mia fights him but is defeated. Meanwhile, in the ruins of the house, Lily finds a recording of her father and grandfather, wishing her a happy birthday and giving her a present: a ninja suit with cybernetic enhancements. Once again embracing her true identity as Rikka, she then defeats Lauren and restrains him. Mia tries one last time to reason with her father, but he instead puts the control collar on her and transfers his powers to her, killing himself in the process, causing her to once again go berserk and attack Rikka. In the end, with help from Melissa and the animal drones, Rikka manages to destroy the collar and free Mia.

Afterwards, since their apartment was destroyed by the drone, Rikka's boss, Harold Berkeley, allows her and Melissa to stay at the detective agency. Meanwhile, the president of Gradsheim, Brad Ingram, holds a press conference where he denies any involvement in the incident with the drone. Recognizing Brad as another former colleague of her father and the mastermind behind the attack on her family, Rikka - now going by the code name "Black Fox" - along with Mia, Melissa, and the animal drones, plans to go after him next.