Ranked #2322

The Hakkenden

First things first: This series is based on a novel written by Bakin, in the 19th century.
The story is impressive: The Satomi clan is almost faded to die of starvation, so they ask for help to the Anzai clan. Instead of helping, the possessed clan leader attacks the Satomi. So the Satomi flee for their survival.
One night, Yoshizane, the Satomi leader, says to Yatsufusa, their dog, that if he brings back the head of their enemy he will give the dog his daughter´s hand in marriage.
So as promised, Yatsufusa brings the head of Kagetsura to the Satomi Clan. After forced to assume his obligation towards the dog, Yoshizane tells princess Fuse the truth. But Fuse was already engaged to Daisuke, one of the most loyal men to Satomi.
Then Fuse accepts keeping her father´s promisses, marrying Yatsufusa.
Daisuke finds out about the secret marriage and rushes to get his revenge of the dog.
By the hands of Destiny, Fuse gets pregnant of Yatsufusa, even though they never had any close encounter.
Daisuke finds the dog and the princess and shoots Yatsufusa, but the shot hits Fuse as well.
So, Fuse holding her buddhist rosary decides to open her belly out. By doing so she spreads eight beads and the souls of the cursed offspring.
Those eight souls reincarnate as humans, and each single one of them has a bead with a virtue written in it. They are the Hakkenshi, the eight dog-warriors.
The soundtrack is excelent: it got a bit old, because of the year that the series was created...but it is very japanese...the opening "Aka-Fusha" or "Red Pinwheel" is fantastic!
The characters are very well explored, and each drama reveals itself a part of the cursed destiny of those eight souls.
The art is very good at most of episodes, except for epis 4 and 10, that are hideous. The final episodes are amazingly beautiful, returning to the quality of the first ones. That happened because it wasn´t made by one director only...several directors tried to do their sequel to the series...so some are perfect and others aren´t so good.
Overall, this is an excelent example of the way japanese classics are. Breathtaking, well told, this tale of the dog warriors is a must see!
read more

Let me start by saying that the first episode is by far the best. In fact, I would have given this a much higher rating if the show consisted of just the first episode. It is a truly great episode filled with epic battle, desperation, and crazy folklore. Unfortunately, the show takes a real dive afterwards and as it goes on it seems more and more like the writer and staff lost interest and even forgot what they had originally planned. Sure, there's some more awesome fight scenes, but most of the show is characters that haven't been properly introduced with either unexplained or so uninteresting motivations that you've forgotten what they were, aimlessly walking around and eventually bumping into people with whom they get in fights who are guess what? also Hakkenden! No way! You mean you've got a glowing birth mark too? but we were just fighting. Oh well, no point in explaining or even differentiating between the characters, hopefully this show will end soon. Or at least that's how I imagined the creators were thinking. Still, it's not without merit, some episodes are directed by different people and the art style changes too, which is cool because sometimes it looks really good. Also, as I mentioned, there is some good action and some truly sadistic happenings. This could have been a great show as I had been anticipating but I ended up having to struggle through to the end. They really kept meeting allies up until the last episode, it's like they didn't even plan it out. Very confusing. Still, if you're starved for Chambara as I am I guess it's worth a shot. If you can find it. read more