Basilisk: Kouga Ninpou Chou

For centuries, the Iga and Kouga ninja clans have engaged in a bitter war. But when a ceasefire is ordered by the powerful warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa, the two clans are forced to put down their arms.

Years later, Gennosuke Kouga, heir of the Kouga clan, and Oboro Iga, heir of the Iga clan, have fallen in love. Through marriage, both heirs aim to bring peace to the clans. But their hopes are dashed when flames of rivalry between their clans are reignited, and they are dragged into another war.

Ieyasu's two grandsons have both claimed to be the next heir to the shogunate. To resolve this dispute, both the Kouga and Iga are ordered to send their 10 best warriors to fight in a bloody battle royale, with each clan representing one of the potential shogunate heirs. Two scrolls with the names of the fighters are given and are to be marked in blood upon the given fighter's death. The prize for winning is the favor of the Tokugawa shogunate for a thousand years. Torn between their love for each other and duty to their clans, Gennosuke and Oboro must ultimately decide the fate of their clans.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kouga, Gennosuke Main

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Iga, Oboro Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Yakushiji, Tenzen Main

Hayami, Show Japanese

Hotarubi Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Muroga, Hyouma Supporting

Miyabayashi, Yasushi Japanese

Kisaragi, Saemon Supporting

Ueda, Youji Japanese

Yashamaru Supporting

Yanagi, Naoki Japanese

Akeginu Supporting

Watanabe, Misa Japanese

Chikuma, Koshirou Supporting

Hatano, Wataru Japanese

Kisaragi, Okoi Supporting

Kimura, Haruka Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Harp, Clarine Producer

Nanba, Hideyuki Producer

Kizaki, Fuminori Director

Reviews

Jun 19, 2007

jet2r0cks

Recommended

I can actually make a 3 word summary for this anime. It would go like this : KILL, KILL, KILL.

Heartless killing, endless dying. That pretty much made up the story. Almost every character was just blood thirsty, all except this anime’s Romeo and Juliet, aka Gennosuke and Oboro. It’s another story of forbidden love, I suppose. The forbidden love was a foot note for me – I was more engrossed by the fight scenes and the dramatic deaths of the ninjas.

The concept was actually new to me, but I was able to understand most of it. I was familiar with Samurai – themed anime, but ... I have never watched a serious shinobi anime like this one (that’s right – Flame of Recca doesn’t count). I’m not sure what separates the two, but from what I notice, Ninjas are less moral and are more likely into killing, that’s why the Iga and Kouga ninjas were chosen to fight it out with each other to come up with the decision on who will succeed the third shogun. I am not sure whether or not this really happened (I don’t think so) but there were a lot of historical references that were explained (thank God!). It's another opportunity to learn about Japanese culture and history!

So the characters ended up killing each other in the way they knew how – using their different techniques of course. They all had unique techniques, from super sticky phlegm to blood sucking skin to deadly glances. These techniques gave spice to the already violent carnage.

Like their techniques, their respective practitioners were equally impressive and different (Although the girls looked alike, and Koshirou and Yashamaru as well). I was sad that some were only shown for a short time, because their personalities and character made it seem like they were going to stick around longer.

I have to commend the voice acting for this one. Even though I’m not that fluent in Japanese, I know well enough Japanese slang to tell that the language they’re using was the one used in that era. They seem to say “Gozaimasu” a lot. Generally, the seiyus brought out the personalities of their respective characters, and that’s always a good thing.

The drawing style was pretty good, but I found that it can be a bit exaggerated sometimes. Body proportions were kinda weird. Everyone and everything seemed to be big. The women had huge, nipple-less chests (Found out from all the naked girl fight scenes). The men had overly large frames, but they are ninjas so I’m not sure about that. The wrinkles on the elders were a bit too extreme. They were kind with Danjou, but poor Ogen. She was so beautiful in her youth and when she got old they made her look REALLY old. There were a lot of hair too - everyone just seemed so hairy. The landscapes and backgrounds were nicely drawn though, and I did detect a hint of CG just to compliment some scenes. I was kinda ticked that a lot of the scenes were in the dark, which made it hard for me to tell what was happening. Oh well, they didn’t have light then anyway. When the scenes were during the daytime, you could tell the colors were done nicely and complimented each other instead of clashing with each other.

I noticed there was a great variety of BGM – most of them were gloomy though. It did fit the series well, but that’s about it. They didn’t heighten the mood of the scene or anything like that. The opening theme singer’s voice (which is actually Oboro’s seiyu) sounded a bit operatic, so I didn’t like the opening theme that much. I liked both the ending songs though, they seemed more current compared to the opening theme. Anyway, all in all the music fit the mood of the anime.

Again I was hesitant with this one – Didn’t really want to watch it at first since I thought it was going to be too serious, but it ended up to be very exciting and likable. Let’s not forget the violence and gore either, It may seem like I like shojo more, but I actually love violent series just as much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 11, 2011

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

Normally I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but this time it isn't possible. You have been warned. Do not read any further if you don't want to be spoiled.

Basilisk has a simple plot. Two star crossed lovers with families that hate each other end up dying tragically. In spite of the simple concept it's capably done. The basic premise is that these two ninja clans, Koga and Iga, had a treaty that stopped them from killing each other for several years. This treaty is dissipated because the shogun is retiring and hasn't chosen a successor. He has two choices so the clan leaders ... are asked to choose ten people each. They'll fight to the death to determine which of the two candidates will become the next shogun. This comes at a time when the clans are about to be unified by their next leaders, Gennosuke and Oboro, marrying. The fact that the clans start out in a truce and the tragedy comes from the truce being annulled and them allowing old hatreds to destroy their hope of peace rather than the two lovers not being able to get together is a nice change from the usual story and provides for some good tension. Tenzen makes for a legitimately creepy antagonist. The fact that he comes back to life whenever he dies makes him a significant threat and the fact that he attempts to rape several women and tortures Kagero makes him the kind of unapologetic git who you want to see die. The flashbacks are an effective way to help develop the characters, especially those who die early on. The only major problem with the story is that there's a plot hole. In the beginning Iga finds out that their clans are officially at war first. So they trick Gennosuke and Josuke, another Koga ninja, into visiting their village while five Iga ninja, Tenzen, Hotarubi, Nenki, Koshirou and Rousai, try to secretly kill as many of their opponents as possible. This is a good tactic, the problem is that they leave Gennosuke alive, in spite of secretly killing Josuke. The reason given is that Tenzen doesn't know what Gennosuke's ability is and wants to attack him with caution, but it's a weak explanation since Tenzen and his group attack several other ninja that they don't know the abilities of. They even sneak up to the Koga village where several ninja with unknown abilities are. So, they'll go to an area where there's a virtual army of enemy ninja but they won't execute a sneak attack on one solitary man who's surrounded by their people? That is idiotic and doesn't make any sense.

Moving on to the characters. Most of them are pretty three dimensional and developed either through flashbacks or through the main narrative except for Josuke who's a perverted moron, Tenzen who's a complete sociopath and all of the female characters who fit simple tropes like the frail love interest, the woman defined entirely by her lover or the jealous girl. The character designs are varied, for the men, the women are all traditionally attractive with large breasts and full lips. The abilities are also interesting and range from being able to kill somebody by looking them in the eye, to stretching, to shape shifting to butterflies... Okay, the women have ridiculous abilities. Most of which are virtually useless from a practical standpoint. You have Hotarubi who can distract people with shiny butterflies. Akeginu who can slow people down but, for some reason, has to take off her top to do so, no that isn't a joke, Okoi who can drain someone's blood by entangling them with her body so that she touches their skin with as much of her skin as possible, I know that might seem useful but consider how unlikely you are to be able to do that during an actual fight, and Kagero, who can poison men with her breath when she's either having sex or aroused. We're told that it doesn't work on women, probably because they didn't want to introduce the possibility of yuri. I swear I'm not making that ability up either. You never see Ogen's ability since she dies in the first episode. Oboro doesn't actually have any powers. She can cancel out a person's ninja arts by looking at them, but it's made clear that that's just something she was born with rather than actually developing. They make a big deal about how Oboro tried to learn to fight but remained useless anyway. Okay, martial arts, throwing shuriken, and sword fighting don't work that way. These are all things that you learn through practice and dedication not through having some kind of inborn talent. But she's the frail love interest so she isn't allowed to be competent. All of this makes me think that Segawa Masaki is a misogynistic prick

Basilisk earns a yuri factor of 1/10. All of the women are canonically straight and none of them get scenes that are even slightly suggestive with each other.

The voice acting, at least in the Japanese version, is very well done. The art is incredible. The fight scenes are awesome, even though most of them end very quickly. My final rating for Basilisk is a 6.3. I considered giving it a 7 but the sheer level of misogyny is just so unpleasant that I couldn't do it. But if you can forgive the gross levels of misogyny it's worth watching once.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 27, 2009

jabcreations

Not Recommended

Right to the point: if you prefer either an uplifting ending or an ending that says the next season will be even better look elsewhere because most (not all) characters want to just kill.

It's not a horrible series altogether but the journey is much better then the destination, not to speak too highly of the journey though.

The action, animation, and character design are pretty good. However it's just not my personal taste to end a series with tragedy. If that's your thing though you'll likely enjoy this series.

Also ninja fans should be delighted to hear that this series is pirate-free.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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