Basilisk: Kouga Ninpouchou

When you have two rival clans that hate the living guts out of each other your bound to get a blood spilling manga, and that's exactly what Basilisk is. The Iga and Kouga clan are the two clans that take their differences to the battlefield in this exciting manga.

First of all I basically told you the story plots in my introduction. Other than the fact that these two clans fight to the death to see who would become the new shogun of Japan there's isn't much to the story. It sticks to this all the way untill the finish of the manga.

Art is very good. It's a manga that makes you visualize every fight scene and it makes it look great. The artwork is very realistic and it feels like your watching the anime and not reading the manga.

Now to my favorite part of this manga, the characters. Every character is so special and different from the rest. There are twenty main characters. Ten from Kouga and ten from Iga. You will like at least one of them by the end of the manga. Every character shows different feeling to different things and every one of them has a special power that you can't wait to see. My personal favorite character was Kisaragi Saemon.

This manga was very enjoyable. I was able to finish it in about two hours. It isn't too long so anyone that is looking for a nice quick read and is a fan of ninjas and Japanese history should read this manga.

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Basilisk is a Seinen, Action, Romance filled with sword fighting, ninja skills and psychological battles enough to satisfy Samurai fans out there.

Basilisk reminds me of the Shakespearian classical tragedy Romeo and Juliet, two people from two rivalled clans falling in love. The two intended to marry to stop the fues between their groups and create peace but in certain circumstances, greed for power, the thirst for blood and drive for vengeance can't be stopped as such thruce can't wipe away hatred. Thus starts the war between these groups.

The manga design including character, background and battle scene was somewhat appreciated by seinen readers, dark, bloody and a few nudity.

Diffinition of each character is more on their ninjutsu (ninja ability). But as I said before the story is similar to the Romeo and Juliet and even the characters are in one way or another, alike:

Romeo - Ginunsuke
Juliet - Oboro

Kouga Group - Montague
Iga Group - Capulet

This manga feeds readers with bunch of ninja actions, well defined battle scenes and tactics. Though the romance was somehow a bit of a cliche but can catch few tragedy fans.

Overall, this is a worth read taking a 7.5 for me.

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With beautiful artwork and a beautiful story Basilisk is a one-of-a-kind Graphic Novel.

The battle between two clans, which are sworn enemy's for over 400 years makes the story intense. Every character is special in his own, because of his/her ninja technique or his/her appearance.
But it's not only a story about ancient old rivalry, this story also shows how beautiful, and painful, love can be.


It's not only a great Graphic Novel to look at, it's also a Graphic Novel that you can read anytime. It won't get bored.

(10 - MASTERPIECE) (*my opinion*)

Basilisk is a manga that reveals honor, loyalty, cleverness and abilities of the ancient ninjas, with some awesome and unique power in each character. It has a fantastic story which shows love can overcome anything, but the path the couple have to follow is a bloody and hard way.

The first thing I like about Basilisk is story. It shows you an old Japan, where samurais and specially ninja still exist. Even if they had to serve to their lord, they have feelings and ulterior motives to keep in their sides and fight. The love of the msin characters maintains strong and pure, althought the others want to stain it and sometimes they have to make difficult decision between love and loyalty. Even though the story is not anything beyond normal, each character has a different development in the story that makes it more complicated and scheming.

About graphics, it's a very good seinen art. Even though. I'm not affectionate to seinen, this manga makes me feel captivated with the battle scenes and the gore scenes. They really impact you and the backgrouund is very well done They really makes the quick and running action of ninjas stand out.

To conclude, this manga has many doses of action, gore, supernatural powers, scheming and crude story. If you like ninja with high amounts of crude action, this manga is one of the best choice for you.

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