Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls is beautiful and heartbreaking.
The story can only be described as a much more bloody and violent Romeo and Juliet with ninjas instead. The main characters, Gennosuke and Oboro are deeply in love, but each belongs to a different clan. The Kouga and the Iga. The Kouga and Iga have been warring for more than 400 years and the hate between the two is stifling. The only thing that keeps these two clans from literally ripping each others throats out, is the no-hostilities act. But peace is only a fairy tale. This act is nullified upon the decision that a shogun must be picked. And the winning clan, each who supports one future shogun, must fight to the death until only one clan survives. Thus begins a journey of no small amount of bloodshed.
If you think this is just another prettied up Romeo and Juliet you should prepare yourself. Basilisk is full of violence and blood. Each of the ten members picked from each clan must fight each other. But these battles are heavy and brutal. In each episode someone dies and it is very quick. You meet the 20 people, and then you watch them battle to the death. This story is definitely not for anyone under 14-15 at the least. It is filled with blood, extreme violence, nudity, rape, and sexual themes. My downside with the characters is that you see only some of them once and them bam. Their dead. I was disappointed that a little more history wasn't put into some of the characters. I really wanted to see more of the ones that die early on in the series. But the series was fast paced and it worked well. I was never disappointed with an episode because each one was filled with something new or another battle. And most if not all of the battles ended in one episode. So they weren't prolonging them like most other animes. And the techniques of the ninja? Whoa. Some of them were far beyond what I thought they were going to be. Some were goofy, others were viscous but one person just really pissed me off throughout the entire series. I was happy when he died.
Mwhahahha....haha....ha. Ahem.
But behind all this is a tragedy with no mercy spared. The love was genuine between Oboro and Gennosuke and I hated watching the pain they were both being put through while having to fight each other. It was heart wrenching. I was dreading the end because I felt I knew how it must end. Let's just say that I ended up shedding a few years worth of tears. So if your the emotional type of person, like me, then be prepared.
The art of the story of beautiful when they used it, but otherwise some of the characters were, frankly, disgusting. The shogun in the first episode has this huge unreal disgusting growth or abnormality jutting out from his chin. And he's fat and ugly. I think it was detail that made everything about a character stand out. Old people had wrinkles out the butt and fat people had roles the size of Mt. Everest and it was just to the extreme. Most of the women (well the ninja ones) were sexy looking and it really bothered me that their hair covered up their faces like all the time. But otherwise I enjoyed the art style.
Generally I'm a person who watches anime with romance and happiness. I was depressed when watching this, but also enthralled. I just had to watch to know what happened. The sadness that I felt while watching this series does not stop me from loving it. It is now my top favorite.
This was also something that I finished in 2 days. Unless you'd like to account for the sleeping I had to do. But since it only spans 24 episodes its quick, enjoyable and well worth the time spent to watch it. A mere weekend would suffice to finish this series.
My only complaint is that this anime (I haven't read the manga yet) is poorly advertised and known. I hadn't even heard of this until I went searching and saw recommendations for it. And still I didn't decide to watch it until now. Actually I bought it before I watched it (I tend to have good luck when deciding on buying anime before watching it) and I am so happy that I did. It was well beyond worth the money I spent on it. I would recommend this to anyone. Although I suggest you keep a box of tissue's with you on the last disc.
