The Warring States period is probably the first taste many of us outside of Japan have of Japanese history, & not just because of the Total War games. With it's long list of factions, battles, & heroic individuals; the period has been a rich vein for story tellers that has been tapped often, some might say to exhaustion, over the years. Samurai Warriors is hardly a contender for being one of the better works of fiction to come out of this tradition, but it turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable retelling of the final years of the period which combined an engaging tale of the dying days of the samurai era with lots of big men hitting each other with big weapons. (this review assumes you've seen the OVA/know a bit about the period being depicted)
The series starts pretty much where the OVA left off. The Saneda brothers, Yukimura & Noboyuki, now find themselves fighting on the side of shogun Hideyoshi at the siege of Odawara castle (1590), the last holdout of the Hojo clan & the last battle in Hideyoshi's campaign to unite Japan. Victory at Odawara is meant to symbolise the tantalizing realisation of a unified Japan, before Hideyoshi's sudden death plunges the realm back into uncertainty as Mitsunari & Ieyasu, named as regents, come into conflict with each other (as you might expect, Samurai Warriors deals with Hideyoshi's disastrous & bloody invasions of Korea by pretending they didn't happen).
As the sides in the new war are drawn, the Saneda's find themselves torn between their ideals & their familial bond. Yukimura, the more idealistic warrior, sides with Mitsunari, the man who is morally in the right but whose aloof & impersonal way of governing has alienated him from many of the daimyo of Japan. Noboyuki, who has a more grounded view of things, sides with Ieyasu, who while depicted in Samurai Warriors as a conniving power grabber (which he was) is also, Noboyuki feels, the only man who has both the vision & power to finally bring lasting peace to Japan & an end to the Warring States era.
This divide is the main theme of Samurai Warriors. Yukimura is the embodiment of an idealised warrior hero. He is immensely powerful & skilled in the arts of war, & is devoted to his ideas of justice & loyalty to those who are in the right. Noboyuki is, for lack of a better term, more of a realist. He has his honour but rejects heroic notions such as it being better to die heroically than live ignobly. For him, the ultimate ideal is a peaceful Japan, & if he has to sully his own honour somewhat to achieve that, it's a worthy sacrifice. Their conflict embodies that of Japan itself, between the heroic, ideal warrior whose convictions could can only be pursued in conflict & the more pragmatic, new type of warrior that Japan would need to become a nation at peace.
Their split also allows for an easy way to show both sides in the two main conflicts in Samurai Warriors: first between Ieyasu & Mitsunari, culminating in the battle of Battle of Sekigahara (1600); then the Siege of Osaka (1614-15) between Ieyasu & Hideyori, Hideyoshi's son & rightful heir of the shogunate Ieyasu had claimed after defeating Mitsunari. For those who have played the games or like people spotting, Samurai Warriors has a long roster of notable figures from the era. One might say there are too many, given that are a few occasions where characters just show up & if you don't know who they are, you'll be left scratching your head as to what they're doing. It doesn't help that some characters show up in historically inaccurate places. To it's credit, however, Samurai Warriors for the most part keeps the focus on a smaller ensemble cast, avoiding the problem of shows like Kancolle where the story keeps jumping between seemingly unconnected groups of characters.
As to which side of history Samurai Warriors ultimately sides with, it's hard to say. Indeed, it strikes a fairly balanced view that is in keeping with how the period if viewed more generally in Japan. Yukimura is held up both by the show & by his contemporaries as the ideal warrior. Mitsunari & Hideyori also are seen as facing up against Ieyasu with the sense that they are morally in the right, which isn't really disputed. However, nor does Samurai Warriors go for a simple good vs evil portrayal of the sides either. Ieyasu might be a conniving power grabber, but he's also the only man with the authority to keep the daimyo of Japan in check. His son Hidetori may be a bit of a feckless wastrel (he was), but better for Japan a weak but peace loving shogun than a strong, warmongering one. While hardly a nuanced presentation of events, Samurai Warriors does a decent job of not being overly simplistic in it's handling of who the good guys & who the bad guys are.
For those spoiled by Unlimited Budget Works quality levels of animation, Samurai Warriors will disappoint. The ridiculous character & weapon designs, & earth shattering attacks that send foot soldiers flying are all here, but the fluid, dynamic, long shot action sequences you might want are not. Instead, Samurai Warriors opts for a more old fashioned way of depicting combat, with panned still shots, action lines, close ups of the combatants, quick edits between cuts & a lot of manly shouting. That said, while not the most technically impressive, the art & animation quality in Samurai Warriors remains consistent throughout the series; which in my opinion is more important & preferable to a series which achieves better individual results by being more inconsistent overall.
The writing is also pretty flat. While this period of history pretty much writes itself in terms of the characters & events, a lot of the script itself is quite labored & in-eloquent. While I certainly can't fault the meaning behind a lot of what's said, such as when Noboyuki implores the Uesuagi to accept Ieyasu's humiliating peace terms rather than destroy the clan in a final battle for the sake of honour; the actual dialogue itself is no Shakespeare, for lack of a better way of putting it. I also thought it was a shame they didn't have Yukimura's (alleged) real last words in the final episode, although perhaps they wouldn't have fit with how the show decided to depict the final battle that ends both the Warring States era & the show:
"I am Sanada Nobushige, no doubt an adversary quite worthy of you, but I am exhausted and can fight no longer. Go on, take my head as your trophy"
Despite good reasons not to expect anything out of Samurai Warriors, it being an adaptation of a game series with not the best of reputations, I ended up enjoying this series a lot more than I expected to. It's a lot of dumb fun, with big manly men (though there are some women too & they actually play some important, though ultimately quite minor, roles) with ridiculous character designs, beating each other up while extolling warrior virtues. It's not clever but at the same time it has a more nuanced view of the period being depicted than might be expected of it. You won't be missing anything by not watching Samurai Warriors, but you might well enjoy it if you do.
