Sengoku Basara

In the Sengoku period, the struggle for power and unification has brought endless bloodshed to the unstable Japan. Out of all the warring generals, Nobunaga Oda—the "Demon King of Owari"—has established himself as the strongest ruler. Friend or foe, he is determined to crush anyone who stands in his way of creating a tyrannical central government.

The only two who dare rebel against Oda are the "One-eyed Dragon of Oshu" Masamune Date, and the distinguished but hot-blooded warrior of the Takeda clan, Yukimura Sanada. Though they share the goal of preventing Oda from unifying the domains, Masamune and Yukimura cannot see eye-to-eye. Equally skilled in combat, mutual admiration for one another causes these two feuding warriors to forge a fierce rivalry, thwarting any attempts to form a united front against the Demon King of Owari.

With Oda's forces closing in on their respective territories, Masamune and Yukimura reluctantly learn to put aside their differences and fight together against the threatening usurpator.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Date, Masamune Main

Nakai, Kazuya Japanese

Sanada, Yukimura Main

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Chousokabe, Motochika Supporting

Ishino, Ryuuzou Japanese

Katakura, Kojuurou Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Sarutobi, Sasuke Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Maeda, Keiji Supporting

Morita, Masakazu Japanese

Oda, Nobunaga Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Mouri, Motonari Supporting

Nakahara, Shigeru Japanese

Akechi, Mitsuhide Supporting

Hayami, Show Japanese

Tokugawa, Ieyasu Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Wada, Jouji Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Maeda, Toshihiro Producer

Reviews

Jul 19, 2022

lamaraptor

Recommended

Sengoku Basara was my first experience with Japanese historical fiction. Shogun warlords depicted as anime characters with absurd special weapons and finishing moves. That was how someone pitched the games to me and I was sold pretty quick on that concept alone. Unfortunately only the first and third game ever received any kind of Western localization, as the developers were understandably concerned that there was no market outside of Japan for this sort of thing. The journey of Sengoku Basara even coming into existence is somewhat interesting, being Capcom's knockoff of the already popular Sengoku Musou, or Samurai Warriors in the west, which itself was ... the sister game to Shin Sangokumusou called Dynasty Warriors in the west and being a similar concept but with characters from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's wild.

I'll admit I only ever played the third Sengoku Basara game, which chronologically happens a bit later in the Sengoku period and mainly features the lead up to the Battle of Sekigahara. I loved learning about the real historical events and characters the things in the game were based on, and it's probably the main reason I know so much/anything about Japanese history today.

So going into this a lot of the characters I knew from the later game were present, but in different roles. I'm assuming from the events depicted that this is just an adaptation of one possible route through the game's story, and that "canon" events are the ones that more closely mirror real history. (Ieyasu would definitely still be alive long after the death of Nobunaga.) So as a "what if" story I think this is a pretty good one. It was also neat that they got most of the English voice cast from the last game they localized to come back for the anime dub. I usually hate dubbed anime, and the voice acting here was not great, but my nostalgia made me watch the whole thing in English anyway. You've gotta love the try-hard energy Johnny Yong Bosch puts into his performance.

Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin are both characters I didn't know very well going into it, by the time of the third game they aren't playable characters and are treated more like the stuff of legends. Shingen's relationship with Yukimura was very reminiscent of Might Guy and Rock Lee from Naruto, that is to say, half paternal and half homoerotic. Kenshin and Kasuga's relationship was really funny to watch in English because of how awkwardly every line of dialogue was read. I have to imagine the voice actors were just trying their best not to crack up in the booth at how ludicrous they sounded.

This series is obviously not for everyone. If you happen to have already been a fan of the games somehow despite it barely ever even reaching the west, it's a great time. If not I love that it's at least another entry point that fans could get into to spread awareness of the franchise. Who knows, maybe it will even lead to Capcom localizing other entries in the series, though I doubt it.

For this season, 8/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 20, 2020

TamaraZ

Mixed Feelings

I guess I was expecting more from this since it is short, but I got disappointed. Only few last episodes were interesting. And since it is anime of only 12 episodes I guessed it will not be that way
Story:7
The point of the story is to kill the devil king and make ally with other in order to do so. Not that bad, but nothing special. Everyone is focused only on fighting, and barely anyone stood out except the lady night that is supposed to be a man.
Characters:6
Not the worst, but very loud and not likeable. If we except for some reason Date Masamune who ... somehow made me like him a lot. Other characters were not interesting almost at all. Devil king is pathetic villain and the real villain through whole anime is actually Mitsuhide(one of the best drawn villains in my opinion).
Enjoyment: 6
It was hard to start but fun at the last few episodes. But for some reason it took me 3 days to finish it and it's just 12 episodes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 11, 2020

Srodiam

Not Recommended

Never played the games, so my experience with this franchise is entirely based on this adaptation.

I've never had written a review before, not for the shows i love or to the ones i despise, but i felt the need to do it for this one, the most painfully average show I've seen in a long time.

Sengoku Basara tells a really "romanticized" version of the Sengoku Period (duh), most specifically the rise of the anti-Nobunaga coalition. Some of the most famous points of the conflict are present, such as the rivalry between Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda or Nobunaga's fondness for firearms. But, as any good ... Shounen with the "historical" tag, many fantastical elements are present, such as a mecha samurai with a Jet-pack and a giant drill. The plot simply serves as a background to connect action sequences together, with is not necessarily a bad thing. The bad part, and what inspired me to write this, is the fact that the action sequences are not good. Mostly, almost all, fights don't have a choreography, reduced simply to a character charging his big magic attack and failing to connect said attack. Sometimes, when characters cross weapons, instead of a fluid action sequence of them exchanging blows, the screen fades to black and returns in the classic anime stalemate with swords shaking. This is a show solely made for actions sequences, but these are not really that enjoyable to watch. Music is really good, as we can already expect from Sawano, as is animation quality. This is a really good-looking show, even more so by 2009 standards.

Plot and character development are really not the focus of this piece. There is a lot of characters into this one. Most of the real life important players of the conflict eventually show their faces, but some are reduced to minor cameos. The sheer amount of characters combined with the number of episode result into almost all of the cast don't having any development whatsoever, even by old Shounens standards.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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