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

Jul 23, 2022

guilleum2

Recommended

The story of this anime is nothing new: it is basically a Romeo and Juliet setting. And that is okay! There are so many variations you can do with a well-known storylline, and warring ninja clans with super powers is a pretty cool one!

The thing that grabbed me the most about this anime was the art. Goodness, have you seen these characters eyes?? And their luscious eyelashes????? It's incredible how beautiful anime can be.

Everyone had some really cool powers too. I really enjoyed how (I forgot their names I'm SORRY) Romeo and Juliet's powers complimented each other, it really worked in their favor for their ... romantic chemistry and the whole idea of marrying into each others clans in the first place.

If we're gonna poll the Iga vs the Kouga clan uhhhh tbh both of them have equal footing when it comes to characters with cool powers and characters with LAME AS HELL powers. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the guy who can throw hands with the wires and the girl who can suck your life out with her skin.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 12, 2024

RobRidd

Mixed Feelings

The fight scenes were entertaining, the art was beautiful, and the countless moments of suspense kept me glued to the screen. If the idea of Naruto and Romeo & Juliet having a baby piques your interest, you'll likely enjoy this series.

Basilisk was a breath of fresh air for me after coming off of a romcom/drama binge spree. However, this was also to my detriment as it left me hopelessly waiting for the typical happy ending you see in most anime that contain a romantic subplot. This show is dark and heavily centers around deceit, manipulation, and senseless bloodshed - all of which become more prevalent ... as the show progresses. As a result, I was left devastated and disappointed with the developments in the latter half of the show, especially the ending. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but continue spamming episodes until I saw things through to the end. I should have known better considering the obvious Romeo & Juliet theme.

Although spread incredibly thin, there are a few cheerful and lighthearted moments... but don't be fooled like I was.

I wanted to rate this show much lower than a 7 but felt it wouldn't be a fair score because of how quickly I completed the show. Besides, I don't usually feel compelled to write a review for a series unless I was very passionate about it.

Hope this helps.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 18, 2023

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

Funny

Although Basilisk is essentially Romeo and Juliet with Ninjas, it becomes more like yet another example of why death games are bullshit, unless they are called Battle Royale. The inherent problem they have is that they are never about the story or the characters; it’s about seeing people die and, supposed, feeling sad about them. Only thing, you can’t feel sad about them because they die too quickly, too close to each other, and you already know that they will die at some point, so who gives a shit? It ends up becoming more like a game where you are cynically trying to guess who ... will die next. And even that becomes boring after awhile because as the contestants lower in numbers, it becomes easier to guess right, while at the same time, more apparent to tell who is clearly better than the rest or more favored by the story writer and is going to win at the end.

Battle Royale is a very old manga by now, and yet nobody figured out all these years why it works so well, despite suffering from the same issues. It’s because its contestants have no superpowers. They had talents which, for the most part, where within the realm of reason, and felt very plausible. Said talents were not giving them that much of a head start over everyone else, and were still things everybody knew they possessed right away. All other death games fail because they try to throw in so much supernatural nonsense it becomes impossible to take the whole thing seriously. One can teleport, one can fly, one is immortal, and nobody knows the other guy’s powers until he is about to die. Although keeping your powers secret is fun, if keeping them hidden is the only thing that makes them work, renders pointless the kind of power you have in the first place. It doesn’t matter what strategy you use to exploit the other guy’s weaknesses, it only matters if you keep it a secret. So what’s the point of having crazy powers? You can have something as simple as a hidden dagger in your sleeve, and it wouldn’t make any difference next to a guy who shoots lasers from his eyes.

Not only Basilisk made that grave mistake, it also made it worse by having characters that look like monsters. Despite being a colorful bunch the series revolves around just 3 of them; the main romantic couple and the imba immortal. They are the only ones you care for, not only because they matter to the plot but also because they look normal. The rest of them either are useless cannon fodder, or look like ugly mutants, accompanied by a silly voice and some really crazy ninja power. You cannot see them as people with some sort of drama surrounding them; you see them as Pokemons. Oh look, it’s the scaly guy who turns to water, and the bald guy who can walk through walls. It makes the whole thing seem like a silly kaiju movie from the 60s.

Even if you try to watch the anime as a spectacle full of action and gore, Basilisk is still pretty bad but not because of pretty colors and nice sounds. Visually and acoustically the series is quite good, with detailed characters designs, magnificent sceneries, moody music score, and interesting battle choreography. What ruins it, is the two ninja clans that are fighting each other to the death not being balanced at all. They keep saying that they have equal chances of winning, and yet you constantly see the Kouga being obviously stronger and smarter than the Iga.

1) The Kouga lost half their people because the Iga kept the order of annihilation hidden for several episodes. As soon as the Kouga found out about it, they even the score, despite being outnumbered and unprepared.

2) The Iga were not wiped out right away, only because one of them is immortal. Half of the Kouga were killed only because they could not kill this guy no matter how powerful they were.

3) Two of the Kouga can kill anyone they want by simply looking at him. No Iga had the slightest chance against that.

4) The leader of the Iga is a crybaby who refused to do the slightest thing until the final episode. The leader of the Kouga is a badass who kicks ass right away.

You know which team is going to win right away. And no, death games are not meant to be fair, or to have only balanced participants. It’s just that there is no challenge if it’s so obviously one-sided. And yes, there are many cases when the weaker guy wins, and it’s always because he kept his power a secret, or back stabbed a completely unsuspected opponent. It’s not a worthy victory, you cannot cheer for him, because he didn’t deserve to win. Not to mention how pretty much everybody in this show dies in a miserable way. There is no catharsis, they just die and kiss personal goals goodbye. And I am not saying that everyone deserves a heroic death, but it really makes the viewer not give a shit if the whole series is a monument of unfairness, based on imbalanced power levels which eventually mean nothing and overshadow any attempt at drama.

And wait, it gets even worse. Eventually you realize that none of them have control over their actions. They are all peons, controlled by the nobles. They never chose to fight each other, they were ordered to. Yeah, they did hate each other but they never took the initiative; they were always waiting for orders. And if you think that makes them noble because they were loyal to their masters, that assumption crumbles as soon as you see how they try to kill their opponents by cheating. As for their masters, it’s not like they are better either. Aside from being nothing but an excuse for the whole extermination to happen, they don’t even care about their ninjas. In fact, the real reason they want the two clans to fight each other, is so they can exterminate both, as means to not be a problem in the future. Meaning, there was never supposed to be a winner in this stupid war; they were all meant to die at the end. So why were we even watching this show? To watch mindless drones killing each other because nobody wants them? What is the point of all this?

Even the show becomes worse as it goes on. The pacing slows down more and more, because the amount of people left alive becomes smaller as time goes by. It was fun at first because of the variety and the mystery surrounding their powers, but then you get to see less and less things, about less and less people, of which you already know everything about. Even the ending is a mess. You don’t really understand what exactly happened. All three remaining warriors were so hax (and so painfully obvious they would be the ones in the finale) that it’s hard to figure out how their powers worked against each other. And it’s not like it matters much either, since by now you feel like shit since you know you are watching people die because of orders by leaders who don’t care.

It’s so easy to figure out a way for how all this mess could have worked much better. If we had the stupid Iga being wiped out in a few episodes by the superior Kuga, and if our two lovebirds had run away from all this mess, we would have an actually good story going on, where they are chased by the Kouga, who are still supposed to be annihilated by the shogunate. It would still leave the show as a death game, while spicing things a lot, even after most of them would be dead. But nope, instead of this obviously better story I came up with in 5 seconds, all we got was a lukewarm death game, with Pokemon ninjas, unfair battles, and a boring finale.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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