Review for Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings - The Complete 1st Season

Introduction

The Sengoku Jidai (Warring States) period of Japan in the 16th Century is an era that provides much inspiration for creators of entertainment. The power from the centre had waned, several powerful warlords had risen in the various provinces of Japan, and all now vied for power and status in the hope of becoming Shogun, outright ruler of the country. It was a civil war with seven or eight sides, a conflagration that makes the English Civil War of the same period look like someone spilling a pint in the pub. The prominent names of the era, Shingen Takeda, Oda Nobunaga, and Ieyasu Tokugawa still resonate after all these years, and have inspired authors, poets, filmmakers and indeed videogame producers. I've lost hours of my life engrossed in Shogun: Total War, one of the earlier real-time strategy games, but it's a little dry material for adapting into an anime series. Fortunately, the more recent Sengoku Basara series of videogames, where the player takes control of one of the significant historical personages of note in a 3D fighting action milieu, adds a little more pizzazz and a lot more personality. It's ideal fodder for an anime adaptation, and all concerns about videogame adaptations can be put aside when it transpires that Production IG do the animating honours.


Actually Sengoku Basara plays out pretty similarly to history, with the real life players in story brought to animated life, to recreate the very same battles that went into uniting Japan under one banner. Okay, there are one or two liberties taken with the characters and events. The clan leaders, with their trusty ninja at their side, all ride into battle at the head of their armies, equipped with videogame style special moves and abilities. Takeda Shingen is a bear of a man who always beats his teachings on the art of war into his gullible but fiery right hand man, Yukimura Sanada. Kenshin Uesugi is an elegant and cultured, if slightly effeminate leader, who can send his blonde, lycra-clad ninja Kasuga into throes of ecstasy with just a glance. Ieyasu Tokugawa is a young boy in a man's armour, who has a giant robotic flying samurai at his right hand. Masamune Date is a clan leader that goes into battle wielding six swords at once, and his clan are more like a bike gang, indeed, his horse has handlebars. When Masamune Date and Yukimura Sanada encounter each other, the mutual antagonism is positively nuclear, and they would have killed each other, were it not for the advent of Nobunaga Oda, the Demon Lord, who has thrown aside all ideas of honour and justice, in his blitzkrieg approach to winning the wars, pitting all sides against each other, and razing to the ground anything left standing. His gaze is enough to petrify even the strongest of men, and his wife carries a Gatling gun. With this kind of opposition, Date and Sanada will have to put aside their differences; indeed all the smaller clans will have to put aside their differences, if they are to stop Nobunaga in his tracks.


It should be noted that this is the first series of twelve episodes plus one straight to DVD special. But those of you concerned about a D. Gray-Man-esque hiatus needn't worry. Funimation are currently streaming the second series on their own site and Youtube I believe, so the inevitability of a dub and eventual DVD release should allay fears. Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings also gets released on Blu-ray on the same day as this DVD release, should you want the extra definition.


Sengoku Basara's thirteen episodes are distributed across two discs as follows.

Disc One
1. Azure and Crimson, A Fateful Encounter!
2. Horrific Confrontation at Okehazama!
3. Vagabond, Maeda Kenji!
4. Wavering Scarlet Flower - Loyalty That Brings Sorrow!
5. Brutal! The Righteous Battle of Nagashiro and s***aragahara!
6. Bonds Torn Asunder - Mortifying Retreat for Masamune!
7. Marauding Villain! Two Dragons Duel in Earnest Under the Moon!

Disc 2
8. Great Temple of Carnage! Kojuro in Dire Straits!
9. The Tiger of Kai Dies at Midaigawa!
10. Yukimura Beyond Recovery?! The Date Army's Tearful Disbandment!
11. Mitsuhide's Betrayal! Honnoji Temple Goes Up In Flames!
12. Azuchi Castle Keep - A Fight To The Death For Tomorrow!
13. Clash in the Inland Sea of Seto! Fugaku, The Great Fire-Belching Fortress of the Sea!

Picture

Sengoku Basara gets a very splendid 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which courtesy of Madman in Australia is a native PAL image. No ghosting, no jerky pans, just a smooth, crystal clear and fluid animation. There may be a slight hint of compression during the frenetic action, but you'll only notice it if you pause the image to take a closer look. Production I.G. produce the anime, and the result is gorgeous, rich, bold colours, distinctive character designs, detailed world designs, and a quality and consistency in animation that puts some theatrical features to shame. This is an action packed, combat laden anime, and the detail, smoothness and imagination in the fight sequences is such that it's hard to watch this show without a silly grin on your face. The combat is ridiculous, overblown, with constant explosions of chi, and with finishing moves that leave a mushroom cloud hanging in the air. But it all looks so good that you forgive the extravagance, rather than roll your eyes at it as with certain other overblown action anime; cough Bleach cough.

Sound

You have the choice of DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. The Japanese track may be a little underdone when it comes to specs, but it's definitely the way to go when it comes to aesthetic choice, especially as the Japanese voice actors really catch the over the top mood that goes with the over the top story. It's a show where anyone who fails to chew the scenery, ends up letting the side down, so Nobunaga has to be maliciously munificent, Takeda and Yukimura have to one-up each other when it comes to professions of platonic, manly affection, while Date has an tendency to slip into Engrish to emphasise his pronouncements. It's a juicy dialogue track that is served well by the stereo when it comes to music and action, but it really could have done with a full on surround track. The English track has the surround, but the dub dialogue is fairly standard for a Funimation mix, useful if you like your Funimation dubs, but somehow lacking in comparison to the Japanese, and the hassle that some of the dub actors have with the Japanese names and places does show at times.

Extras

With Sengoku Basara, Funimation instituted a policy that bigger studios have already put in place, and which was inevitable for anime companies as well, but no less disappointing for that inevitability. And as Funimation supply the source material that Manga Entertainment use in their discs, we get that policy by default. Basically, Blu-ray purchasers get more value for their buck than DVD purchasers. In the case of Sengoku Basara, it means that while the DVD has 3 bonus episodes of the New Anime "Sengoku Basara Chosokabe Motochika-Kun and Mori-Kun" mini animation, Blu-ray purchasers will get 7 episodes. At least that is what has happened in the US, and there's no reason why the same wouldn't apply here.


What DVD purchasers get are the textless credits, the Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes game trailer, and the first three episodes of New Anime "Sengoku Basara Chosokabe Motochika-Kun and Mori-Kun". These three instalments run to a total of 20 minutes, and feature mini versions of two of the shows lesser characters, starring in their own flick book style animation, as they try and sell the new Sengoku Basara anime to viewers, in the hope of getting a bigger role therein. It's tongue-in-cheek silliness, mildly entertaining, but not really worth lamenting the loss of four episodes to the realms of the Blu-ray exclusive for. These episodes are in DD 2.0 Japanese surround, with English subtitles.

Conclusion

Fun! Sometimes all that you want from an anime series is fun! Sengoku Basara has it in spades. All you have to do to partake is to leave your brain at the door, plaster a s***-eating grin across your face, and devour thirteen episodes of explosive violent silliness. Some stories push boundaries, skirt the limits of what is plausible, toy with the edge of the ludicrous, delivering a sly wink to the audience before reining it back in and getting serious once more. Sengoku Basara breaks through that boundary, and just keeps on barrelling through, just getting dafter and dafter with each new plot development, simply battering the viewer down into insensibility until you have no choice but to go with the flow. This is a show where when one of the hero characters faces an army of enemies, a simple swing of his weapon will unleash such furious chi that hundreds of matchstick figures will be sent flying into the air. That is Sengoku Basara's ground state. When Date and Yukimura first face each other, the collision of personalities really is nuclear. My intellect may not have been challenged by it, the story certainly isn't any deeper than it has to be, but Sengoku Basara is pure entertainment, and I didn't begrudge a single minute spent in its company.


It really shouldn't have worked either. On the face of it, Sengoku Basara is a thin premise to sell a story on, despite its historical leanings. Based on a beat-em-up console game, you might have expected it to wind up like Streetfighter or Mortal Kombat, a tournament fighting anime with characters taking turns to beat on each other. There are plenty of shonen shows not even based on console games, like Bleach and Naruto that begin to drag when it comes to the combat. And I could very well have seen Sengoku Basara slip into the worn-out trope of spouting the names of special moves at each other, before executing said moves (the only point where the animation budget is spent), and then standing around talking about it for the rest of the episode.


Sengoku Basara isn't like that. It works its magic for two reasons. One is that the animation from Production I.G. is theatrical quality throughout. The action sequences are justifiably stunning, but the rest of the anime has the same quality and budget applied regardless. The character designs are truly memorable; while the little details haven't been scrimped upon in making the bigger scenes zing. But the second, and main reason why Sengoku Basara works is that the characterisations, and what thin story it does have, are given the full on, pantomime treatment. This is a show where realism, where pulling back and toning things down would be fatal. So the characters are so much larger than life that they are practically archetypes. Scoundrels are utter rogues; anti-heroes are mega dark and mega stylish, the villains twirl their metaphorical moustaches to such a degree that they strain their lips, and the innocent victims are so innocent and pure that it makes your heart ache. This is a show full of grand pronouncements and weighted meanings, it's a story where a mentor will beat his teachings into his student, it's a show where a female ninja orgasms every time that her lord shows her favour, it's a show where for a villain, being burnt to death is the ultimate pleasure. It is so daft, so over the top, that you can't help yourself going along for the ride, just to see what nuttiness will be unveiled next.


Every anime collection needs its guilty pleasures, and Sengoku Basara fits the bill perfectly. You may have your anime classics like Ghost in the Shell, cult favourites like Haruhi, artistic visions from the dark side of the soul like Texhnolyze, and mass market favourites like Spirited Away, but I'll bet it will be shows like Sengoku Basara that get the most play.