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Sengoku Basara – Samurai Kings

Sengoku Basara – Samurai Kings

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It doesn’t have girls with super magical powers! It doesn’t have a thought provoking or bone chilling plot! Samurai Kings just fell into our lap and with a look of utter puzzlement we stuck it into the DVD player not exactly overly enthused that we had to watch something that doesn’t even have a spark of our usual favourites!

Writers: Yasuyuki Muto 
Director: Itsuro Kawasaki
Starring: Vic Mignogna, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Johnny Yong Bosch
Channel: FUNimation
Episodes: 2nd Season – 16 episodes in total 
Original air date: 1st April 2009

Samurai Kings is an anime adaptation of a video game series brought to us by legendary beat ‘em up creators Capcom. First released in 2005, the games proved to be a bit of disappointment to Western gamers after the game was exported for PS2 however the game was well received at home in Japan, so much so that two direct sequels have followed it in 2007 and again in 2010. In between a PSP exclusive title was released in 2009 and another game made by the creators of the Guilty Series was launched the year previous in 2008 for arcade machines but eventually made its way to the PS2.

The premise of the game is like that of any other beat-em up so we hope you weren’t expecting some sort of mind bending game that somehow managed to slip under your radar!
Characters in the series are somewhat loosely based on actual heroes and events from the Segoku era in feudal Japan.
Now for those of you who didn’t pay attention in Feudal Japanese History, the Sengoku Period is also known as the Warring States period, various lords led uprisings in an effort to claim sole power over the country, and this whole thing lasted nearly two hundred years.

(We are aware that this is a review of a cartoon and not a history lesson so let’s get back on track!)

Just like the game, the anime series is based around this time period and we follow two protagonists, Sanada Yukimura who fights for his Lord Takeda Shingen and Date Masamune, the leader of his own clan. When Yukimura and Masamune first meet they engage in a battle of sheer power, pushing each other to reach new levels of skill and strength, Yukimura wields twin spears and the element of fire while his counterpart Masamune utilises six samurai swords and is powered with lightning, their bitter rivalry begins. 

With the country in upheaval each of these warriors is fighting to prove their worth and help take control but when a diabolical force rises up, it is up to these two to put their differences aside, unite the other Lords and defeat Oda Nobunaga, the Devil King.

Right, our first impressions of Samurai Kings was that the whole thing was way too jumbled and chaotic – you are thrown head first into the show with no background information on any of the characters and only a tiny 15 second precursor explaining the wars that have broken out. (This of course could have been rectified had we played the games) So after a dreadful first episode we felt that the show was something that would be boxed up and put away on our shelf to enlarge our collection and prop up our favourite shows!

However never one to judge too quickly we decided to give it another shot and holy crap… this is bloody amazing!

It is over the top, chaotic, dramatic and insanely written but that’s what we’ve come to like about the whole show. After the first episode we are given a better look at the series characters and we were thankfully able to piece together the general plot and despite having a hundred names thrown at us in the first episode we were quickly able to start distinguishing between them by episode two.

One thing about the show that we did like straight off the bat was the animation, it is clean, crisp and vibrant and the fight scenes are executed perfectly, in particular the change of styles when Yukimura and Masamune engage each other in combat only intensifies the dramatic scenes.

The show is by far from perfect, we were a little taken aback by the giant Mech that is summoned during the war…feudal Japan sure was technically advanced! Some characters managed to wind us up the wrong way and in particular Lord Kenshin (who we still maintain is a lady) confuses the living daylights out of us. However characters like that are quickly forgotten about when you meet with Sarutobi Sasuke, lead ninja for Lord Takeda – his direct no nonsense approach to his duties are contrasted with his odd sense of humour and his obsession with a rival ninja, Kasuga who is working for Lord Kenshin.

Look, if you’re a little fed up with all the usual Anime stuff then check out Samurai Kings. Yeah there is the usual comradery metaphors, twisted love stories and quest to defeat evil but we honestly found the show to be a breath of fresh air in our stagnate collection. It’s by far the greatest story ever told, hell we’re still not sure how the story is working out but we are enjoying it all!  

Good Points

Fantastic Animation
Sarutobi Sasuke

Bad Points

The story is all over the place
The whole plot/characters is just thrown at you in the first episode

Interesting Fact: The show has been adapted for a movie with the trailer released this summer

Rating: 74/100

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