Basilisk: Series Review

Romeo & Juliet and dueling ninja clans--that's the 5 second description of Basilisk, my most recent animated series conquest. It took me a little while to get convinced, but overall I enjoyed the series.

The basic plot of Basilisk is that there are 2 great ninja clans, Kouga and Iga. They hate each other and would kill each other but for this non-hostilities pact, which promptly gets dissolved at the beginning of the series when the shogun decides he will pit the clans against each other to determine who will become the next shogun. Ten warriors from each clan will fight to the death, and whichever side the surviving clan represents will claim the shogun-ship. Sound stupid? Yeah, to me too, which is why it took me so long to get into this show and made me reluctant to start in the first place.

But once you get into it, the show is actually quite interesting, partly for the spectacularly fantastical and bloody fight scenes, but also for the character development and intrigue. What is this ninja's secret power? What is his/her back story? What motivates this ninja? Who is going to kill this ninja? How is he going to die?

And die he/she shall, because with 10 ninjas from each clan dueling it to the death, the body count is deliciously high. Some characters die off quicker than the rest, and with less development, but some characters get a lot of development, and it's great. I enjoyed that sometimes the show would go back and develop characters that had already been killed via flashbacks, etc. Very well done.

Strengths: I would say the show's greatest strengths were its storytelling and attempts at character work. The series kept you wanting to know more about these ninja, their abilities, histories, and their eventual demise. The character designs were great and, I thought, very creative. Each character had a unique personality, skill, etc. The animation and fight scenes were pretty good, but I did not find those to be the main draw of this anime. For fluid animation and fight scenes, I would go to Sword of the Stranger (though that's a movie) or Samurai Champloo.

Weaknesses: Weak female characters. This annoys me about anime generally, but ... the female characters in this series were really disappointing. In a flick about awesome kick-ass ninjas slaughtering each other, could you really not have more compelling female characters than these?

On the Kouga side, we had Kagouro, whose special power was related to her sexuality. Plus she was stupidly in love with Gennosuke. We also had Okoi, whose character design was very tomboy-ish, and yet HER special power was ALSO related to her sexuality.

On the Iga side, we had Grandma Ogen, who I suppose was a pretty good character. And Hotoburi or whatever her name was -- the girl with the snake and butterflies. She was pretty cool, except that she was a simpering lovergirl too. Then we had Akeginu, who was not bad, I suppose. But she was ALSO a lovergirl--just unrequited. And then we had the enormously annoying Oboro.

If the women on this show weren't showing their breasts, getting raped, or crying, it was a relief. Sure, they had scenes where the girls kicked some ass and killed people, whether using their special powers or just using their knife skills, etc. But while the girls are off whimpering about how they love so-and-so or whatever, the men are using their eyes to make people kill themselves, or shape-shifting, or just being all-around more awesome. Oboro's "superpower" was to neutralize other ninja special powers, for example. All right, I understood the narrative significance of that, but couldn't any of the women have a superpower that was OFFENSIVE and AWESOME and that didn't require men to fall for her sexuality? Geez.

So I did have beef with the depiction of women in this series, but that is by no means unique to this series. Japanese anime in general tends to have really annoying, simpering women. Weak, annoying female characters that have giant eyes, pretty hair, and high-pitched, soft voices. Ick. This is one of the reasons I love Avatar: The Last Airbender so much.

Anyway, I digress. Overall, the story was a strong one, if not all together very exciting. Again, I kept watching because I wanted to find out what everybody's powers were and how they would be killed (and by whom). Ultimately, the show satisfied on that front, so I enjoyed it. Definitely not the best or the worst series I've seen. Fairly short time commitment, so ... pretty worth the entertainment value.