"...Has there ever been a Dynasty Warriors anime? That seems like something Koei Tecmo would do."

After briefly searching, it turns out there has in fact been an anime based off of a Koei Tecmo game series, but it's Samurai Warriors rather than Dynasty Warriors.

"...Okay, fine. Samurai Warriors is okay, I guess. It really seems odd that they didn't have a Dynasty Warriors one made since that's their flagship series that's been going on for twenty one years. But I guess I'll watch this."

Five or so hours later.

"Well, that was a horrible disappointment. There has to be something out there to scratch the itch I'm looking for. Oh... there's this, I guess? Souten Kouro? An adaptation of some random manga, but it looks to actually be about Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the very least..."

"...Why does Lu Bu have dreadlocks? And why is he yodeli--okay, he just crushed somebody's head with one hand. OKAY. FULL SCHLOCK MODE ENGAGED."

#Introduction

A little background information, first. I've been playing these Koei games since I've been a kid. In recent years, Koei's been expanding as much as they possibly can. Let's make Gundam Warriors, let's make One Piece Warriors, let's make Arslan Warriors, let's make Attack on Titan Warriors, Hyrule Warriors, Fire Emblem Warriors, Dragon Quest Warriors... perhaps maybe most notably, let's use that shitty new Berserk anime as an excuse to fucking make Berserk Warriors which will probably forever remain as one of the best Berserk adaptations because Koei Tecmo are apparently actual Berserk fans.

But their bread and butter, their flagship series, what preceded it all, is of course Dynasty Warriors. And as the years have gone on, they've been getting bigger and more over the top in almost every way.

Here are the openings of two different entries in the Dynasty Warriors series.

youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J95v1ilt24M)
youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WmKs4wlgnA)

You know, I don't recall at any point in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms either Lu Bu turning the Battle of Xia Pi around by turning the flood used against him into a towering tidal wave, or Zhao Yun dropkicking a horse in the face while carrying Liu Bei's infant son through the battle of Chang Ban.

There is a point in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms where a peasant does brutally murder his wife so he can make a meal from his dead wife for Liu Bei because he doesn't have any food and then that peasant is then rewarded for his staggering loyalty, but that is completely different.

So, okay. How about... an anime equivalent of those openings, but actually with blood?

Souten Kouro or Beyond the Heavens is a 2009 adaptation by Madhouse of the manga of the same name by Yi Hagin and Gonta King (Gonta King eventually took over doing the story as well as the art following Yi Hagin's death). The manga actually won the Kodansha Manga Award in 1998 for the general category.

Let's not breeze past this though. This straight up is just an alternate version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but done completely and utterly over the top. It goes so far over the top, that I honestly believe it works.

I give a lot of things flak for going fully against the source material, but that's usually if it's supposed to be a serious or true adaptation of a thing. But, if you want to take the source material and put a different spin on it, with that being the main point/purpose of the adaptation itself, that's a bit different.

Because you know, nine games in, I have the story and the events of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms burned into the back of my skull (plus I actually read the actual full thing a couple of years ago). However, I've never seen Lu Bu decapitate the Red Hare while in mid-air and then the decapitated but still living head of the Red Hare then proceed to brutally kill someone by biting his head.

#Cao Cao#

In the actual Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the character/historical figure that comes closest to being the protagonist/main focus, is Liu Bei, who eventually goes on to form the Shu Kingdom. But Souten Koro goes in a purposely different direction, and focuses instead on Cao Cao of the Wei Kingdom. Liu Bei is actually shown to be a bit more of... well, all of them were probably actually worse in reality, but Liu Bei especially. He's especially shown to be a scumbag in this version.

We get to basically see a hypercharged version of Cao Cao's life with some probably fictitious elements thrown in from a kid to his days as a Wei general. In the very first episode, some peasant thief starts savagely beating him after stealing from him. He beats him so badly that everybody who was witnessing it basically just assumes he died from the beating.

But then of course he gets up again, grabs the guy's sword which he broke, and then brutally and savagely kills the man that had assaulted him. Like he embeds the sword into the guy's neck, leaps up, and then lands on the sword, decapitating the man.

Like damn. That's the first thing we get in this show. I don't even remember half of the things that happen in Samurai Warriors. Though, while like most adaptations of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms we do get to see the other important figures of the time, the show remains relatively centered around the progress of Cao Cao...

Admittedly, Cao Cao actually kind of works as a protagonist. It was entertaining to see him come all the way from such a lowly place in the world, to actively talking shit to an enraged Lu Bu across a battlefield. Like Lu Bu is just fucking screaming, and the show is showing a CG dragon rising from his body as he asks the entire battlefield where's Cao Cao, and then Cao Cao just straight up yells back at him.

"I'm right here!"

If anything, he's amused by the situation. Then Lu Bu just descends and slaughters an entire section of his army by himself like in an actual Dynasty Warriors game.

#Lu Bu#

As much as I low key kind of actually love this series, there's no getting around the elephant in this room. I'd say even for non Dynasty Warriors/RotK fans, Lu Bu is at least 60% of the reason why to ever watch this show. Rikiya Koyama is in fact on my favorites list originally because of his Lu Bu voice. I later learned he's voiced a billion characters (as far as I'm concerned, most notably, Nobunaga in Hyouge Mono), but I don't think I'd love Lu Bu as much as I do in this series if it was somebody else.

In most other adaptations of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and especially Dynasty Warriors, Lu Bu is already fairly over the top. So in this which is usually called the "Neo Romance of the Three Kingdoms", how exactly can you increase Lu Bu's over the topness? Just have basically anybody he touches essentially explode into an explosion of blood, and basically all of his dialogue be opera singingesque screaming.

I don't usually include videos of actual full scenes of a show in these reviews, but I feel it's somewhat necessary in this case. If you've ever happened to come across anything from this show, it's probably this scene. Additionally, I'll state that if you have no intention of ever actually watching the full show, this is without a doubt the best scene of all 26 episodes.

youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBBVPSsFCUc)

#Conclusion#
~~"You wanted to make this review solely because of that scene, didn't you?"~~

I hate to say it, but there's not a lot more for me to say about this series. While I only really discussed Lu Bu and Cao Cao, there IS a lot more over the stop stuff sprinkled throughout the rest of the show. Generally, I remember overall really enjoying this show... like to an extent, it's certainly a bit crummy/cheap... but it's hard to go...

"Well, those shots of soldiers in CG form kind of feel out of place."

...right after Lu Bu fucking decapitates the Red Hare. I fully admit, if you're not in the mood to watch action schlock, you're probably not gonna like this show. Because while it's not a butchering of the original story/events of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, obviously... this probably shouldn't be your first choice if you're actually looking for a faithful adaptation. Additionally, it also has that problem most adaptations of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have, aka... twenty six episodes just isn't enough to actually get to the "Three Kingdoms."

"Ah shit, we're at the 26th episode and we're not even at the Three Kingdoms yet. Quick, we have to end with at least a brief summary of what happens next!"

For the record, the full original manga is 409 chapters long.

It mostly just covers Cao Cao, the Yellow Turbans incident, and of course the rise and fall of Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu. It's an enjoyable enough ride, and it's probably the closest equivalent we have to "Dynasty Warriors" the anime. A 7.5 out of 10 or 75 out of 100 from me.

Though, if you actually are looking for a serious and significantly more grounded adaptation of the actual Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel...