"If you destroy everything, there'll be nothing left."

Didn't know how else to start this. This is my first review, pls go easy on me.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings, otherwise known as just "Sengoku Basara" is an anime based off of the videogame series by the same name. It has its own canon, so there's no need to have prior knowledge of the games. The anime expects you to have atleast a baseline knowledge, though. Even as a fan I can see that the start is a bit rushed.

Anyway, gonna get into some criteria's

Visuals: 8/10

Sengoku Basara was animated by Production I.G in 2009. Being a game adaptation, I went into it with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised by just how good it looks. Seriously, this anime holds up and even blows some other animes out of the water for the year it came out in. It's a very fluid show, and the fight scenes especially which are admittedly short, are animated amazingly. The only nitpick I had was choreography, but I don't find that a fault of the animation itself. Bare in mind, this anime is an adaptation of a "Musou" video-game. Musou's for those not in the know are hack-and-slash games where you go around defeating waves upon waves of enemies with flashy combat. They're also known more broadly as "Warriors" games, thanks to the popularity of Koei-Tecmo produced games.

That being said, the combat scenes in particular felt like too little at times. Fights that would be hyped up would go for only a couple minutes before a super attack was unleashed. However, the animation on those super attacks are beautiful.

Story: 5/10

Although it's a personal favorite series of mine, I am not going to blindly act like Sengoku Basara has a perfect story. It loosely follows events of the Sengoku period of Japan, albeit heavily abridged & altered to fit their narratives. This is an anime after-all, one where Samurai are superhuman and can produce elements like fire & lightning, I assume we aren't here for realism. The plot spans over three seasons, but treating Samurai Kings in isolation, it is lacking a bit.

The story revolves around Japan in the period where the Oda clan & Oda Nobunaga specifically was trying to unite the nation. Oda Nobunaga is our main antagonist of the series, though there are minor antagonists sprinkled throughout. Sanada Yukimura is the main protagonist, but he is a very generic character. I personally love him, but you could get the same person out of any shonen anime. Sanada Yukimura isn't very unique. The anime follows Sanada Yukimura & his exploits primarily. Date Masamune is a supporting protagonist, who I found more compelling.

The way in which they painted Oda Nobunaga truly made him stand out from other adaptations for me. They really leaned into his status as Demon King of The Sixth Heaven. He was merciless, and I believed him an absolute highlight of the anime.

Overall, I say story-wise this is one you should head into with lower expectations. It's great fun regardless though.

Music: 8/10

The music is done by Hiroyuki Sawano, who most should know from his work on Attack on Titan. From a skim of the wikipedia, Sengoku Basara is the first anime series he worked on. However, don't let that take away at all. The soundtrack he provided is an absolute banger, and keeps you well immersed in the world. Sengoku Basara as a gae series already had some banging soundtracks, so it's only fitting that its anime adaptations get the same respect.

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The opening theme slaps too. I never skipped it, though that is of course subjective. ▶

Characters: 9/10

I'll be honest. What really kept me hooked onto the Sengoku Basara franchise itself were the characters. In a similar manner to Fate, or Record of Ragnarok, these are real-life legends that the series adapts. Characters like Oda Nobunaga, Yukimura Sanada, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, Date Masamune, Sasuke Sarutobi and more, I could prattle on for hours on why I like them so much. I watched the series in Japanese, I'm not sure of the quality of the dub, but let me tell you that they went all out on the Seiyuu line-up here. (Hope I used that word right...)

Yukimura Sanada - Sōichirō Hoshi
Takeda Shingen - Tesshō Genda
Date Masamune - Kazuya Nakai
Uesugi Kenshin - Romi Park
Sasuke Sarutobi - Takehito Koyasu
Oda Nobunaga - Norio Wakamoto

Now to me, voices mean a lot. After-all, that's 90% of what you're going to be hearing throughout a production, and for an anime to have such a stacked lineup really does speak volumes.

Character writing itself, I say across the board every major character is an enjoyable one. My personal favorites were Oda Nobunaga, Sasuke Sarutobi, and Date Masamune. Sanada Yukimura is a good enough shonen mc, but he doesn't particularly excel at anything. I'd say he's like a hybrid of Tanjiro Kamado and Natsu Dragneel.

Overall, Sengoku Basara is a solid production. I can't speak to the quality of season 2, or season 3, but season 1 wraps everything up pretty nicely if you wanted to just call it quits there. The series is quality enough that I'd recommend it to anybody who's been in the anime sphere for a bit. Not something that I'd like, recommend if I were trying to get somebody into anime or anything.

Final Rating: 7/10

Final notes -

Hi. I'm Soryn. I've never written a review before, but my friend told me it'd be a good way to try to branch out in this community, so I wanted to give it a try.

Sengoku Basara is a series I'm very passionate about. If this review gave you reason to watch it, that'd make my day. It's a under-appreciated game series made by capcom, and has laid dormant for the last couple years as of the time of me writing this (9/10/24, 4:27 AM CST)

If my review was good enough, or eye-opening enough to drag potential new fans into the franchise, I hope you all enjoy your stint with the series. ^^ <3

Gonna go now, it's late. Thank you for reading.