Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

World of the warlords.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 28, 2012

There are those who insist that videogames based on movies are usually horrible. But is the reverse true as well? More and more we’ve seen these cross-platform multimedia releases that may start as a videogame but then branch out into any number of different media, including (but often not limited to) film or television. Anime hasn’t had a ton of this type of situation, with source material, if there is any, quite often coming from the world of manga. But Sengoku Basara is a notable exception, having begun life as a popular videogame back in the Dark Ages of the Playstation 2. The anime series takes the basic storyline of the videogame and expands it quite well, wisely staying away from a sort of “level up” ambience and instead focusing on a glut of interesting characters battling each other in feudal Japan. There are probably no more two disparate eras than ancient Japan and America’s Wild West, but Sengoku Basara has a certain western feel to it, with the Samurai class replacing the cowboys, but with both being tied together by a certain intrinsic heroic creed if also a certain ruthless vigilante ethic. Just like many Westerns set up struggles to define, manage and indeed take over territories, Sengoku Basara is similarly concerned with a fractured period in Japan’s history (fictionalized though it may be), where contentious warlords battled each other in an attempt to secure their own little corner of their island nation. Following the dictum that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” two warriors from competing clans find themselves unlikely allies when they both must fight a common nemesis. From this unlikely, and frankly fairly trite, set up Sengoku Basara is certainly better than it has any right to be, especially given its videogame roots.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings doesn’t really make any bones about existing mostly for its action, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some distinctive characters as well. This first season of the series tends to concentrate mostly on the two unlikely allies, Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura, and their attempts to come to grips with a major new threat to Japan, the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven, Oda Nobunaga, who doesn’t want just a fief or two but instead aims to wipe out all potential pretenders to any throne in order to take over the whole works. (A third ally, Uesugi Kenshin, also features prominently in several episodes.) As is often the case throughout the opening episodes of Sengoku Basara, before that main conflict moves front and center, we get individual introductions of both Date Masamune and Samada Yukimura, as well as various other warlords with whom these two are (initially at least) engaging in battle.

In fact the first several episodes of Sengoku Basara tend to introduce a new character, and that may initially be off putting to some viewers, as the main storyline doesn’t really kick into gear until several of these various warlords have had their day in the episodic sun. The first several episodes also seem somewhat disjointed as a result of this gambit, as there’s little real through line here and instead we have to meet various people without realizing, at first anyway, exactly how they’re eventually going to end up interacting with each other. Once the series gets around to about its fifth episode, though, things finally fall (mostly) into place and Sengoku Basara becomes much easier to understand.

Often these “battle of the week” anime outings aren’t especially entertaining, at least after the set up has been completed and the series tends to fall into a rut. Against perhaps considerable odds, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings actually succeeds, at least more than it really has the right to. The series is aided by some really beautiful animation, and there’s a kind of quasi-supernatural aspect that also plays quite well into the proceedings. Yes, the series is typically hyperbolic (a lot of battles simply devolve into characters literally screaming each others’ name at the other one), and is downright silly quite a bit of the time, but the historical setting and the overall scope of the series helps it to overcome some of the flaws which tend to be part of this subgenre.

This first season is actually one of the rarer animes that actually benefits from a repeat viewing. There are so many characters and seemingly minor plot points introduced in the first quartet or so of episodes that it really can be difficult keeping everything straight. While things settle down, at least somewhat, after that, going back allows the viewer to discover how artfully a couple of seeds are sown in the opening few episodes which blossom later, especially with regard to the slowly developing forced friendship between Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura. Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings may in fact not be the greatest anime of recent years, but considering the less than stellar track record of a lot of these cross-platform attempts, the results may pleasantly surprise a lot of people who might be predisposed to not even considering watching something that’s been based on a videogame.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is one of the most sumptuously beautiful high definition presentations in recent anime memory and is certianly one of the strongest looking releases from FUNimation. Colors are incredibly vivid and well saturated, with incredibly vibrant reds, purples and greens and some actually stunning gradations of light scale. Fine detail is really quite remarkable for an animated outing, and the Japanese ethos of this piece is really extremely evident in some of the gorgeously rendered backgrounds. As is fairly typical of these releases, sometimes the backgrounds are presented in an impressionistic manner, and occasionally there are also "establishing shots" (for want of a better term) that have a certain slapdash quality. But line detail and overall design aesthetic here are extremely sharp and well defined. While Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings may be a little confusing to watch now and again, there's always something beautiful to see.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings' soundtrack (and particularly its English dub) could hardly be accused of being nuanced, both lossless tracks on this Blu-ray offer an abundance of pleasures. The original Japanese language track is provided via a lossless Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mix, and it also presents a perhaps slightly more taciturn, reserved take on the characters than the more boisterous English dub. The English track, delivered via a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, is fun, at least if you're in the right mood. There are numerous interchanges where characters just scream at each other, which is probably not supposed to be funny, but is highly enjoyable nonetheless. This FUNimation dub also features some voices not from the usual stable, and that in and of itself gives the English track more of a distinctive feel than a lot of FUNimation outings. All of this said, it can't be denied that the Japanese language track, despite being obviously narrower, is somehow more viscerally "authentic". Fidelity on both of these tracks in exceptional, and the 5.1 track offers some great surround activity in the over the top battle sequences. There's also some evocative underscore that helps sets the tone for the series, which sounds great in the 5.1 mix. Don't count on huge dynamic range here, as this is a pretty nonstop aural assault, for better or worse.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• New Anime "Sengoku Basara Chosokabe Motochika-Kun and Mori-Kun (SD; 43:02) features seven episodes of what is subtitled "Mini-Sengoku Basara," featuring chibi-esque sprite versions of Motochika and Mori as the main characters. These offer pretty entry level animation, actually more like still frames a lot of the time, and are played mostly for laughs. It should be noted that the fourth through seventh episodes are exclusive to the Blu-ray release and are not included on the DVD version of the title.
• Textless Opening Song (HD; 1:32)
• Textless Closing Song (HD; 1:32)
• Trailers for other FUNimation Releases

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Make no mistake about it, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings isn't especially innovative, and in fact it's downright predictable at least some of the time. But due to a number of elements, including some beautiful animation and nonstop action elements, the show actually manages to deliver a fair degree of excitement with surprising regularity. The slowly developing interplay between Date and Sanada also adds at least a bit of a personal touch in what is really a fairly surface only outing. The show is always great to look at it, even if it's sometimes a little confusing to actually watch, and even those who normally shy away from these videogame crossovers may want to give Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings a chance. Recommended.