Ani-Mania: ‘Basilisk’ Review

“To my beloved: please die” (but read this review first)

I stumbled onto Basilisk through our local anime club. It was a little slow for me at first, and hard to follow – the club room is noisy, and this is one show where you definitely need to pay close attention to see all the nuances of what is going on – but after a few episodes, I was hooked. So hooked, that I started searching the web for all the nifty Basilisk fan stuff I could find (there wasn’t much, although Funimation’s site for the show is quite cool, especially the little “Watch Them Die” section). After that, I went on to the manga. I bought volume 1, and tore through it, reading in every spare moment I could get.

This is a really great series. Seasoned ninja fans won’t find much that is genuinely new – the show is an adaptation of Futaro Yamada’s novel “The Kouga Ninja Scrolls”, which also inspired the classic live action “Shinobi”. But hey, Shakespeare didn’t exactly invent most of his stories, either. There’s always room for another retelling of a really classic story, provided it’s done really well, and Basilisk is done REALLY well. Ninja stories often suffer a campy treatment (think masked guys running around in black pajamas sporting headbands that read “NINJA” in English – just in case we had any doubt) but Masaki Segawa’s adaptation elevates the genre to the same level as the high samurai dramas that get so much attention. If Kurosawa had done a story about ninjas, this is probably what it would have looked like.

If you’re familiar with Shinobi, or some of the other works inspired by Yamada’s novel, you’ll already know the plot. If you don’t, that’s okay too. This is a great place to start. The main story revolves around two feuding ninja clans, one from the province of Iga, the other from the province of Kouga. The two clans have hated each other for 400 years, but are forbidden to fight by an ancient treaty. The opening of the story has Tokugawa Ieyasu witnessing a demonstration by two members of the rival clans of their ninja skills. Historical figures and references abound in the story. Like Ieyasu, Hattori Hanzo and Yagyu Munenori, who also witness the fight, were both real people, and the provinces of Iga and Kouga are real places. While not entirely historically accurate, there are enough references to make a student of Japanese history smile and nod knowingly.

After witnessing the contest, the Shogun Ieyasu announces he will use a competition between the two clans to decide who will be the next leader of the Tokugawa clan. Each side will use their ten best warriors. Iga will represent one of his sons, and Kouga the other. Whomever’s side wins will become the next shogun, and the victorious clan will be established for 1000 years. The treaty forbidding the two clans to fight is repealed, and a messenger is dispatched to each ninja village bearing a scroll that lists the names of the chosen fighters.

If you’re thinking now all we need is a pair of star crossed lovers, and we’ll really have a story going here, you won’t be disappointed. Enter Kouga Gennosuke and Iga Oboro. Note the two different surnames. Note the fact that they are engaged to be married. This is going to get messy. And it does. But it would be a mistake to write Basilisk off as Romeo and Juliet with ninjas in feudal Japan. That description is accurate, as far as it goes, but there’s a lot more going on here.

The characters, even the minor ones, which don’t stay in the story for very long, are all interesting in their own way, and while we don’t always get a full background story for each of them, one gets the impression that they do HAVE a story of their own. Many details are hinted at or else left for viewers to infer. It’s a storytelling technique well suited to conveying a sense of the shadowy world of shinobi.

The voices are well cast, with Laura Bailey (Fruits Basket, Full Metal Alchemist) playing the part of Oboro of the Iga clan. Other notables include Monica Rial (Negima) as the curvaceous Okoi, and Colleen Clinkenbeard as Hotarubi, who incidentally, fights with hallucinogenic butterflies, which in light of her recent role as Yuko Ichihara in XXXHolic, is equal parts cool, creepy, and downright hilarious. Overall, the entire cast is solid. Not a single voice seems out of place. The artwork is beautiful. The characters themselves are exquisitely drawn – even the grotesque ones are gorgeous in the level of detail used to depict their freakishness.

One thing that bears mentioning, especially for anyone unfamiliar with the ninja myth, is that in Japanese folklore, ninjas often function like superheroes, and reside squarely in the realm of fantasy. They have special powers, and while some of them are quite normal looking, others are very grotesque. For example, in the initial fight, the one which Tokugawa is watching, Yashamaru looks human, but has an almost magical ability to control strands of rope he keeps braided around his arms and legs. His opponent, Shougen, is barely human at all, looking more like a giant spider, and with spider-like abilities to match.

It comes across something like X-Men set in feudal Japan, which threw me off at first. But while the appearances and powers of some of the characters are fantastical, their thoughts, motives, and actions are very believable. And the plot is exceptional. As we watch Gennosuke and Oboro’s love struggle to stay alive against the backdrop of generations of hatred between their rival clans, a feeling of doom and inevitability pervades the story. Even with the feud providing a context, and the outside forces of the Shogun and his advisors egging things on, the real conflict stems from the characters themselves and their own decisions to indulge their clans’ centuries old hatred. And that elevates Basilisk from simple melodrama to the more respectable level of genuine tragedy. Even with so many factors against them, the two clans could stop fighting. The problem is they don’t WANT to. And so the body count grows.

By the end of the first disc, the war is well under way, and there’s nothing but carnage for the foreseeable future. Will Gennosuke and Oboro be able to keep their warring clans from destroying each other? Or will their love be the next casualty? We’ll have to keep watching to find out.