Logo handmade by Bannister
Column by Scott Green
Anime Spotlight: Sengoku Basara II
Released by FUNimation
Maybe complicated by the fact that there are decent anime based on visual novels (interactive digital stories), anime's track record for "based on a video game" is generally as dicey as film's.
The Sengoku Basara anime certainly reflects game mechanics and features dog whistles to players, but its appeal goes well beyond gamer fan service. It doesn't hurt that the adaptation comes from Production I.G, the studio behind all of the Ghost in the Shell anime, Eden of the East and Patlabor, who at least always seem, to try to put together a strong effort. Beyond that, what really benefits Sengoku Basara is that it is a game with identity, complemented by a rich historical context. The Capcom games are crowd-fighters in which warlords literally destroy enemy armies single-handedly, and the anime embraces that vision with berserkly manly heroes, decked out in vivid colors thundering into history. You don't have to be a student of Japanese history to be familiar with the pop culture echoes of the figures that it is working with. This super-heroic take on the period luminaries features the visual basis for Darth Vader, a key inspiration for Ruruoni Kenshin's title character, a younger version of the Lear figure in Kurosawa's Ran, and the historical master of fiction's key ninja. It doesn't warrant much seriousness, and the anime generally plays it to the right level of exaggeration, resulting in a frequently grandly fun endeavor.
If you've been educated in Japanese history through pop culture, there a are handful of eras with which you're are, or should be, familiar.
The bulk of the samurai material that you've seen are set in the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Consolidated shogun rule instituted policies set to pacify the unified country, which in turn set the stage for stories of wandering swordsmen who'd likely have been attached to armies in an earlier era. Lone Wolf and Cub, Blade of the Immortal, and Yojimbo are among the many period pieces set during the shogunate.
The Sengoku or Warring States period (1467–1573) began with weak emperors, disease and natural disaster setting the stage for local lords contesting control. It's the point at which samurai really were a warrior class. Film, manga and anime with bandits, chaos and armies of samurai (Seven Samurai, Ran, Dororo, Inu Yasha) are generally set during the Sengoku.
In term of American historical/mythology, the Sengoku is the Civil War to the Tokugawa's Wild West. While the latter was the one with the centralized control, especially in what filters to the west, the Tokugawa era gets the wandering warrior while the Sengoku gets the stories of generals and battles.
Relevant to this anime, the Sengoku era came to a close when the major daimyo Oda Nobunaga nearly succeeded in unifying Japan thanks in part to a cocktail of military tactics that included use of firearms, castle fortifications and merit based military specialization. After being betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide, the work of consolidating power fell to his general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Toyotomi died without an adult heir, so leadership fell to a council of regents: Tokugawa, Maeda, Ukita, Uesugi (adopted son of the warrior who gave his name and style to Kenshin), Mori (heir of the inspiration for the subject of Ran), until his infant son could come of age. After prominent warrior Maeda Toshiie's death, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's chief bureaucrat, Ishida Mitsunari accused Tokugawa Ieyasu of trying to disinherit Hideyoshi's son. Ishida and Tokugawa went to war, leading to the Battle of Sekigahara, the results of which saw Japanese rule consolidated under the Tokugawa shogunate.
Toyotomi is the bridge between the other two great unifiers, and less prominent in fiction, but essential to Sengoku Basara. It terms of where you may have heard of him, if you paid close attention in Ninja Scroll, you may remember that the guys who the Eight Devils of Kimon were supposedly working were Toyotomi retainers, on the outs under Tokugawa rule. In terms of historical importance, the thumbnail essentials are that he was responsible for solidifying class structure, with firm roles for peasant workers and samurai, and, he oversaw two invasions of Korea.
The Sengoku period lends itself to stories of political intrigue, martial epics and tragedies in which man and nature conspiracy heap cruelties on the era's unfortunates.
Pop media like anime, manga and games certainly have looked at the darker aspects. Osamu Tezuka's Dororo for example paints a world in which supernatural beings parasitically feed on the man-caused misery, such as its hero, whose limbs and organs were sacrificed to demons by his warlord father in return for power. However, Japanese media is also well stocked with colorful stories that look to the era for larger than life figures making history in a cut throat time. For example, Fist of the North Star artist Tetsuo Hara keeps on doing manga about Keiji Maeda, the adopted son of the prominent Maeda clan, legendary for taming untamable horses, fighting and pranking the greats of the era and being the consummate kabukimono deviant.
To say that it is open to interpretation and subject to trends is an understatement.
Given the prominence of moe in the sphere of anime/manga/games, one recent trend is to reimagine the era's warlords as cute girls. To name a few, there's 2011's Hyakka Ryoran: Samurai Girls, in which the warlords are the latest incarnation of the super powered girls who protected Japan from invasion throughout the centuries - the anime opens with them stopping World War II carpet bombings of the island. There's also 2011's Sengoku Otome: Momoiro Paradox, in which scatter brained modern school girl Yoshino "Hideyoshi" Hide is transported to a version of the era in which Nobunaga Oda is a woman with flame powers, looking for a mystical armor. The current season has Sengoku Collection, which inverts the typical time transportation paradigm, seeing a flamboyant redheaded girl Nobunaga along with folks like "Daughter of Peace" Ieyasu Tokugawa, "Gentleman Bashou Matsuo, "Pure Love Angel" Naoe Kanetsugu, "Holy Virgin" Kenshin Uesugi and "Beheading God" Bokuden Tsukahara sent into the streets of modern Tokyo. Then, during in this summer's slate of anime, we get Oda Nobuna no Yabo, in which a boy from modern Japan is transported to the Sengoku period and taken under the wing of a pretty young female version of Oda Nobunaga- it's become a bit infamous for a trailer showing plate armor with breast jiggling.
The flip side of how anime/manga/games have evolved to engage (pander) to audiences in a way that inverts conventional concepts of gendered interests is that while male fans have works about relationships and girls sitting around, talking, female audiences have gone to works about sports, mecha, and, yeah, samurai.
The Sengoku Basara anime focuses on two of the great warriors from the late Sengoku/early Tokugawa.
There's Yukimura Sanada: a minor warlord with an outsized legend for causing trouble for Japan's unifiers and would be unifiers, known for wily tactics such as fielding body doubles and using primitive chemical warfare. In fiction, he's also the master of the Brave 10, a sort of Justice League of Ninja. Here, he's a fiery youngster, whose enthusiasm for battle has flames ripping out of his twin spears.
His rival is the "One Eyed Dragon" Date Masamune... the guy whose armored is supposed to have inspired Darth Vader's. Date has a larger significance outside adventure stories, as a major player in the era's political struggles and the patron of Japan's first oceanic voyage around the world. The SB version of Masamune carries six katana in Wolverine like, has a horse outfitted with motorycle like handlebars, accompanied by an entourage of biker like samurai, and manically shouts English phrases ("He guys! Are you ready! Let's Party!).
These two typify a cast who are either loud, bellicose ultra-manly men or people who are distinguished by playing against that template (thinkers or schemers... people who are tricky, quiet or cruel rather than overt to the point of silliness). There is one female character in Sengoku Basara II (well two, they're a second serving as a call back to the Nobunaga conflict) and basically the fictional ninja is a running joke.... she orgasms whenever she's complemented by Kenshin Uesugi (voiced by Romi Park, the woman who voices Ed Elric).
Sengoku Basara knowingly turns the corner with the masculinity. Yes its characters fight. Yes , the action is flashy and earnestly exciting. And, the anime almost strains a muscle winking. As commentator Daryl Surat says, one of the most potent implicit promises in action anime today is "maybe they're gay." Sengoku Basara knows it has fujoshi (female geek fans of male homosexual romance) and reki-jo (history fangirls) look for it to acknowledge their interests and it's more than happy comply. As such comradery is often grandly showy in this anime. Though an asexual anime, it exists in a world of men living to fight, cry, and embrace each other. Funimation is hardly unaware of this, as seen in their even more explicit promotional videos ("One Eyed Dragon".... get it?!).
The second season of Sengoku Basara had a lot to live up to in matching up to a predecessor that was all about building up to taking down all time uncontainable personality Oda Nobunaga. Though sometimes gallant or admirably iconoclastic, pop culture often literally demonizes Nobunaga. When he's not simply burning out his opposition as the archetypical evil warlord, he's demonically aligned as in Yotoden: Wrath of the Ninja or even working with space aliens, as in Go Nagai's early Black Lion. He's the sort of arch figure that Sengoku Basara can relish. He's spectacular; transcending even the rest of the extravagantly characterized cast, framed by a red cape, clad in plate mail that protrudes out from the shoulders in blades, voiced by the fantastically recognizable Norio Wakamoto (Street Fighter's Bison, Dragon Ball's Cell, Code Geass' Emperor, Cowboy Bebop's Vicious, Gunbuster's Coach) at his most defiantly slurring. The character is often shown swilling sake from a human skill, and Wakamoto voices him as if he were drunk on evil.
His Legion of Doom of fellow antagonists were equally memorable - his lethal sniper/page Ranmaru, his nasty, gun toting wife Nohime, his pyschopath second Akechi Mitsuhide, and his haunted sister Oichi.
With Toyotomi, Sengoku Basara has a far less impressive legend to built on top of. The lore has it that Nobunaga nicknamed Toyotomi "Monkey," and media hasn't been too kind to the successor either. While the larger than life Nobunaga is either the great hero or the great villain, the brutish Toyotomi is often a half dangerous schemer - remembered for villainy such as boiling alive Japan's answer to Robin Hood, Ishikawa Goemon - though he was the protagonist of famous Miyamoto Musashi novelist Eiji Yoshikawa's Taiko ki.
Sengoku Basara takes Toyotomi's legacy, his social reforms and his military aggression, along with a tragic interpretations of his marriages to construct the story of a man who sacrificed love and compassion as weaknesses undermining his strength. Not seen in the first Sengoku Basara anime, he stomps onto the second a tower giant at the head of an enormous warrior, looming over the battlefield he invades in the anime's first episode, later, in the opening credits, symbolically seen scooping Japan out of the ocean in his palm.
Sengoku Basara (the games, as well as the anime) make Toyotomi a Despot King to Nobunaga's Demon King. In doing his, they borrow plenty from one of the ur-shonen villains. Taking control of a chaotic land with his personal might to make it a unified strong army, he's basically Fist of the North Star's King of Fists, Raoh.
All of the Sengoku Basara anime is written by Yasuyuki Muto (Afro Samurai: Resurrection, Basilisk), but the first season and second season/movie have different directors - Itsuro Kawasaki for the former and Kazuya Nomura on the later, both of whom are more animators/storyboard artists than directors of much of note.
The two series/directors structure different approaches around the very distinct villains. Season one was the Sengoku Basara version of plot driven - structured around the spectacle of everyone unifying for a counter-offensive against Oda Nobunaga.
Alternatively, the second season is the SB version of character driven.
Hideyoshi Toyotomi is a spectacular figure. At one point he marches into the sea to part it with his fists in order to strand an enemy armada and their floating fortress. Yet, while this is not a deep anime by any measure, his story is driven by the tragically brittle strength he erects by casting off love and compassion.
For Sengoku Basara II's heroes, the anime is about losing (both in battle and in direction) and finding themselves. Yumimura Sanada and Date Masamune both get knocked down a peg in martial confrontations early in the anime. Both are separated from their seconds (Yukimura's ur-fictional ninja agent Sarutobi Sasuka - who gave his name to multiple Naruto characters - including the dueteragonist, and Masamune's historical vassel in Sengoku Basara's strategist and mediating influence Kojuro Katakura). So, Yukimura spends the series traveling the country with a team of special forces samurai trying to figure out what he's fighting for, on his way to becoming the master insurgent that history remembers, while Date Masamune rides his band of zealous biker-samurai half-cocked and often frustrated, trying to avenge his loss against Toyotomi. Meanwhile, you get plenty to side stories and side tracks, such as Kenjii Maeda traveling with his adorable mini-monkey pet/confidant trying to stop his adopted family and his old friend Hideyoshi Toyotomi and pirate warlord (complete with talking parrot) Motochika Chosokabe traveling a parallel rout to Masamune's. It's only the cruel schemers (Mori Motonari and Hisahide Matsunaga) who aren't conflicted or haunted in this anime.
Sengoku Basaa can get away with half seriousness and diffuse, convoluted plot lines because the appeal of the anime is just watching its character act of their roles. They don't have to develop much (they don't) and it doesn't have to be too accurate to history (it's not), if it plays out with enjoyable zeal. Get knocked down. Come storming back up with righteous verve. That should be the perfect engine for Sengoku Basara, and the anime does go a great job with the set up and the build of the arc. The early battle between the post Nobunaga war lords, crashed by Toyotomi, who goes on to raise armies, part seas and beat down the heroes is perfect. Bits with young Miyamoto Musashi annoying Yukimura and Maeda Kenjii cuddling his monkey are a bit borderline, but they're presumably what the anime's makers presume their audience want. This is a crowd pleaser after all. It's not until the end where the anime really stumbles.
If you don't know that there's a Sengoku Basara movie covering the Battle of Sekigahara,, and it was announced in Japan well after the season wrapped, and similarly licensed well after Sengoku Basara II was in North America, the teasers of Tokugawa entering the fray would seem like a perplexing decision, especially since they aren't that impressive. Similarly, Ishida Mitsunari entering the battle at the last minute is a cheap bit of narrative rule breaking. This serves as the thumb in the eye exacerbating a rushed ending. It's as if the series ran out of episodes to work with, so just had everyone shout their way to a quick wrap of all the stories lines that don't directly lead to the Sengoku Basara version Sekigahara. It's worse still if you have an eye on the DVD/Blu-ray player run time since there's an extra OVA bonus episode at the tail end of the disc. The worst thing that Snegoku Basara can do is being underwhelming
flushes enthusiasm
The Sengoku Basara franchise deserves some credit for their Fist of the North Star version of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and they're greatly abridged, reworked version of the post Nobunaga conflicts to unify Japan. The battle royale of warriors, pirates, schemers and ninja is smartfully stupid historical fiction junk food at its best. And, for the most part, Production I.G manages a enjoyably colorful translation to anime. Scenes featuring the likes of an armored, six sword wielding maniac screaming "war dance!" jumping in the air to attack a titanic end-boss warlord are satisfying silly bits of samurai action regardless of what you carry in terms of interest in the original games or niche fandom (fujoshi specifically). A quick wrap up ending that seems to give up due to time constraints is cause for a muted recommendation, but Sengoku Basara II still manages a delightfully irreverent, action packed take on history.
