Review for Sengoku Basara - Complete Season Two Collection

Introduction

A couple of years ago, I turned up my nose and sneered at Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings. After all, it was an anime based on a videogame, and as the Super Mario Bros movie reminded me, adapting gameplay into narrative is never a simple thing. While the Warring States period of Japanese history is a rich vein of narrative to mine, reinventing the key players as larger than life and anachronistic videogame characters didn’t seem to bode well. Then I was made to eat my ill-chosen words as Sengoku Basara quickly became one of my ultimate anime guilty pleasures, the sort of show that you watch with an inappropriate grin plastered across your face, revelling at its sheer excess. As soon as those first discs stopped spinning in my player, I began rubbing my hands in anticipation of the second series, which at that time Funimation had already licensed for the US. Two years of hand rubbing has left me with a couple of bloody stumps, and Manga have been a little hesitant about releasing it. Some of that may have to do with the anecdotally lacklustre performance of the first series on Blu-ray.


Series 2 almost sneaks out apologetically now, and this time there is no UK Blu-ray release. That’s a shame, because just as the first season had more extras on its Blu-ray than its DVD, there are also fewer bonus episodes on this DVD than its US Blu-ray counterpart. Still, I strapped myself in for another 13 episodes of sheer animated Samurai combat frenzy, looking forward to more of the same. After all, that’s all Production IG has to do to score with Series 2, deliver more of the same insane, frenetic, visual excess, psychotic action sequences, and scenery devouring larger-than-life characters, right?


You’d think that life could get back to normal once Nobunaga Oda had been defeated. It certainly looks that way at the start of this second season, with the Warring States back to their usual unrestrained chaos, and with everyone at each other’s throats, trying to figure out who is top dog. As we catch up with our favourite sword wielding heroes, it seems that Masamune Date and Sanada Yukimura are finally about to discover which of them is the stronger, which is when the situation alters once more. This time it’s the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi who has designs on taking control of a unified Japan. A towering giant of a man, his skill, willpower and abilities are formidable, while his intentions are honourable. His methods leave a little to be desired, and he’s not above playing two sides off against each other so that he can profit. One of the first alliances he forges in his blitzkrieg is with the Maeda clan, which causes no little consternation for Maeda Keiji. Toyotomi then separates Masamune Date from his right hand man Kojuro, and when he pressures Takeda Shingen, Shingen sends Sanada to distant Satsuma to prepare a counter-strike. Thirteen episodes of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings – Series 2 are presented across two DVDs by Manga Entertainment


Disc 1
01. Troubled Times Once Again! Advent of the Great Cataclysmic Warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi!
02. The Lost Right Eye – The Dragon’s Back Rent Asunder!
03. Keiji vs. Toshiie! Tedorigawa Choked with Unequivocal Ideals!
04. The Ghost of Azuchi Castle?! The Lamentation and Howl of Evil that Assail Yukimura!
05. Engraved Pledge! The One-Eyed Dragon vs. The War God – Confrontation at Hitotoribashi!
06. The Menacing Toyotomi-Mori Alliance! The Powerful Fist of Supremacy Cleaves the Sea!
07. To the Southernmost Land of Satsuma! A New Encounter as a Man for Yukimura!


Disc 2
08. A Sad Reunion with a Friend – Memory of the Day Etched with Blinding Obsession!
09. Dragon and Ogre – Clash and Roar in Owari! The Combined Force of Date and Chosokabe!!
10. The Young Tiger Restored! The great Fortress Rebuilt – the Menace of the Sun Heads East!!
11. Toyotomi’s Great Main Army Dashes for Supremacy! Earnest Keiji Draws Sword in Heartbreak!!
12. Azure and Crimson Do-or-Die Battle! To the Sound of the Breeze at the End of the Fierce Struggle!!
13. Dragon and Tiger – Oath of Victory! Souls Racing Toward a Blazing Future!!

Picture

I’d like to say that the second series of Sengoku Basara gets the same treatment on DVD as the first, and at first glance the clarity, sharpness and bold colours do match that which came before. The PAL conversion offers the greater resolution and bold definition that serves the show well. That said, I did find aliasing a little more apparent this time around, and one or two pans and scrolls on the first disc were subject to judder. The odd thing is that of the two check discs that I received, disc one was the Manga disc, but disc 2 was the Madman disc, complete with Australian trailers and logos and it’s interesting that the animation was smooth on that one. Production IG still do the honours and they have maintained consistency with the first series, both in the character and world designs, and more importantly in the over the top action sequences.

Sound

You have the choice of DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. The Japanese track may be a little underdone when it comes to specs, but it’s definitely the way to go when it comes to aesthetic choice, especially as the Japanese voice actors really catch the over the top mood that goes with the over the top story. It’s a show where anyone who fails to chew the scenery, ends up letting the side down, so Takeda and Yukimura have to one-up each other when it comes to professions of platonic, manly affection, while Date has a tendency to slip into Engrish to emphasise his pronouncements. It’s a juicy dialogue track that is served well by the stereo when it comes to music and action, but it really could have done with a full on surround track. The English track has the surround, but the dub dialogue is fairly standard for a Funimation mix, useful if you like your Funimation dubs, but somehow lacking in comparison to the Japanese, and the hassle that some of the dub actors have with the Japanese names and places does show at times.

Extras

Disc 1 gets an extra in the form of an audio commentary, featuring ADR Director Christopher Bevins and voice of Motochika, Patrick Seitz. Be warned that it’s laden with spoilers for the whole series, although Patrick Seitz does talk like a pirate.

The commentary on disc 2 accompanies episode 12, and voice actors Eric Vale, Rob McCullom, and Chris Cason shoot the breeze for 20 minutes in a fairly run of the mill Funimation commentary track.


What are of more interest are the 3 New Anime “Sengoku Basara II Katakura-kun” animated shorts where the characters go all chibi-Hetalia for the duration. The total runtime here is 11 minutes, and it’s a bit of light hearted inconsequential comedy. These are better than those in the first season, funnier and more interesting which makes the absence of the Blu-ray even more keenly felt. There are seven short animations on the high definition format.

Finally there are the textless credits, one opening and both closings.

Conclusion

It turns out that lightning doesn’t strike twice. All they had to do was just deliver more of the same, and I would have been happy. The original Sengoku Basara series got by on sheer insanity and energy. It didn’t push the limits of credulity, it shattered them. Not for it trivialities like character, narrative, plot or subtlety, everything had to be louder, faster and more intense. It was directed by George Lucas on amphetamines. If the explosions got any louder, they would have exploded out of the television. You’d think that Sengoku Basara II would fit the bill. After all it’s still got Date chewing scenery with his Engrish pronouncements, while riding his horse with handlebars (but no hands, cos he’s cool). It’s got Sanada and Takeda homoerotically pummelling each other at the drop of a hat, it’s got Kagura poetically orgasming every time her liege lord Uesugi favours her with a glance, it has all the violent explosions of chi and ridiculous action sequences that made the first series so fun. It has a gorilla of a villain in Toyotomi, a man who’s at least twice as tall as anyone else, and it has in his ninja a masked, pink lipstick wearing schemer as flamboyant a character as any in the show. It’s got a citadel sized mediaeval tank with a frickin' laser beam!

And it’s as dull as watching paint dry.


The problem with Sengoku Basara II is that it tries to have its cake and eat it. It wants insanity and credulity at the same time, so all of a sudden, character, narrative, plot and subtlety is no longer trivial. It now wants its characters to have depth and dimension, it wants Date tormented by the loss of his right hand man, it wants said right hand man, Katakura to be psychologically toyed with by his captors, it wants its villain Toyotomi to have a tragic past, to have his former friendship with peacemaker Keiji challenged, it wants Sanada to lose confidence in himself and then fight to regain it. Sengoku Basara II wants to be deep and meaningful, but deep and meaningful doesn’t work with insane and out of control. It keeps switching between the two modes, and the effect is to throw me out of the experience. Even when the big explosions of chi were happening, I found myself falling asleep. I snored through five episodes of Sengoku Basara II, and had to rewatch them, something that I would have considered impossible with the utterly nutty first season.


There are still moments that sparkle in the show, and the bonus episode 13 is a reminder of what was so great about the first season. The animation is still of top quality, and the Japanese voice actors still know how to chew the scenery. But the second series of Sengoku Basara falls flat, and it does so in a big way. This is what I expect a computer game adaptation to turn out like.