An Exercise In Nonsense

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Note: Most of my reviews contain spoilers, but I always try that none of these spoilers "can actually spoil" any important surprise in the narrative arc, so you can read without worrying.Basilisk is a story set in the early days of the Tokugawa period and narrates the fight between two clans of ninja warriors. Even when this story and its fighting is completely embedded in fantasy, it is important to say that the Ninjutsu styles of both the Iga and the Kouga actually exist in real life with the names of Kouga-Ryu and Iga-Ryu. For history lovers, I also need to give a small warning: In this anime, in opposition to what most historians and fans of anime and Japan history think, here, Yeyasu Tokugawa is depicted as a villain. Well, it is just a novel and an anime and it is only this author's opinion, or this author's particular view for his story, so NO OFFENSE TAKEN for fans of Yeyasu Tokugawa; to many...the best Shogun in Japan history. Tokugawa, here, is actually one of the most important villains in the plot because the competition between the two clans is actually decided by him and one of his allies, in order to find a way to choose a heir without having people loyal to him dead, so they decide to make a competition between two clans, one clan favoring one possible heir, one clan the other.This is a great show that has a little bit of everything: Great animation, interesting and appealing characters, fantasy, some history-based moments, martial arts and even a twist of horror (even Gore-like) at some points.That said, I hope that these lines help you to decide to give this anime a try if you haven't seen it, or give you a pair of interesting data you didn't know about this great anime if you have already enjoyed it.Thanks for readingKi o Tsukete ( "Take care" or "be well" in Japanese)IMDb Review by David del Real. Ciudad de México, México. October 1st, 2017.

Some desire love. Some desire peace and freedom. Some others want to protect their beloved ones. Some desire to temporarily achieve honor to enable further accomplishments or to justify their existence. Some finally simply want power to rule other's destiny in sight of their own perspective. And human history is just a huge conflict involving these major needs. I'm not going to list what's good and what could be better in this anime: it's 10y old and technology and tastes are different. It deals with great topics and it does it in a great way: animation, graphic, SFX and character design is top notch. I'm in my 30s and I cried a lot: ancient Greek tragedy sounds just like this and you can't avoid to feel what is deep in our souls when watching this. Watch it alone: your children won't like it apart from the battles. But let your grown children watch it if they don't want to read Euripide instead. I looked at all the serialised animes around in the last 20 years and found no one more deserving: this is great. Maybe just 3-4 other animes are of this level for our western perception. Buy it. Support it. Let this anime survive over the "consume to get something new" policy of these days. This will make you cry and dream and will motivate you to believe in human kind. In 5-20 years something better will be there but as per now anime poetry can be found nowhere else.

Up until episode 12 this is a fantastic series keeping you in genuine anticipation, satisfaction and then anticipation again. The action is not the very best you have ever seen but it's okay and there is plenty of it around. The game with the truly exciting special powers makes up for everything though and you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat every time a new technique is getting revealed. These episodes are fairly well written too, featuring an interesting plot and also doing a fine job with character development and in setting up emotional attachment to most characters.Now after getting you hooked I suppose, indicated by a token flashback episode a very different series emerges. The animation now becomes minimum effort most of the time, meaning a heavy decline on action scenes by definition and a lot of mere shaking of static pictures. This would be party acceptable saying that we'd have arrived at a more talky, story centered bit but unfortunately this is not the case either. The thing just runs out of steam and starts kind of going nowhere, doing that with a critically slow pace too. Ideas barely emerge anymore and everything just becomes very incoherent. Worst is that also the fights and deaths of the characters become disappointingly anti-climactic blowing a fantastic premise right out the window.Now this doesn't stop me from genuinely recommending those first 12 episodes as they rocks quite hard nevertheless. I really can't recommend you to waste your time enduring the rest as there really is barely anything to look forward to, but maybe just reading the story (fighting those battles in you're head) on wikipedia and then cut to the final episode right away might be a good solution. I'd give a 9/10 for the first half and a 2 for the rest.

So I've been wondering for a long time if I should buy Basilisk or not. Well I finally bought it and have now seen it and I am very disappointed. Why?First of all there are so many characters to keep track of and get to know in such a short time that you end up not giving a rats ass about any of them. They are all shallow and one dimensional.Second reason is that its just plain boring. It keeps the same pace throughout pretty much the whole series, and that is a slow and undramatic one. witch doesn't always have to be a bad thing but here it is.The good things I guess is the animation which are fluid and nice in general. Some of the ninjas technique are awesome.But overall I thought basilisk was a pretty mediocre and impersonal anime series. And I don't recommend it.