The Winter 2015 Anime Preview Guide

Samurai Warriors

Hope Chapman

Rating: 2

So, Sengoku Basara exists. It's really long, often well-animated, and I believe they're still making more of it. The fact that Sengoku Basara exists kind of makes Samurai Warriors a moot point for me because it's like watching the Kroger-brand version of Sengoku Basara. Both are fantastical superhero versions of Japanese history: specifically, the Warring States period, featuring Yukimura Sanada, Oda Nobunaga, and all those other guys as larger-than-life versions of themselves kicking tons of booty. Both are based on "Dynasty Warriors"-style hack and slash musou games. Both are intended to be raucous and loony, stripping history down to its bones and putting a video gamey spin on the reinvented remains. Samurai Warriors doesn't really succeed on that last part.

First of all, it's preceded by a 50-minute OVA exploring the Sanada brothers more in-depth, which is revisited in a quick flashback montage at the top of this first episode. It's basically a big flashing neon sign that says "No newbies allowed!" which Sengoku Basara certainly didn't have, and then it's all downhill from there. The animation is just kinda stiff and flat, even in the action scenes. The character designs are painfully generic, and probably looked better in the video game's more pseudo-realistic Final Fantasy style. Most importantly of all, however, the episode is 90% exposition and "as you know" dialogue (my favorite!) broken up by captions explaining who everyone is. It's impossible to care about any of it, and it would also be impossible to follow the plot if this story hadn't already been told a million times, but maybe it's a different experience if you've played the PlayStation games this show is based on. That fanbase is definitely who the show's aimed at.

All of this is mostly just reminding me that I have a copy of Hyrule Warriors I still need to knuckle down and play. Anyway, while it isn't a "bad" show, almost anything else is a better use of your time than yawning through this lesser version of a much better fantastically dumb series. Sengoku Basara wasn't boring. Samurai Warriors is very boring. There's ninety million other versions of Oda Nobunaga's adventures out there, so I think this show is for fans of the game only. Hopefully they're getting what they want out of it, but I don't have a point of reference there. For everyone else, it's just kinda dull.

Samurai Warriors is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.