Whoa, was that Ishikawa Chiaki who suddenly performed an insert-song in the middle of this episode? Awesome, the creators here are certainly making sure to make this one a spectacle. Usually I’m not a fan of overacting, but this burning passion was exactly what prevented the first season of Sengoku Basara from standing out.
In any case, I’m glad to see that the second season is so much better balanced here. This episode was all about Maeda Keiji (who seems to have been upgraded to a lead character in this season) versus the rest of his clan, as he tried to stop them from engaging into a pointless battle.
I think that what makes Sengoku Basara more interesting than your average action series is that even though there’s a clear villain here, it’s still a complete chaos, where a lot more conflicts are going on. On top of that, the characters themselves aren’t stupid fighting machines (that’s one thing that the first season did right), but instead things lie far more complex, and I like how even though this is supposed to be an action series, it still puts a lot of focus on this dialogue.
Also, I believe that this was one of the first fantasy series that has the balls of actually animating the fact that the bodies of the characters are strong enough to stop a freaking katana. It’s great to see this actually get animated, rather than the usual thing in which we see some sort of flash, but don’t really know what exactly happened, and why someone isn’t sliced to death when being struck by such a killing weapon. Sengoku Basara isn’t the best game adaptation by far, but it definitely has the right intentions. That swordfight in the middle was definitely well coordinated.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
It’s nice to see a solid blend of plot-driven dialogue and interesting action scenes. I think the second half of this anime will be better than the first.
*sniff* makes me miss Code Geass.