About Heroes

Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls
Original Story: Futaro Yamada
Manga: Masaki Segawa
Translation & Adaptation: David Ury
Publisher: Del Rey

I have been fascinated with ninjas every since I was a child. This fascination grew to its intensity when I played a little arcade game known as Shinobi and years later watched the anime Ninja Scroll. The idea that a people could push their bodies to their extreme limits was just astounding to me. Even though I know that realistically speaking no matter how hard you train yourself, one can't fly, throw fireballs, and turn their body to stone ( I have tried, but I guess I could keep trying harder). This nonsense rambling actually has a point, to make sure you understand how I feel about ninjas! If you are at all interested in this book, do yourself a favor and pick it up and don't read this review because it is completely full of spoilers.

The Kouga Ninja Scrolls is a novel that was written in 1958 by Futaro Yamada and Basilisk is drawn from that particular story. This story certainly provides all the ingredients needed to make this a very dark and mature manga in the way that Berserk and Blade of the Immortal are made. From the very few pages we see that the scroll contains the name of 20 people and they are from two rival ninja clans, the Iga and the Kouga who are charged by Hattori Hanzo and Shogun Tokugawa Leyasu to have a ten on ten battle to decide who will be the next shogun in line. Unfortunately, a truce was established between these two warring clans, and some of the members have been able to put aside their differences, including the children of the leaders of the opposing clans. So as you can tell this is not only an action driven story but also a tragic love story of Gennosuke and Oboro. Neither have any idea that their happiness is at stake because of the breaking of the truce and they are about to witness their unlikely wedding plans ripped apart by these unfortunate developments.

Each one of the 20 ninjas is just a complete badass their own way. Here is a quick list of characters and their abilities. From the Kouga clan we have Kouga Danjo who specializes in poisonous needles and his grandson Gennosuke who his demon eyes to make his enemies kill themselves. Kageru who breathes poisonous breath when turned on, Kisagari Saemon who can assume the physical appearance of others and his sister Okoi who seems to be a succubus, and Gyoubu who can meld to any surface. Muroga is the man who trained Gennosuke, Jousuke has extra fat to protect his body, Jimushi has no arms or legs, but a deadly tongue, and Kazamachi can secrete glue from his mouth. Then there are the ten ninja from the Iga clan that include Ogen who controls a hawk and her granddaughter Oboro who was also born with "special" eyes. This clan also includes Akeginu who has the ability to control her blood, the immortal Tenzen, Chikuma who creates vacuums with his breath, Nenki who uses his hair as deadly weapons, Hotarubi who has a pet snake and can summon butterflies, and her lover Yashamaru a master of the wires. The remaining Iga are Rousai who has a power like Dhalsim and Jingoro who can take a liquid form.

I was hooked from the beginning; I really didn't want any of the ninja to die because each one of them had unique and interesting powers. I read this five volume story in one sitting and that really says something about how addictive this manga is. The action is completely amazing; Hell, I was so caught up with the amazing fights, I didn't even see the connection between the title and the two leading characters. It is good simply because of the promise of the future for Gennosuke and Oboro. But of course by the end of the story you start to lose hope and eventually the outcome is that all the ninja die and all that are left are Oboro and Gennosuke. Oboro kills herself because she could never harm Gennosuke and before killing himself he signs the scroll claiming that Oboro was the last ninja alive and the Iga won the contest. The first three volumes were very easy to get into because it's fight after constant fight. By the fourth volume we see some flashbacks and great character development that set up the final volume. I was upset to see the manga end this way, but I should have known better than to have my money on love conquering all in a tragic love story.

The story is not the only great thing about this title, what is even greater is the art. The heavy use of photographic and CGI backgrounds does create a very dark, grey look to the comic, yet somehow this also helps to put emphasis on the characters themselves, which are drawn in a very expressive and distinctive style. Though at times the character designs were somewhat goofy, it made it easy to distinguish them, which was very helpful considering the size of the cast in Basilisk. The CGI for some reason stood out more in the early volumes and for some reason the characters just didn't seem to fit with the backgrounds. However, by the second half of the second volume they blend in so damn well, I couldn't imagine another way of doing the art and really helps Basilisk stand out.

I'll make this quick. If you liked Seven Samurai, Lone Wolf and Cub, Berserk, Blade of the Immortal, or Ninja Scroll at all, there's a good chance you'll love Basilisk too. At first glance Basilisk appears to be little more than a Ninja Scroll rip-off even its subtitle of 'The Kouga Ninja Scrolls' is hard not to think so. I figure they just wanted to cash in on the success of the anime. Now I have to go and check out the anime that is based on this manga and the original novel. It's a great experience that I can't recommend highly enough. A-