English Dub Review: Basilisk: The Ouka Ninja Scrolls “The Five Treasures Have Arrived”

Can we get a refund on this episode please? It’s defective.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Our episode this week takes us more into the history of the dispute between the Kouga and Iga clans. We start from last week where Lord Suruga had been cornered by some Iga clan ninjas, and the Five Treasures of the Kouga (A group of powerful Kouga ninjas) had stopped in to save him. Using their magical ninja powers, they quickly annihilate the Iga ninjas without much difficulty.

Back at home, Hibiki helps a woman find her lost child with the help of the village. Meanwhile, the Five Treasures of the Kouga decide to accompany Lord Suruga on his perilous journey and take the downtime they have sheltering from the rain to explain some of the past between the Kouga and in the Iga. Kouga Gennosuke, as Suruga describes, had a powerful eye magic that forces enemies to kill themselves or each other, which made him immensely strong. Hibiko, meanwhile, finds the missing child, Cho, with the help of the rest of the village, but also sees that Hachirou is trying to leave the village. She confronts him and asks why he’s trying to leave the village. She thinks it because he’s afraid of her powers, and Hachirou accounts to her a day during their training together when a powerful gust of wind broke up their fighting. Hibiko insists it was just a gust of wind, but clearly, Hachirou thinks it was something more. Meanwhile, back with Lord Suruga and the Five Treasures, they recount the story of Oboro and Gennosuke’s death. It was said that Gennosuke lost the duel between them, and this was what was relayed back to the shogun, but there is a different story that the Kouga know. It’s also said, in a retelling of the same story, that Gennosuke was injured and couldn’t use his eye magic, so Oboro killed herself to give him the victory in their duel. But, out of love for his betrothed, Gennosuke wrote the Iga victory onto the scroll of the battle with his own hands, before his taking his own life and joining his love in death. So it is that the story is never told the same way, and its impossible to know what really happened back then.

However, something came after the death of Gennosuke and Oboro. The head of espionage for the powerful Tokugawa clan brought the children of Gennosuke and Oboro to the village, who we know as Hachirou and Hibiki, the descendants and heads of the Kouga and Iga respectively. After the story is finished, we return to the Five Treasures, who see their companion Kenshin walk in from the rain, but he cannot close the door. Without warning, his head falls off from his neck, and the episode ends.

Our Take:

If you thought the first episode was bizarre and confusing, then you better get ready, because it doesn’t seem like anything is changing from here on in. Fans of the original Basilisk might find some of this interesting, but by itself, these episodes offer so little and expect so much from their audience. We have yet to spend real quality time with any of these characters, and I still don’t know anything about Hachirou and Hibiki, our two main protagonists, other than their relationship to the Kouga and Iga clans. This story is so scattered, so bizarre, and so lost in its own dense lore that it never really does anything except confuse and baffle me for some 22 odd minutes. Not a good start.