***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Basilisk – The Oka Ninja Scrolls. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
Ten years after the deadly battle between the infamous Iga and Kouga ninja clans, peace has spread across the land. In a world without fighting, the current generation of Iga and Kouga have come together to preserve their respective bloodlines. Now, the future of the two groups rests in the hands of their new leaders, Hachiro Kouga and Hibiki Iga (voiced by Tasuku Hatanaka and Inori Minase).
However, combat is simply a part of a ninja’s life. It is the fate of both the Iga and Kouga clans to fight.
A new enemy, the Joujinshuu, wishes to destroy what they believe is an undeserved peace. Effortlessly, the Joujinshuu kill most of the remaining Iga and Kouga. All that remains of the two once mighty clans are Hachiro, Hibiki, and a handful of their most loyal comrades.
For the first time, Iga and Kouga must fight side-by-side to defeat what appears to be an unstoppable enemy. Once again, the two clans find themselves in a battle to the death. And once again, they must demonstrate the frightening power associated with their names.
Series Positives
This was unexpected.
I'm not going to say the original 2005 Basilisk wasn't good enough to deserve a sequel. On the contrary, I remember the first series being fantastic. However, I also remember it being pretty conclusive.
Basilisk didn't leave much in the way of needing a continuation.
That is why I was shocked when I learned Basilisk - The Oka Ninja Scrolls was going to be a thing. After all, it wasn’t like there would be a thirteen-year gap between the two shows. Hell, I'm sure there were droves of people still holding out hope for the next chapter in a story that was over.
Sarcasm aside, here we are nonetheless.
Before starting this series, I knew I was about to enter a world of trouble. Big surprise, I did not bother to remember every crucial detail of the original Basilisk story since who in their right mind would think there would ever be a part two? But even if I had I done that, the first Basilisk was the eighth review I wrote for this site. With Ninja Scrolls clocking in at number 350+, yes, I was very aware that there were a ton of aspects from the first show I had forgotten.
Granted, I didn’t forget everything because, again, Basilisk was that good of a series. And of the things I was able to recall:
One, Gennosuke Kouga, the main male protagonist of Basilisk, possessed one of the most frightening ninja-moves ever, the Dojutsu.
Two, and spoiler warning for a decade’s old show, everyone died at the end of Basilisk.
It is that latter point that led me to ask, “What could a sequel possibly do for this series?” More than that, though, my real concern was, “Would any continuation, after all this time, be warranted?”
Having now sat through this surprise second installment, if there is indeed a worthy next chapter to the Basilisk story, Ninja Scrolls was not it. This was an incredibly difficult show to get through.
While watching Ninja Scrolls, certain aspects of the original Basilisk came back to me. Without focusing too much on the gritty details, the first installment was dark, intense, and all-around fascinating. Rereading my review of Basilisk, I mentioned how it was one of those series that was hard to put down.
Ninja Scrolls, on the other hand, did a great job of putting me to sleep. My god, this show was boring.
Technically speaking, this series was fine. The animation was nothing to complain about, the music was decent, and the voice actors did their jobs well. That said, particularly concerning the first two points, Ninja Scrolls was still the inferior. The 2005 Basilisk had better art and a better soundtrack than this 2018 series. Every which way you look at it, this was a regression.
In addition, any positive points associated with Ninja Scrolls were rendered moot. The major flaws with this show were rooted in its story’s pacing, characters, and content. No amount of fresh paint, catchy tunes, or talented voice acting were going to affect these problems.
The one thing I can give this series is, believe it or not, my respect. Before I get ahead of myself, no, Ninja Scrolls didn't gain a lot of my respect since this show was a wasted opportunity. However, this second chapter did address one of my initial questions, “Could there be more to this story?”
That answer was certainly a yes. Ninja Scrolls was a different story. It wasn’t a good story, but it was a different one.
The reason I respect Ninja Scrolls is that it wasn’t a carbon copy of the first. It would have been super easy to just redo what the original Basilisk had done. To be fair, it’s impossible to know if this second installment would have been any worse or any better had it gone in the repeat direction. Granted, I imagine this series would have come off as much lazier then it was, had it done that. I say as such because doing something different isn’t easy. This is especially true when the first go around pretty much got it right.
Although Ninja Scrolls being its own thing didn’t work, I appreciate the attempt.
That notwithstanding, Ninja Scrolls still could have afforded to be a little bit more like its predecessor.
Should this series have done another battle to the death between the Iga and Kouga clans? Probably not. In fact, I liked that this story went with having these two once fierce rivals working together. Nevertheless, one of the main draws of the original Basilisk was its story that was based around badass ninja battles.
Something Ninja Scrolls failed to incorporate was badass ninja battles.
Something Ninja Scrolls failed to incorporate was badass ninja battles.
I’ve got to say, not doing that was an odd, or if you would prefer, terrible choice for Ninja Scrolls to make. But unfortunately, that was just one of the many terrible choices this show made.
Series Negatives
This didn’t hit me until I was a few episodes into Ninja Scrolls. Whether this show would be good or not was kind of irrelevant since it was fighting an uphill battle. In hindsight, it should have been obvious this was a battle this series was doomed to lose.
To start down this rabbit hole, try to recall the main point of the original Basilisk.
The Iga and the Kouga ninja clans had to pit their ten best warriors against one another in a fight to the death. A fight that, again, resulted in everyone dying. Therefore, the best Igas and the best Kougas were no longer around. With Ninja Scrolls taking place ten years after this ultimate face-off, that meant, at best, this series was only going to have the B teams. However, those B teams got wiped out by the end of episode four. That meant we were left with the rest.
Ninja Scrolls’ group of ninjas was laughably inferior to what we saw in Basilisk.
To put it another way, I’m not sure what all the Ninja Scrolls ninja’s techniques were. Some moves appeared to be watered down versions of what we saw before. Some skills were more like detriments than they were assets. And one of the ninjas just carried around a gun. 
The only two techniques that were of any use were the two most powerful techniques from the first series, the eye magic of Ninja Scrolls' two main characters, Hachiro Kouga and Hibiki Iga. Being direct descendants of Basilisk’s leads Gennosuke Kouga and Oboro Iga, Hachiro and Hibiki inherited their predecessor's powers. Hachiro had Gennosuke’s Dojutsu, and Hibiki had Oboro’s ability to neutralize a ninja’s techniques.
To back up for a second, although I said Hachiro and Hibiki were descendants of Gennosuke and Oboro, that wasn’t the full story. Hachiro and Hibiki weren’t just descendants of Gennosuke and Oboro, Hachiro and Hibiki were the children of Gennosuke and Oboro. Hachiro and Hibiki were brother and sister.
The first problem of this was, Hachiro and Hibiki had a romantic love between them. Although this series was set in the seventeenth century, this was no less creepy.
The second problem of this was, when the hell did Gennosuke and Oboro find the time to have kids? The battle between the Iga and the Kouga in Basilisk ended upon the deaths of Gennosuke and Oboro.How and when were Hachiro and Hibiki conceived, let alone born?
Maybe I’m misremembering something, but I swear Ninja Scrolls even commented on this. Somewhere early on in this show, someone mentioned how it was strange that Hachiro and Hibiki existed.
…AND!?
YOU’RE JUST GOING TO LEAVE IT AT THAT?
You know what? Fine. This wasn’t even the most infuriating thing about this show. Something that was a lot more annoying was how this series ruined the awesomeness of the Dojutsu. 
For those who don’t know, the Dojutsu was a technique that took the killing intent felt towards the move’s wielder and channeled it back towards the wielder’s attacker. Whenever an enemy who wished to cause harm to Hachiro or Gennosuke looked into the two men’s eyes, that enemy would be hypnotized into committing suicide. Both Basilisk and Ninja Scrolls made it a point to say the Dojutsu was the most powerful of all the ninja techniques.
Just how powerful was the Dojutsu? It was so powerful that in order for the original Basilisk story to work, it needed to be nerfed. The first series found a way so that it was impossible for Gennosuke to use the move.
How did Ninja Scrolls get around this? This show made it so that the Dojutsu, the most feared and devastating ninja move in the entire Basilisk universe, didn’t work on everyone. There were so many times in this series where Hachiro had to rely on his swordsmanship. And although Hachiro was skilled with a sword, any show can do a sword fight.
What helped make Basilisk awesome was that its fights weren’t simple clashes of steel. Combatants employed superhuman, often inhuman techniques in every single battle. For Ninja Scrolls to simply not have that was maddening.
The worst part was, Ninja Scrolls had a chance of making this work so long as the other ninjas in this series were the ones responsible for creating all the cool moments. Here's a shock, they weren’t because there weren't any cool moments in this show.
A ninja versus ninja face-off was incredibly rare in this series. Most of the time, the only thing our main group of characters fought were waves of disposable grunts. This got a little tiring after a while.
And as this was happening, did it ever seem like this generation of Iga and Kouga were highly skilled killers? Not in the slightest.
It was infuriating how often this group fell for illusions. And since there were people in this cast that regularly used illusions in their fighting style, why did no one ever realize when they were being tricked? Thanks to this, Hibiki, the other character with the other useful eye magic technique, got kidnapped and stayed that way for a good chunk of this show.
And as this was happening, did it ever seem like this generation of Iga and Kouga were highly skilled killers? Not in the slightest.
It was infuriating how often this group fell for illusions. And since there were people in this cast that regularly used illusions in their fighting style, why did no one ever realize when they were being tricked? Thanks to this, Hibiki, the other character with the other useful eye magic technique, got kidnapped and stayed that way for a good chunk of this show.
And these were just some of the problems that made Ninja Scrolls a bad sequel to Basilisk. Looking at this series and its own merits, Ninja Scrolls was not a good show.
To start, twenty-four episodes. Yeah, that needed to be cut in half. Wow did this series drag on. There was never any sense of progression. And whenever something did happen, it was immediately rendered pointless.
Our group needed to take out the villains’ moving castle, the Murakumo, which appeared in episode six. In episode twelve, the ninjas were finally able to destroy this monstrosity; the first big win of the series. The only thing that would have ruined this moment was if the bad guys had a second super unique, super expensive moving castle that was also a lot more powerful ready to go.
…This show can go piss off.
Next, there were the characters. I’ll give Ninja Scrolls this, it didn’t make the same mistake Basilisk made. The first series tried to provide personalities for people that were already dead. These late attempts at characterization did slow the original show down a bit.
Ninja Scroll at least tried developing its characters before anything happened to them. The problem was, this show’s attempts at characterization led to nowhere, and “before anything happened” sometimes meant “right before something happened.”
I didn’t mind the characters of Ninja Scrolls. They weren’t great, and I’m not going to remember any of them, but they all deserved better than the fates they got.
In the first Basilisk, whenever a character died, it was always after a long, hard-fought battle. In Ninja Scrolls, the biggest killer in this series was the story. When this show determined it was someone’s time to go, no matter where they were or what kind of huge advantage they had, that person would go.
All this nonsense then led to Ninja Scroll’s last three episodes. I’ve got to be honest, I have no clue what happened here. I don’t care in the slightest what happened since this series lost my interest long before this point, but even if it hadn’t, this was a giant mess of a conclusion. And this giant mess culminated into episode twenty-four which had the horrible habit of not stopping.
Like I said, in hindsight, Ninja Scrolls was fighting a losing battle.
Final Thoughts
Thirteen years later, and this was where this series went?
I will give this show one point for not trying to be the same as its predecessor. However, that apparently didn’t amount to much. This series was too long, incredibly dull, and a giant waste of what could have been.
As a sequel, this story failed. As a stand-alone product, this show failed even harder. The first series ended, and if that is all you have seen, that is all you ever need to see. There is nothing to gain from this second chapter.
I’m not sure what surprised me more, that Basilisk – The Oka Ninja Scrolls was a thing that happened, or that it ended up being this bad.
And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.
I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.
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Others in the Basilisk Series
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