It’s time for another Sengoku Basara adventure. This one’s the big movie so I expected a lot of action out of it. Fortunately the movie obliged. This one feels like more of an anniversary kind of film then a serious plot one although I feel it was gunning for the latter. The whole cast comes back and we get a lot of fights, but like always most of them are draws. This way both characters keep the hype. You know the drill. While it has some of the same issues as season 2 with all the cop outs, it still manages to tick off a lot of the right boxes and I’d end up calling it a great film.

It takes place almost immediately after season 2. Mitsunari wants to avenge his master Hideyoshi since the big boss ended up falling against Date. He challenges Date and overpowers him, but the commander retreats. This leads to a long time skip although we never know how long. Yukimura has now become leader of his clan after his boss “retired.” I put the quotations as it is vague on whether or not Yukimura murdered him or he just completely retired and gave up fighting. I like to hope that it’s the latter since the former is just so random and crazy. You see their sparring session and it does get a little intense, but I do like to think that this wouldn’t happen. On the other hand, it is realistic in a sense as I think this should happen quite frequently with training in comics and anime since it is usually portrayed as being rather lethal. Yukimura gets a letter from Tokugawa along with all of the other commanders. He tells them to join him at the Hotpot celebration so he can give them one last chance to unite peacefully or he’ll take them down hard. The whole cast heads down there and the big party begins!

Right off the bat lets get the usual aspects out of the way. The animation is really solid. All of the characters are solid and various attacks are flashy and colorful as you’d expect. We get a lot of nice visuals with the destruction scenes and Yukimura’s coat looks really good. It was still nostalgic to see him classic one come out during his fight with Date of course, but I can get behind the new look. It reminds me a lot of Naruto’s Sage Mode. The soundtrack is also excellent. We get to hear the classic Devil King theme along with Hideyoshi’s iconic theme. The two of them in one movie is a surefire method of success if you ask me. The rest of the tunes are solid as well and I’d like to give a shout out to the end credit theme. It’s pretty fun and inspiring. A nice upbeat song that would fit well at a party.

The writing and pacing for the film is pretty good. Something is always happening. The film also started off with a nice action scene as Mitsunari attacks Date. If you ask me, a film should always start with a big action scene. It sets the tone and even Pokemon realized that in its original films. We do get some portions of the film without action of course, but the plot is always engaging. You’re always ready for what’s going to happen next. One thing that can worry you is how the villains keep talking about the real party that’s going to start even when there is only around 30 minutes left. You know that this is hyping up something, but will there be enough time to execute it? Final Fantasy Advent Children did something similar with Sephiroth, but while the film was close to being over by then, the fight was incredibly satisfying with a solid outcome. This film’s climax is not quite up to that level.

Okay, lets back it up a bit. One unfortunate part of this film is that more dead characters come back. Remember how Yukimura beat Mori in season 2? Well, he escaped somehow. The Orochimaru look alike from season 1 has also returned. From these hints you may have figured it out by now, but a certain iconic villain returns as well. As Resurrection F showed, it’s always fun to have the most popular villain come back. It is pretty epic to a certain degree. That being said, it feels like this guy was mostly just thrown in here for the shock value. While he fires off a lot of cool explosions and kicks around the supporting characters, we don’t get to see him fight much. His durability is great as he takes everyone’s final smashes and keeps on grinning, but I would have liked a nice fight scene. Something like the fight where Aizen took on all of the Captains. That would have been awesome and I know this movie has the animation to pull it off. It was still a really cool appearance though and this character is my favorite villain, but I would have liked some more screen time. I wasn’t too thrilled with how his plot ended.

Nohime’s plot finally wrapped up as she started getting shadow abilities in the first two seasons. Her abilities are definitely pretty overpowered in this universe as a single hit from her shadow hands results in death. I did like her character development for the most part and at least she finally decided to stop running away when things got difficult. As for the Orochimaru guy….fine, I’ll use his name. Mitsuhide was a little disappointing here. He had a good plan at first and was pretty serious, but then went out in a rather comic relief fashion. He didn’t even put up a fight and was just thrown away. It was a rather odd and sudden way to go. I was hoping Yukimura could have taken him down since he was arguably losing their first round in season 1. This would have been a fun rematch.

The power levels are still a little out of whack here as Mitsunari is able to give Date a good fight as well as just about everyone else. The series needs to stop with the whole “Everyone is tied” nonsense since it’s just not accurate. Characters need to lost their hype. Ah well, it was cool that we finally got to see Date and Yukimura have another fight. The timing was a little odd as Date just cracked and decided that they should fight, but the absurdness of it all is part of what made the fight epic. Ignoring the ending, it was probably one of the best parts of the whole film. It shows that no matter how much time flies by, these two characters ultimately won’t change much. They’re always up for a good fight and especially if it’s against each other. It also brought Yukimura back to the happy fun loving guy that he used to be. He’s back to being in his prime and that was quite the treat to see. Once again his role wasn’t huge and Date had a bigger focus, but it was a vast improvement over the last time.

While Yukimura took the lead again, Date was a great main character as expected. The fact that he was able to put up a good bluff even while losing shows how tough the guy is. I’m not sure I can buy into him losing the fight, but it’s always good to have a villain who is a serious threat. He redeemed himself in the rematch at any rate and Date is definitely a charismatic guy. It was his idea to finish the fight with Yukimura at last so I have to give him a lot of credit for that. Keiji also steps in to have some fun, but unfortunately it is another scene that doesn’t really make sense in context. How is this guy going to possibly stop a strike from these two warriors and remain standing? It’s a little too much hype is all I’m saying.

A bunch of the old supporting characters also come for some posturing and tough talk. Mori and the pirate show up to fight once again, but as always it is dead even between them. The Warrior god of Echigo (Probably how you spell that) appeared very briefly in the beginning as he finally lost to Yukimura’s leader. At least that fight I could respect since it had an actual winner. It’s lightly hinted that the guy died which is rather dark, but I suppose they all have to die at some point right? The show may disagree though. I like to think that he was spared and that Yukimura’s leader just retired, but both thoughts may be rather optimistic.

For the new factions, lets start with Tokugawa. He wants peace and doesn’t use a weapon anymore, but it is hard to take him seriously with that mission. He is right as the wars never stop and everyone is still fighting each other, but such a plan cannot exist as long as any villains remain. Mori still wants to rule and now they also have to worry about Mitsunari. It is nice to have a character who fights with his fists as opposed to with a blade though. While Tokugawa’s mission appears to be futile, it is still a noble one. He is a reasonable character I guess and while he doesn’t bring much to the table, I think he can end up being a good character if used right.

Mitsunari is a whole lot more impressive though. He has some of the best action scenes in the film and his motivation to destroy Date is straight forward and one that I can get behind. Avenging his master makes sense and he isn’t using trickery or anything like that. He just went straight at Date. He did become a complete villain by the end though as he attacked villagers to lure Date out, but that’s mainly because Date was evading battle. Doesn’t change the fact that Mitsunari is evil of course. He’s probably the best villain here. I won’t count the final boss since he doesn’t appear until the very end but if he did then the guy steals the show no questions asked.

There was also a magician who was a little odd. He speaks in riddles a lot of the time and while he hinted that he was going to betray Mitsunari…he decided not to in the end. It was an interesting choice and I guess their bond was too strong to be broken like that, but the guy’s character development never actually went anywhere. I think the film could have definitely done more with him although since he isn’t a close combat fighter I don’t really mind him getting the shaft. A mage fight scene likely wouldn’t be all that interesting.

I may not have gotten to see all the fights that I wanted, but at least I was glued to the screen. The franchise’s hype is its greatest strength as well as its weakness. The former always has the greatest impact even if the latter is present. Seeing the old moments from the show during the prologue just helps you to remember that even further. While there was no time for planning things out like in the shows, the character interactions were still a lot of fun. If we ever did get another full length film like this one, I feel it should be made a little longer so we can really keep those scenes in. One thing I liked a lot in season 2 was the planning and counter planning that each group engaged in. It was pretty fun to follow.

Overall, This was a really fun movie. It still had some issues with not making up its mind for big fights and could be rushed at times, but had enough going for it to be considered a great movie. These issues aren’t as big for a movie as with a show since it’s shorter. Whether the action makes sense or not, it’s still action. As long as the characters are likable and I’m entertained the whole time, then it’s a full success. I can imagine that this would have really been a blast to have seen in theaters. I highly recommend checking this film out. It’s a very enthusiastic movie with all of the characters constantly talking about battle and it’s a movie where you can cheer along as there are many hype moments. I look forward to seeing how season 3 fares and if it can really match the movie.

Overall 8/10