And war shall come to school.
What They Say:
Date and Sanada both demand the use of the school field for their respective teams! They agree to settle the matter with a game of kickball, but things get sidetracked.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having watched I think all of the Sengoku Basara anime material that Funimation has brought out I wasn’t surprised to see the property re-imagined like this. It’s a familiar trick to milk a property in a new way but it can lead to some really fun stuff. I like the original work overall even if I’m admittedly a bit tired of the actual period and the characters in a way because it’s been done so many times over the years, though done well. With this incarnation, bringing the cast into the high school realm with a good budget production under the idea of a “power vacuum” being created thanks to the suspension of student council president Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a kind of ridiculous one. But it’s one that works well in allowing for Masamune and Yukimura to take up against each other once again in battle while realizing that they’re not the only ones seeking power.
Taking place at the Basara Private Academy, the cold open gives us tension of a student election going on with most students in normal garb and the name ones all in their own ridiculous outfits that often don’t makes sense in the modern setting but are things that you run with for the silliness of it all. The general idea is that we do get two large competing groups in that problematic teenage boy way with Date and Yukimura each wanting things, such as the baseball field and getting into some real competition over it. It sticks to traditional red and blue coloring for each side and Date even comically retains his eyepatch. It’s all ridiculous over the top aspects such as throwing the ball around to determine who gets the field and it causes all sorts of problems, even taking out a moped group of students along the way that just incites more school competition and violence.
All of this leads up to the reveal about Hideyoshi and the kind of competition that’s about to burst into a new level thanks to the suspension. The show throws a whole lot of crazy competitive elements into it quickly from here with the various sides pushing hard for votes down the line, which has some like Yukimura just wanting to sit it all out anyway because he doesn’t care for this kind of stuff. It’s just as big and silly as you’d expect with “overacting” the main theme of it. There’s some fun comedy mixed in along the way as well, often with those not directly involved in the competitive aspects getting taken down such a when they start hitting baseballs all over the place, but there’s an infectious kind of energy about it because of how the characters act. They all love a good fight, which resonates from the Sengoku Basara personalities, and it unfolds well here to show it all off as the afternoon wears on.
In Summary:
I won’t say I had high expectations for this series because I knew exactly what it was going to be like and the episode essentially bears that out. Transplanting the cast to a school setting and building the competitive narrative that will carry us through the series you can see all sorts of school elements, especially sports, being used along the way – along with some cooperative moments as well, I’m sure. This opening episode doesn’t have the grandeur and strong visual color design of the original work but it embraces the right kind of look for a comedy-action series of this nature and delivers it well, especially with all the scenery chewing and overacting.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: HIDIVE
