Sengoku BASARA 2 #05 — Sad Samurai in Springtime

August 8th, 2010

 

I’m oh so glad I took that nap earlier and was awake for this.

Impressions:

Holy crap. This episode may have pissed me off more than the recap episode of Zombie Boobs. This embodies every single thing that this season is doing completely wrong. Gone is the fun. Gone is the over-the-top craziness. Gone is the burning spirit. Instead, we have 20 goddamned minutes of angsty samurais, flashbacks, and a single forlorn violin playing mournfully over the entire blood thing. Every single time the music stopped, a small hope rose in my chest for a moment, only to be dashed a moment later when the sad strings just picked right up 10 seconds later. Sometimes, they’d add percussion to compliment is wailing sadness. But only sometimes.

This show can do so very much better than this. It cannot rely on its writing or character development because both blow, and angst with sad music is not a way to make up for that. It’s needless melodrama about a bunch of warriors who fight each other for the hell of it and win based on who can yell the loudest. Get back to your goddamned strengths and stop paying half-assed lipservice to the jokes that had already worn thin three episodes into the first season. At least shoot the violinist if nothing else. Good god. I don’t even think a single one of Key’s melodramatic emotional pornfests had this many crying violins crammed into a single episode.

About the only positive thing I can say about this one is that I chuckled at the homoerotic daily events of Masamune’s army. One of them is accessorizing his flags to find just the right one to wear into battle while two more wash each other… one of them gasping and moaning. I miss the days of Nobunaga and his mountain of skulls. Now that was an antagonist. This… is a bunch of chumps who are sad because they’re saaaaaad. Give me a goddamned break already. Someone break some skulls.

Preview:

A fight? In my angsty drama?

Posted in Sengoku Basara | 6 Comments »

6 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anonymous says:
    August 8, 2010 at 6:32 am

    I wonder if the writers forgot that the show is based off a video game where you fight hordes of grunts with super powers to the tune of rock music.

  • sniper says:
    August 8, 2010 at 9:19 am

    Maybe this episode is just a warm up for the upcoming episodes. After all, season 1 had its boring moments as well lolz

    • Aroduc says:
      August 8, 2010 at 1:00 pm

      Maybe, but I doubt it. Season 1 had more than its fair share of tedium, but it was never this bad, and the antagonist was a guy on a mountain of skulls, not their own feelings of inadequacy.

      • Titolion says:
        August 9, 2010 at 4:58 pm

        You´re talking like season 1 was a GAR fightfest full of over-the-top action, when it wasn´t… and those tedious moments were totally pointless, random, boring, unfocused, etc. Here at least is obvious they´re trying to construct characters, tension and make the things FAR more interesting.

        And Oda was cool, but the chances of making him a DECENT villain were totally thrashed when episode after episode he was just there… doing absolutely nothing.

        It´s always good when an action show takes its time to put dialogue and prepare climaxes. Here the dialogue is at least interesting, in season 1… was pure laziness.

        • Aroduc says:
          August 9, 2010 at 8:16 pm

          Yeah, it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean that they should be lauded for focusing even more on the weakest and worst parts of the first season.

  • lowe23 says:
    August 9, 2010 at 8:34 am

    Well to be fair, the actual stories from the games do contain a bit of emoness from the characters. And if the anime is doing Kojuro’s story, Masamune is going to be a lot more emo and angsty.