Basilisk

Review Date: 2007 July 10 16:17

Reviewed by: Azure

Released by: Tanoshimi

Publishing Country: UK

Author: Futaro Yamada, Masaki Segawa

Age Rating: 16+

Page Count: 208

ISBN-13: 978009950474

ISBN-10: 99504740

Summary

Oboro has blinded herself so that she doesn’t have to kill Gennosuke. Gennosuke on the other hand is racing to find out just what has caused their clans to re-ignite their age old battle. The Iga clan itself has other ideas, and despite Oboro’s wishes is determined to kill Gennosuke.

Review

The third volume of Basilisk sees a shift in the tone of the story. Rather than deal with each problem as it occurs Gennosuke decides to take matters in his own hands and negotiate directly with Tokugawa. Gennosuke makes an attempt to negotiate with the Iga once more by returning the scroll. This of course does not go well.

The plot feels a lot firmer in this volume that the previous one, which largely consisted of fighting. The characters have gotten over the shock and are either trying to resolve the situation or take advantage of it. Whilst Gennosuke tries to solve the problem, Tenzen is determined to keep the bloodbath going so that he can seize power whilst Oboro remains defenceless.

The political side of Basilisk is much more interesting than the battles, since this manga is based on a novel it’s easy to see why. The fights tend to get repetitive because each character tends to only have one signature technique they become repetitive very quickly. To give them credit the battles are well thought out, so that the outcomes are believable, this is perhaps why the ninja techniques are so limited so save them from performing last moment secret super moves. In most battles you also know someone will die, which adds some tension. Though as wit the previous volume there are precious few characters you can really feel empathy for.

The artwork remains much the same as previous volumes, whilst the character art is solid the pages have been totally toned so that everything is a similar shade of grey. This makes the pages look murky and makes it a lot harder to read than it should be.

A vast improvement on the previous volume, but like many manga I rate at seven it kept me occupied but it’s not memorable at all.

Rating: 7/10