Basilisk: When Love and Duty Go for the Jugular

 I finished Basilisk in a day and a half — the kind of watch that burns slow and leaves ash in your chest. It’s part tragedy, part fever dream. Imagine Romeo and Juliet reborn as ninja heirs in the Sengoku era, where loyalty cuts deeper than any blade.

The Art — Ink and Blood:
There’s something nostalgic in the way Basilisk looks — textured, painterly, and reminiscent of Rurouni Kenshin. The linework feels hand-carved, like every frame could have been pulled from an old scroll. It’s violent, but never senseless. The beauty hides in the ruin.

The Voices — Echoes of Familiar Souls:
I switched between Japanese and English and honestly couldn’t pick a favorite. Both casts breathe life into a doomed world. The English side especially shines — Justin Cook, John Burgmeier, Christopher Sabat, Troy Baker, Brice Armstrong, Laura Bailey — names that shaped early 2000s anime. You can hear shades of Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragon Ball Z, Fruits Basket in their tones, but here they sound older, sadder.

The Story — Love in a World That Doesn’t Allow It:
Two clans, bound by centuries of blood and silence, are forced back into conflict when politics twists the knife. At the heart of it all stand Oboro and Gennosuke — heirs and lovers. They want peace, but the world demands violence. It’s Rurouni Kenshin’s morality and Inuyasha’s yearning woven into a Shakespearean nightmare.

The Weight of It All:
What I loved most wasn’t just the battles or the romance — it was how every character had a story, even the ones who only lived for an episode. The show refuses to draw clean lines between good and evil. Every decision feels heavy, every betrayal justified in its own way.

And the ninja abilities — not stealth or smoke bombs, but grotesque, supernatural talents that border on the divine. They make the fights unpredictable, almost mythic. Paired with the haunting music, each clash feels like the last verse of a doomed poem.

The Heartbreak:
The romance between Oboro and Gennosuke is quiet devastation. You keep hoping they’ll escape their fate, even when you already know they won’t. And somehow, the smaller love stories between the side characters hurt just as much — those flickers of humanity inside the chaos.

The Only Flaw:
It’s short. Too short. I wanted more time in that world, more space for the tragedy to breathe. But maybe that’s what makes it perfect. The story ends exactly where it should — not neatly, but truthfully.

Basilisk is about the cost of peace. The cruelty of devotion. The kind of love that can’t survive its own purity. It’s beautiful, merciless, and unforgettable.