Onimusha Review: A Bog Standard Samurai Showdown

Of all of the video game franchises to get an anime adaptation, did anyone guess that the Onimusha series would receive one?

While I personally never grew up playing the Onimusha games, I did play the first game a few years ago. Despite having seen many games that have evolved from Onimusha, I still found the game fun and exciting to play through for a nice weekend escapade. It felt like a half step between Devil May Cry and Resident Evil and was fairly significant for its time by being the first big hit for the then new PlayStation 2. While there hasn’t been a new installment in the series since the sixth generation of consoles, just a remaster back in 2018, it’s a series that I think deserves some more recognition from Capcom and the general public. I don’t know why Capcom decided to revitalize the series as an anime, but it was definitely a choice.

In truth, given how busy the Fall anime season has been with the series finale of Attack on Titan, the return of Spy x Family, and exciting new titles like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, I totally forgot that Onimusha even came out. The series has done almost nothing to differentiate itself from its peers or make anyone interested in watching it. After watching all eight episodes of the series in a single sitting, I can safely say that if you also forgot that this anime was coming out then you’re not missing out on much. It’s not as bad as other Netflix Original anime, but that’s a low, low bar to overcome.

Taking place in Edo Japan, the series follows the real-life samurai Musashi Miyamoto (Alain Mesa) as he journeys across Japan to vanquish demons known as the Genma. The Genma have been summoned by a samurai named Iemon (Robbie Daymond) for some unknown nefarious purpose, so Musashi not only needs the assistance from other samurai on his quest to stop Iemon, but a weapon powerful enough to stop the summoned Genma. Enter, the Oni Gauntlet. This gauntlet feeds and grows stronger the more Genma have been slaughtered at the cost of the user’s humanity, and the more Musashi uses it, the more he turns into an Oni. Will Musashi be able to stop Iemon and his plans, will he be slaughtered, or worse, will he become an Oni?

This may be because it’s been a long time since I’ve played any of the Onimusha games, but most of the Onimusha anime feels like a stereotypical samurai action series. The first episode directly homages Seven Samurai and from there it falls into every trope you would expect from a story involving samurai and pays homage to several other titles that have become foundational to the genre. That generalized experience also extends to the anime’s connection to the video game series. It’s so generalized that you could swap key terms like “Oni” and “Genma” with any other conventional monster or demon group and you would lose nothing in the process. There aren’t really any fan-favorite Genma that make appearances in the series, like my boy Guildenstern, just your standard zombies, monsters, and resurrected samurai.

To be fair, not every series needs to be a revolutionary reimagination of a genre. I’ve enjoyed plenty of anime that are fairly standard executions on classic genres, but Onimusha doesn’t really have anything to separate it from the pack. The most notable aspect of the series is its fight choreography, with each action scene having a certain amount of grit and fluidity with its carnage. I chalk that up to the fact that famed action director Takashi Miike also served as chief director the series, which does help to differentiate its fight scenes, for the most part, from its contemporaries. The violence never goes into Ichi the Killer territory, but it’s notably a lot more mature and visceral than the average anime, like when a character’s flesh is burned to the point where exposed muscle pulsates on their body.

Speaking of, Onimusha is a series that isn’t afraid to kill its cast. By the end of the first episode, two of the seven characters we’re introduced to are dead and plenty more bodies will fall by the time the credits roll on the last episode. In a way, it’s exciting as it generates an atmosphere that no one is safe, but where the series stumbles is that we don’t really get any time to care about its cast. What good is a sense of vulnerability when we don’t care about anyone? The series frames Musashi as the main character and follows the internal struggles he has with utilizing the Oni Gauntlet so frequently, leaving the rest of the characters behind. It got to the point where I stopped remembering their names and personalities and instead started identifying them by the voice actors who play them. As far as the English dub is concerned, it’s a good cast and a who’s-who of current voice acting talent who all play their parts well, but you just wish they had more material to work with here.

As the series progresses and it becomes more and more clear that Onimusha is content with just being a typical samurai story, I started to become bored by what I was watching. Nothing was really sticking out and grabbing my attention, at least in a good way. Onimusha primarily uses CGI and when characters aren’t engaged in viscous swordplay, they’re stiffly moving around like they’re marionettes on strings. The rare exception is the comedy of the series, which seems to be almost entirely relegated to the sixth episode with an antagonist so cartoonishly over-the-top and with animation that was arguably too fluid that he was this close to having cartoon sound effects associated with each action he made. It isn’t visually appealing, but it at least made me laugh, which is something more than I can say about every other attempt at humor the series made.

Despite binging the show the exact same day I’m writing this, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything notable about its plot or moments that stand out. There’s a twist in the final episode that was hinted at in the first episode that I didn’t think they would follow through on, but after that revelation Onimusha just kind of shrugs its shoulders about it and wraps itself up without ever really addressing it. There are just so many missed opportunities to really elevate the series into something special that both newcomers and fans can enjoy, but seems to take the easy way out at every opportunity.

Again I have to stress, Onimusha isn’t bad. It’s just unremarkable. The themes it explores about war, honor, and humanity are all surface level examinations and the series doesn’t really step outside of its wheelhouse. This is a show that you can just have on in the background and not really pay attention to what’s happening and still get the gist of the plot. In fact, by the time the first episode concluded, I had already predicted the general tone and direction of the series and lost almost all interest in what I was watching by the time we reached the last two episodes. In an industry that’s constantly trying to raise the bar and set new standards, Onimusha is frustratingly complacent. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of the series, I’m pretty sure that Onimusha fans deserve a better adaptation than this.