Netflix continues to invest in anime, and it seems to be paying off for them. Not only was the live-action adaptation of One Piece a huge success, but they also keep bringing their own anime productions to the forefront. Especially, they are adapting famous video game franchises. This time, they have chosen a cult Capcom franchise, which may not be the first to come to mind when we think of Japanese anime, but it has great potential for an amazing series. After all, there’s nothing quite like feudal Japan to tell a compelling story.
That’s why Netflix has announced that it will premiere an anime adaptation of Onimusha on November 2nd. This Capcom video game released its first installment in 2001 for PlayStation and is a hack and slash game where players control a samurai who must confront the forces of Oda Nobunaga. With eight installments and a remaster released in 2018 under the name Onimusha: Warlords, it’s a fairly successful franchise in Japan and reasonably successful in the West, although it doesn’t have the massive popularity of Resident Evil.
In the anime, we will follow Miyamoto Musashi, who has been modeled after the famous actor Toshiro Mifune, the favored actor of Akira Kurosawa. Although the synopsis doesn’t provide many details about the story, we do know that it will take place during the Sengoku period, and Musashi will have to carve his path while facing the evil that has engulfed a poverty-stricken Japan. It’s expected that we will see the formidable Nobunaga orchestrating all sorts of mischief in the series.
While the number of episodes for the anime and the studio responsible for it haven’t been specified, it has been highlighted that the series is directed by Takashi Miike. He is a prolific Japanese director who has previously worked on masterpieces such as Ichi The Killer, Lesson of the Evil, and the remake of Hara-Kiri. Therefore, Onimusha is one of those series that we absolutely can’t miss this autumn.
