Not to be confused with the amazing 1993 anime, Ninja Scroll, The Basilisk: Ōka Ninpōchō novel is a sequel to Futaroh Yamada's original Kōga Ninpōchō (The Kouga Ninja Scrolls) novel. The story is set 10 years after Kōga Ninpōchō in 1626. The original won a bunch of awards, and was pretty great. The only question is why the hell it took 12 years to make a follow up. There is a lot of anime to choose from these days, but a ton of it is kind of bush-league; hopefully, this one will do justice to the source material.
The novels follow the Iga and Kouga clans, who have been sworn enemies for more than four hundred years. A tenuous truce is finally established, called "the Hanzo Hattori truce", and serves as the only thing keeping the two families from all-out war. Under the order of Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa, the truce is dissolved, and shit is about to hit the fan. Ten ninja from each clan must fight to the death in order to determine who will be the next Tokugawa Shogun, with the winning clan earning themselves a thousand year rule. But in a Romeo and Juliet style twist, a member of each clan, Oboro of the Iga clan and Gennosuke of the Kouga clan have fallen in sweet, ninja love. Of course, they are now pitted against each other, and we get to see if their love will keep them from stabbing each other to death.
The trailer is super short, more of a tease than anything, but you can get a good look at the anime style and the quality, which is top notch. Hopefully, we will see this bad boy in 2018, as no release date is set.
