Legend of the Dog Warriors

Amazon.com

Based on a serial novel by Kyokutei Bakin (1767-1848), The Hakkenden is a sprawling samurai epic with supernatural elements. During the civil wars of the 15th century, Lord Satomi offers his daughter's hand to whomever brings him the head of a rival lord. His dog Yatsufusa appears with the head, and Princess Fuse insists on honoring the bargain. Although Fuse and Yatsufusa are killed in the first episode, they set the karma in motion for a group of eight warriors. These disparate ronin are linked to eight crystal beads from Fuse's shattered Buddhist rosary, each of which is inscribed with one of the traditional Confucian virtues: Brotherly Affection, Filial Piety, Faith, Loyalty, Wisdom, Proper Form, Duty, Sympathy.

Although the Dog Warriors share a common destiny, they usually act in twos and threes, rather than as a group, when they battle corrupt and drunken lords, ghost-soldiers, a cat-demon, and the spell cast by an enchanted flute. The tangled story line offers the requisite duels, battles, tearful separations, reunions, and defiant stances, plus a number of otherworldly visions, including a mysterious figure with a scarlet parasol, the magic beads, crimson pinwheels, and a blizzard of symbolic cherry blossom petals. Although the look of the film is often rich, the animation is extremely uneven, with the appearance of the characters sometimes changing within individual scenes. The results land somewhere between Samurai X: The Motion Picture and Sword for Truth. Rated 16 Up: Graphic violence, grotesque imagery, sexual situations, minor profanity. --Charles Solomon

Description

During the war-torn feudal wars of Japan, the Awa clan faced certain extinction from a rival clan backed by demonic forces. However, a careless promise by their lord leads to both salvation and disgrace when their family dog brings back the head of the enemy warlord and insists upon marrying the lord's daughter! Their unnatural union bears fruit, but when they are both killed, the eight unborn pups are reincarnated as the eight Dog Warriors - The Hakkenden. As they slowly find each other and come together as a group. These eight warriors, who represent the eight separate aspects of the Bushido, engage in bloody battles with demonic entitles and evil samurai in the final attempt to redeem their clan!

Deluxe DVD Box Set contains all 13 OVA (Original Animation Video) episodes. Bilingual (English and Japanese) DVD with optional English subtitles.

Customer Reviews:

Avoid at all costs!.......2006-01-22

Worst anime I have ever seen. Don't be fooled by the neat looking cover. I'm going to say I'm writing a harsh review on this title to try to save people from buying it.

I find the other reviews here to be pretty ridiculous. Avoid this anime like the plague. I've been an anime fan for fourteen years and this is one the most poorly and cheaply animated things I have ever seen. So what if it's based on Japanese folklore? You would honestly be better off buying a book then buying this anime. If its Japanese culture and so on you're interested in there are much better anime to watch then this one. Spend your money on something else- it's garbage. My Oriental History major friend finds it garbage, so don't buy it for that reason.
The animation in Legend of Dog Warriors goes from "could stand it" to "so horrible I'd rather be wounding myself". It's so horrible you can't even keep track of what is going on and who the characters are, since in every other episode the character's appearance completely changes. The storyline is had hope but there are simply too many terrible and horrible things in this anime to even make you want to try to understand it for the sake of the story.
The animation of this anime is not amazing, nor is it true art. I would take a strong guess and say most of this anime was send over for cheap animation in Korea. To the people that understand what that means, you know what this looks like.
As for buying this anime because it's a good samurai-based anime. Yeah right. My favorite anime is historical and samurai anime, this anime puts those to shame. This is not even on the top 200. You can, again, find so many other anime to watch with samurai that is a billion times better than this even at its worst. Do not waste your money and more importantly your time on this piece of trash anime show. It's not a classic and it's never been one. It's terrible. If you still feel like you need to see this anime, RENT IT. Do not buy it.

Its the animation. That's why you should take a look. .......2005-07-15

I know story matters." Hakkenden" does have an interesting premise. But Please! Only use the storyline as a springboard to watch some truly magnificent animation in this set though.
I'll be blunt in saying that most of the time the animation is mediocre. Often varying from scene to scene. But just utilize the storyline to breeze through this muck. OK ...
What your really here to view are episodes 1,9,4 and 10 (10 being the most important). These episodes are beatuiful and truly briliant pieces on their own. They should have their own DVD cases. These episodes are truly bizarre in the fact that the animation in these episodes have no connection design wise, but for the clothes on the character's backs and the Japanese backdrop. The greatest estimation is that the purpose of this OVA series was to test each indivudal animation director's limits and style. In the end this choice doesn't lead to a complete and whole series, but it does create some of the most beautiful, masterful and ultimately individual animation in any series during the 90's. Be honest good animation in a series isn't even an option in America unless you send it over to Korea, Japan, or the Philippines anyway.
I won't go into detail on every episode mentioned, but I will have to section out episode 10. It is without a doubt the single most brilliant animation in any series I have ever viewed. Its like a short film in an ANIMATED SERIES. Most animated series are known for cost cutting and quick animation techniques, but episode 10 has no hints of this. The animation has purpose and flows with a realism unheard of in studio driven animation, on any side of the world. The entire episode is animated by one man, Ohira Shinya. The closest link I could make with Shinya's style is Bill Plympton, but it's not even close. Shinya's style has a hyper realistic kinectic charge, making it all its own. To see this episode alone gives you reason to buy or rent this series. Shinya's technique can also be viewed in the enitre skateboard sequence in "Kid Story" Animatrix, the "Kill Bill" animated sequence (Nishii's father fighting the mob), "Samurai Champloo" episodes 14 and 21 (most notably the cool gun sword duel w/ Jin in 14) and the amazing whale escape sequence in the already amazing "Mindgame" (I believe he is due credit for the rocket butt scene in the final escape shot. I'm crying).
I also mention "Mindgame" towards the end of this lengthy review to recognize Masaaki Yuasa ("Mindgame" Director) as Layout artist and animation Director on the "Hakkenden" series. You can see Shinya's influence on Masaaki's work. It's full of motion and life.

...
Whew

I'm obviously a fan of the series and animation. Guess I'm a little biased. Let me pepper the argument with some negative facts. The stories are intriguing to a point, but I wouldn't call them splediferous by any means. The whole ... fate ... thing has been done to death. Maybe. After episodes 1 and 2 the plots revolves around all the character meating (ha meat) up for one last battle. The episodes I didn't mention are fun but only to pass the time till a good episode pops up. It took me a couple viewings to keep up with the narration for some reason also. And don't listen to the English dub! See. I just saved your life. There ... Oh! And its definitely not a kid safe program. Some blood and stuff. Guess that covers all he bases.
Well there's nothing more to say about this series then to give it a try. There is some gold in this set and some dirt but just dig ... stupid metaphors. Some of the animation is mediocre, but the good outweighs the bad by a grand margin. Fellow animators rejoice at episode 10.

Legend of the Dog Warriors- Unusual and generally enjoyable.......2005-06-04

This is the story of eight men linked by a common destiny, based on a series of novels, which are in turn based on Japanese mythology. The whole thing has a very old world feel to it, which makes sense if one goes in with this information. The look of the animation will be particularly enjoyed by those who are fond of ukio-e prints from the eighteen hundreds and earlier. The animation style resembles these watercolor prints much more than it resembles traditional anime, which is perhaps why some anime fans find it jarring.

That said, with the first episode of disk three, I almost put it down. That alone lost the fifth star from me. They clearly had new "artists", and the already complex plot was made even harder to follow by the fact that the characters didn't look like themselves at all. After an episode and a half of that, it got back on track, although the earliest episodes are still the most aesthetically pleasing.

Regarding the story, yes it is complex and at times, hard to follow. It is rich and full of symbolism that might not be familiar to everyone, myself included. If one gets lost, there is a "blow by blow" in the bonus features that will explain it all, until disk three. The hardest thing to keep track of is certainly the neverending shell game known as "who has which bead NOW?" This is an important detail if one assumes that the character holding the symbolic bead is supposed to represent that virtue.

I should make a note of the music. It's beautiful. Anime music usually makes me twitch. There are no little girl voices singing off key. There are no weird half English vocals. Just pleasant instrumentals which set the tone admirably.

Many anime stereotypes are not present in this series. I'd reccommend it to fans of Japanese art, or perhaps of the film "Seven Samurai" before I'd reccommend it to an anime buff.

Nelly B Reviews "The Hakkenden".......2005-05-28

Imprimis, I would like to say to all of those who, in previous reviews, trashed The Hakkenden for its "bad animation" and "lack of action": You are missing the point.

The Hakkenden is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is neither the animation nor the action that make a great anime, it is the story; and The Hakkenden is certainly not lacking in that department. Besides, the animation isn't that bad at all; and neither is the action to storyline ratio. (Although, I admit, I would have loved to have seen Aboshi fight a little more than he did, but that's just because he is such a badass)

If you enjoy tales of redemption, filled to the brim with involving characters, supernatural intrigue, bloodthirsty demons, and samurai action, then The Hakenden is the series for you.

It is clear that those who scoffed at the series due to the fact that the animation wasn't top notch, and that people weren't being chopped apart by bloodsoaked katanas every five seconds, lack the level of maturity and openmindedness that a tale such as this one demands of its viewers.

OK movie.......2004-06-25

Plot and story was good, animation is lacking, action is lacking, some of the eposides just drag on with nothing really happening then everything happens all at once then the eposide is over.

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