Basilisk

Basilisk is an action, adventure, drama, tragedy, dark fantasy, Japanese anime series. It started with a manga series, which was written by Masaki Segawa and published by Kodansha. It originally ran from February 4, 2003 to June 15, 2004, and it lasted for 5 volumes in total. After that came the first season of the anime. It was directed by Fumitomi Kizaki, written by Yasuyuki Muto, musically composed by Kou Nakagawa, and produced by Studio Gonzo. It originally aired from April 12, 2005 to September 20, 2005, and it lasted for 24 episodes in total. After that came a sequel manga series, titled Basilisk:  The Oka Ninja Scrolls, which was written by Masaki Yamada, illustrated by Tatsuya Shihira, and published by Kondansha. It originally ran from July 24, 2017 to Present, and it has 2 volumes in total so far. And after that came the second season of the anime series, titled Basilisk:  The Oka Ninja Scrolls, which was directed by Junji Nishimura, written by Shinsuke Onishi, musically composed by Go Sakabe, and produced by Studio Seven Arcs. It originally ran from January 8, 2018 to June 18, 2018, and it lasted for 24 episodes in total.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Incredible animation.
 * 2) Excellent cast of characters.  They aren't all incredibly complex, but most of them are interesting, likable, relatable, and have a certain charm to them to keep them engaging.
 * 3) Outstanding action scenes.
 * 4) Basilisk does well with killing off important characters.  It gives us enough with the protagonists to like them, so when they kill them off we not only care a great deal, but it also shows us how dangerous that this world really is.
 * 5) Marvelously well-written and engaging drama which makes you feel for the characters weather they're happy, in combat, or suffering.
 * 6) Good voice acting in both sub and dub.
 * 7) The series is so well written that even if you are a person who doesn't necessarily agree with the morals that the series presents, you're still able to get sucked into the story and the character's struggle.
 * 8) Great soundtrack.
 * 9) Basilisk has slight supernatural overtones with the powers that the different characters possess which serve nice to spice things up, but somehow don't get in the way of most of the action being very grounded and realistic.
 * 10) Amazing pacing.
 * 11) Despite the villains themselves not being that interesting, the final battle between them at the heroes are still some of the best in the whole series.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) One of the weakest parts of the series is the villains.  In both seasons the main villains just came off as too cartooney, over the top, and shallow to be relatable.
 * 2) Speaking of villains, the ending of season 2 was really disappointing.  Oda Nobunaga revived, which made it seem like they were leading into him being the main villain in a third season, or at the very least the characters having an epic battle with him, but that didn't happen, he was killed off kind of pathetically.