Netflix has dropped the first look at its upcoming anime adaptation of Capcom's Onimusha video game, based on the video game company's 9th best-selling franchise.
The anime series will follow Miyamoto Musashi, a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku and Edo period who was famous for his undefeated duel record and founding of the Niten Ichi-ryū style (two-sword style) of katana swordsmanship.
The character is modeled, using the likeness of famed Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. Known for starring in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Mifune's other standout role was portraying Musashi in director Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy.
Musashi is typically not the main protagonist in the Onimusha series, however, he did appear as a playable character in the 2003 PS3 game, Onimusha Blade Warriors.
Prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (Blade of the Immortal, Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins) is overseeing the series which is being produced at the anime studio, Sublimation.
The studio specializes in CG animation and previously worked on Netflix's Dragon's Dogma anime.
Shinya Sugai (Dragon's Dogma) is directing the anime. Akio Otsuka (All For One in My Hero Academia, Blackbeard in One Piece) is voicing Musashi.
The anime doesn't appear to be a direct adaptation of any particular Onimusha game as none of the main protagonists or antagonists from the series' 9 games appear to be present in the anime.
The Onimusha games are action-adventure, hack-and-slash combat games that retell historical battles and wars from the Sengoku period (Warring States period) adding a supernatural twist.
The game sees the main character wielding the power of the oni (a Japanese term for demon) in order to combat other yokai (supernatural elements). In the trailer, Musashi appears to be using a version of the demon gauntlet Samanosuke Akechi wielded in 2001's Onimusha: Warlords.
Capcom's "Onimusha," the landmark survival action video game series set in Japan’s feudal Sengoku period, is being adapted into an anime series that will start streaming from Thursday, November 2, only on Netflix. Directed by Takashi Miike, this ambitious series will focus on Miyamoto Musashi, who is modeled after Toshiro Mifune, the Japanese film icon known around the globe. This is the beginning of an intense series full of realistic action in which Musashi's blade slices through evil as he traverses a land plagued by poverty.