It has been quite a long time since I dived into any of the Onimusha games (canonically 4 for Playstation 2 and an extra Gameboy Advance Onimusha Tactics) and I was wondering in days where remaster seems the new reveni for gaming publishers, if Capcom (notorious remastering gaming company by the way), would have something store for us.
Well the answer is no and yes… No as a game, but as an anime production.
With the hype and momentum that Netflix is having with anime these days, it was announced that there is a Onimusha anime in development with the tag team of Capcom and Sublimation.
While there is not much details shared, seems that this is a one-shot production or movie if you will and Netflix described the anime as:
“The beginning of the Edo period, Musashi was no longer a young man. He departs with the legendary Oni Gauntlet to defeat Genma. 3D CGI characters and hand-drawn backgrounds create phenomenal visuals. Onimusha is given a new life using modern-day animation technology.”
In other words this is not a representation of the games that follows Hidemitsu Samanosuke Akechi being chosen by the Oni clan to wear the Oni Gauntlet, that let’s him harness the escencess and power of the Genma or the denominc force being led by a demonized Nobunaga Oda or Yūki Hideyasu that went with the alias Soki and was the Black Oni on Onimusha Dawn Of Dreams.
Instead, it is an original story that follows a fictionalized event in the life of legendary Musashi Miyamoto wielding an Oni Gauntlet and as in Onimusha fashion, actor Yoshihiro Mifune is modeled for Onimusha’s Miyamoto.
Is not unusual of Capcom to have historical characters being represented by famous actors in the history of Onimusha (being Dawn Of Dreams a big exception) as Takeshi Kaneshiro was modeled for Samanosuke (Onimusha 1 & 3), Yūsaku Matsuda for Yagyu Jubei on Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny and Jean Reno as Jacques Blanc (Onimusha 3: Demon Siege).
A big contrast compared to Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners relationship, it doesn’t appear that the anime might suggest that we are bound to Onimusha gaming news.