Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-den Reference Materials

This post will be continuously updated with gameplay information and minor translations for Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-den, serving as a general reference guide. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.

Please note that this is a work in progress; if anything seems to be missing it might be because it was already mentioned in my old Sengoku Basara 4 reference guide or the one for Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi.

Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi Reference Materials

This post will be continuously updated with gameplay information and minor translations for Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi, serving as a general reference guide. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.

Please note that this is a work in progress; if anything seems to be missing it might be because it was already mentioned in my old Sengoku Basara 4 reference guide.

Thoughts about Sengoku Basara 4

I wasn't originally planning on reviewing Sengoku Basara 4 since I'm not really qualified to describe the technical achievements or provide impartial commentary about the intricacies of its design. Most game reviews seem to focus on mechanics and high level play, whereas I'm nothing more than a weird fanatic who loves the series a little too much.

However, it seems that a few crazy people wanted to know what I thought about it after all the months of hype. I decided to gather my impressions some time ago and the imminent anniversary of the game's release seemed like a good excuse to finally post them. As usual, I haven't structured this post as a review so much as a jumbled stream of consciousness.

One other thing that I should mention is that I mostly play in two-player co-op mode for the first few months of a Sengoku Basara game release; my partner's interest tends to wane more quickly than mine and it's fun to experience the new stories together for the first time. In that respect my opinions on some gameplay decisions might be unusual since two-player mode makes some parts of the game much easier, and others rather more challenging.

Event report: Animate Girls Festival 2014

This weekend, the Animate Girls Festival 2014 (AGF) event was held in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City entertainment complex. AGF is a gaming convention solely targeted towards female fans - in other words, it's a feast of otome games and bishounen-filled anime which don't have to share billing with the big-budget mainstream games aimed at a male audience.

There are a few big brands in the otome gaming world which tend to dominate (e.g. Uta No Prince-sama, Hakuouki, Diabolik Lovers and Starry Sky) but one of the best things about female-orientated gaming is that it tends to be full of obscure titles which don't need huge budgets to generate a loyal fan base. To an outsider, the booths were probably full of similar-looking male hosts sporting colourful hair, ridiculous costumes and sexy poses, but to a fan this was as diverse a concentration of female-orientated content as you could possibly get.

The festival was split into two separate events on the 8th and 9th November 2014, each of which had a staggering amount of special merchandise, stage events and light hearted attractions on offer. With this being the event's fifth year everything was run in a professional way without too much queueing once the early morning crowd began to clear.

Thoughts about Gyakuten Yoshiwara (Forbidden Romance: The Men of Yoshiwara)

I was very surprised to learn that veteran Japanese game company D3 Publisher had recently released an official English (and Chinese) edition for their smartphone visual novel Gyakuten Yoshiwara. The unusual setting caught my eye and it wasn't long before I was downloading the free trial to see what it was like.

The plot of Gyakuten Yoshiwara (since retitled Forbidden Romance: The Men of Yoshiwara) is straightforward; you're a young woman living on an island where there's a huge gender imbalance. The men are so rare that the majority of them live and work in the Yoshiwara pleasure district, selling their nights to lonely girls who are looking for male company or yearning for a child. It's a simple reversal of the many stories of forbidden love between a man and his favourite courtesan which have been staples of the historical fiction genre for years.

Thoughts about Dot Kareshi -We're 8bit Lovers!- I ~Densetsu No Otome~

After some annoying problems getting the game to actually run in the first place, I passed a few idle hours playing through the silly Dot Kareshi -We're 8bit Lovers!- I ~Densetsu No Otome~. It's a Japanese otome game from Rejet which came out last year for Windows PCs.

The premise of the 'Dot Kare' series is that you are a typical female gamer who has spent many hours playing a traditional console-style roleplaying game. Unfortunately, your careless treatment has turned your party members into twisted parodies of the usual RPG staples with major personality flaws.

One day, you find yourself trapped inside the game, where you have to complete a quest with your disgruntled (and rather flirtatious) party in order to find your way back to the real world.

Dot Kareshi's release format is unusual; it's a series of three drama CDs packed with individual visual novels. Each CD/game set includes four different characters - the party in this first volume is composed of Hero (Yuusha), Mage (Mahoutsukai), Priest (Souryo) and Thief. I'm going to use simple English renderings of their names for this mini-review instead of the literal Japanese titles to make it easier to understand. Outside of a single joke the guys don't have names of their own and are referred to exclusively by their job titles.

Thoughts about Jooubachi No Oubou: Kaguya-hen

This post refers back to my previous mini-review of the first title in the 'bee game' series, Jooubachi No Oubou: Menou-hen. There will be spoilers for both games as well as remarks about the games' adult content. Please don't read any further if you're uncomfortable with that.

Jooubachi No Oubou: Kaguya-hen is the second half of the Jooubachi No Oubou story. While Menou was raised in her hive as a princess, her sister Kaguya was cast out and left for dead by those she trusted most. This is the story of Kaguya's struggle to reclaim her birthright no matter how many setbacks she has to face along the way.

First and foremost, I should warn that the game is full of adult content and a considerable number of distressing situations. Sensitive gamers are advised to avoid the series entirely; Kaguya's game is noticeably worse than Menou's and there's a great deal of gore on top of the usual abusive undertones. I can't even begin to list the unpleasant themes which crop up this time around. The official website has demos and sample artwork to give gamers an idea of what to expect.

Thoughts about Jooubachi No Oubou: Menou-hen

For those unfamiliar with Jooubachi No Oubou: Menou-hen, it's an adult PC game aimed at women about a female bee's journey to becoming the new queen of her hive. I know that I have a lot of male readers so if that description makes you uncomfortable please don't read my mini-review. I haven't included anything explicit in my summary but I'm going to be talking about the content of the game nonetheless.

There are spoilers below for all of the content in the game, including the endings.

Thoughts about Diabolik Lovers

The text below contains spoilers for the Diabolik Lovers anime and the first game in the series.

Sengoku Basara 4 Reference Materials (Part 2)

This is the second part of my collection of translated Sengoku Basara 4 reference materials after the first grew too large for a single post. You can see the other part here; it contains menu translations, a stage list and weapon enhancement information.

Sengoku Basara 4 Reference Materials

If I have time, I'll gather my Sengoku Basara 4 information here as a reference guide. News and article translations will remain on my main blog; this summary is just for the main menus and system details for the game itself. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.

This is currently a work in progress. Unlike my usual posts this one will be updated periodically. Please note that as this blog entry became too long for Blogger I have moved the later chapters to a second post.

The Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi additions are in a separate guide here.

An incomplete list of character nicknames in Sengoku Basara

One of the many interesting things about the Sengoku Basara series is how much care the creators put into each character's dialogue. Every character consistently addresses the others (and themselves) in a particular way, which means you can often tell who spoke and who they were speaking to from written text without any context at all. This makes it quite challenging to translate; it's almost impossible to replicate the variety in the original script without resorting to obscure English expressions which sound very strange in a Japanese setting - such as Sasuke addressing Yukimura as 'Guv' rather than his usual 'Danna' in the English adaptation of the manga.

As a result of this careful attention to character interactions, many of the warriors in the games have attracted a number of nicknames over the last eight years. Some of these are based on names (and titles) used by the real-life historical figures; others are inventions used only in Sengoku Basara. And some are nothing more than in-jokes between fans.

In the west, new fans often seem to comment that it's very difficult to learn who all of the characters are. The nicknames don't help and there don't seem to be many resources in English to help people decipher them. I decided to try to put together a list of the most common ones - partly to be helpful, and partly because I was curious to see how many I could remember all by myself. The answer turned out to be 'a lot', though this list is far from complete, and doesn't even touch on honourifics or the multitude of personal pronouns the series employs.

Firstly, a list of nicknames for individual characters. It's hopefully obvious which of these are official in-game nicknames and which are jokes.

103-year-old 103歳
Motonari. A joke based on the age he would actually have been if he were at the Battle of Sekigahara.
Anaguma 穴熊
Kanbee. 'Badger'.
Aniki アニキ
Motochika. 'Older brother', but used more like the slang expression 'bro'.
Benmaru 弁丸
Yukimura. His real-life childhood name.
Bishamonten No Keshin 毘沙門天の化身
Kenshin. Literally 'Bishamonten incarnate'.

Thoughts on why we're probably not getting an English version of Sengoku Basara 4

"I can't wait until it comes out in English!"
"I hope this comes out in the US!"
"I'm gonna get this game as soon as it comes out here!"

Comments like these seem to crop up wherever the new Sengoku Basara 4 trailer is shown. Every time, someone has to break it to the eager fan that the game probably won't be coming to the west, and every time there's surprise and disappointment in their response. It's heartbreaking.

It often feels as though the English-speaking Sengoku Basara community is its own worst enemy. It's necessary to click the following link to read the rest of this post since it's not something everyone wants to hear.

Speculation: Which characters are likely to appear in Sengoku Basara 4?

I thought it might be fun to record my personal hopes for Sengoku Basara 4 before we have more information about what the game will include. This way I can look back on it later and laugh at how optimistic I was during the early days.

Here's some wild speculation based on the little we know so far.

Prediction 1: Every character with a full move set and story from Sengoku Basara 3 or Sengoku Basara 3 Utage will be a playable character in Sengoku Basara 4. 

Event report: A visit to the Capcom Bar

It's no secret that I adore Sengoku Basara. It's the reason I visited the Sengoku Basara karaoke room in Akihabara and the official Capcom shop in Odaiba, and it's a contributing factor to several of the pilgrimages I've made to historical sites in Japan before.

As part of this obsession, one of the locations I made sure to visit on my 2012 trip to Japan was the Capcom Bar, an 'entertainment bar' situated in Shinjuku, Tokyo. This post is mostly going to cover the crazy food my friends and I ordered during our visit, but I'll start by describing the bar itself in case anyone needs help planning a visit one day.

Capcom Bar is located in Shinjuku and might be difficult to find. The easiest way to get there is to navigate to Shinjuku Sanchoume station then take exit B9; it's a long underground walk but hard to get lost that way. A map and list of opening times is kept up to date on the bar's official website.

The first thing which needs to be understood when planning a visit is that the Capcom Bar is very popular. It's so popular that on the day we dined there, a queue had formed which stretched down the road even though the bar wasn't scheduled to open for another hour and a half. If you are a fan of the Biohazard series (Resident Evil), it might be worth trying the separate Biohazard Cafe and Grill S.T.A.R.S. in nearby Shibuya instead.

Everyone in the line ahead was female

Because of the high demand, the bar requires that every visitor reserves a time slot in advance (that's why we were queued up outside to begin with). At the time it was only possible to book in person - slightly annoying, as even though we'd arrived early the queue was so long we had to pick the second time slot of the day, leaving us with a long wait before our meal. Since then, the staff have introduced telephone bookings and Lawson convenience store reservations which should streamline the process.

I'm not sure whether it's still done this way, but we had to complete an order form for our food in advance as well to avoid delays; each time slot is only two hours long so you don't want to waste any time. The names of the menu items are all in Japanese, so if you don't speak the language it's a good idea to check the website before you visit and make a list of all of the dishes you want to order. It will make completing the reservation form much easier. If you can read Japanese, there are detailed menus outside the bar which give much more information about the food than the website. It's quite fun to wait in the lobby area leafing through the menus, making use of the free shaved ice machine and gazing longingly at the merchandise on display.

When our reserved time slot was due to begin the staff rounded everyone up and gave a rousing introduction ("Let's party!") to get all of the guests in the mood for some fun. We were then led inside the Capcom Bar and given time to look around at the decorations bathed in blue neon lighting. Small screens were set up next to the tables to show trailers from various Capcom games and merchandise from Monster Hunter and Sengoku Basara covers all of the available wall space. There were some consoles available too for people who had time to play (nobody did when we were there; the food was too interesting!).

The most prominent Capcom games represented on the menu are Monster Hunter, Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), Sengoku Basara and Biohazard, with Street Fighter and Devil May Cry appearing too. Since my visit a few items from Dragon's Dogma have also been added to the list and there are occasionally special events for other games.

As soon as everyone had settled in, it was time to dine!

Today's acquisitions (26th Feb 2013)

These acquisitions posts are slowing down recently since my anime purchasing has gone on hold for a couple of months (aside from an odd preorder slipping through here and there).

I got some good stuff today. First of all, my preorder for the US version of Hakuoki: Warriors Of The Shinsengumi (Hakuouki Musouroku) arrived. Because I'd purchased it from Amazon, it came with a bandana as a bonus. Aksys are probably my favourite US game company these days with their recent forays into otome titles.

I put the game box on top of Sannan's face for the picture because I don't like him much.

While checking the link for Hakuouki, I noticed that Sweet Fuse: At Your Side (Bakudan Handan) - the next of Aksys' otome games - is already up for preorder on Amazon, so I've added it to my list as well. It looks as though it's going to include some kind of bonus item too. Keep them coming, Aksys!

Hakuouki wasn't the only game-related item to come recently. Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires (Shin Sangoku Musou 6: Empires) also made an appearance along with its GAME-exlusive preorder DLC. Accompanying it are two Sengoku Basara doujinshi, one stunning Someya Rui art book loaded with full colour illustrations and the Haru Comic City 18 event catalogue.

It was unintentional, but I just noticed that I covered up Hisahide's face with the game in this picture. Perhaps I can make a habit of this if I buy enough games.

DVD review: Sengoku Basara Fan Kanshasai ~BSR48 Kaihyou No Utage~

The Sengoku Basara Fan Kanshasai ~BSR48 Kaihyou No Utage~ DVD was finally released for fan club members on 20th December 2012 at ¥3,900. It's still on sale at the Basara-ya now so the next wave of members should be able to pick it up when they join.

Sengoku Basara Fan Kanshasai ~BSR48 Kaihyou No Utage~ was a special 'fan appreciation' event held at Tokyo Mielparque Hall on Saturday 26th January 2012. There were two separate ceremonies held on the same day to accommodate the crowds; one in the afternoon and the other in the evening.

The purpose of the event was to reveal the results of the BSR48 election, a comedic campaign that Capcom ran alongside the release of Sengoku Basara 3 Utage. Buyers of the game were allowed to vote for their favourite warlord, with the winning character receiving three rewards: a starring role in a new drama CD, an internet commercial, and a special 'image video'. The drama CD would also include the characters ranked in second through to seventh place, and there'd be one wildcard participant drawn at random from the characters who ranked either 10th, 20th, 30th or 40th. 45,541 votes were tallied in total and in the end few were surprised to find that Date Masamune won by a comfortable margin. He was joined on the drama CD by Mitsunari, Yukimura, Kojuurou, Sasuke, Motonari, Motochika and Nobunaga. I've listed the full results right at the end of this post for posterity.

News roundup: Sengoku Basara Ichiban Kuji rumours, Sony press event

This post is entirely made up of rumours because actual news has been rather rare lately.

There was a burst of excitement on Twitter the other day when it was discovered that there's a survey on the Ichiban Kuji website which hints at a future Sengoku Basara tie-in. Ichiban Kuji is a national prize lottery which runs in Japan; it's not unlike a raffle. Participants must visit a shop (usually, but not always, one of a particular chain of convenience stores) and purchase a ticket. They're then allowed to draw a prize token from a box. In most cases, you get to take it home with you immediately. Obviously, the more expensive prizes are quite rare and most people will just win something small and cheap. Some of the rare prizes can go for outrageous prices later on, especially if it's a popular series and the tickets sell out quickly.

There are some exceptions, as you can receive serial numbers to enter draws for extra, extremely rare prizes as well once you've participated. It's surprisingly complicated. The instant gratification and ability to see the prizes on the shelves before you buy helps make it a fun way to spend a spare ¥500.

Anyway, one of the gimmicks of Ichiban Kuji is that they regularly cycle through different themes for their draws; one month it might be Fate/Zero, and another it might be Ika Musume. I can't see the survey myself as a Japanese mobile phone email address is required to sign up to the Ichiban Kuji Club so I just have to trust the Japanese rumours. If they're asking fans for feedback on Sengoku Basara items it seems a safe bet that the series will make an appearance in a lottery soon!

It's a shame that participation overseas isn't possible. I'll be relying on the used goods market to grab any of the prizes which catch my eye...

The other piece of major news at the moment is, of course, tonight's Sony press event. It's rumoured to be announcing the Playstation 4 (at last), and one of the many conspiracy theories about the lack of a new Sengoku Basara game announcement has been that Capcom is waiting for Sony to break their silence first. I noticed that series producer KobaP flew to the US yesterday, though given the setting it's probably much more likely he's either there to watch or support a different Capcom title with more western appeal than spring a new Sengoku Basara on a pack of bemused American journalists. Still, I'll be following the live news from the event tonight closely just in case.

I'm quite curious about the PS4 as well, of course. It's just that all of my console purchases are driven by wanting to buy a new game rather than the hardware on its own, so knowing the price and specification isn't anywhere near as exciting as stalking Capcom staff for clues about new titles!

News: Sengoku Basara Card Heroes Matsuri

While Browser Sengoku Basara sadly closed down late last year, the other recent Sengoku Basara mobile game, Mobage's Sengoku Basara Card Heroes, still seems to be going strong. Today, Capcom announced the details of a huge overhaul for the game. To reflect the major changes in today's update, it will now be going by the name Sengoku Basara Card Heroes Matsuri (Festival).

Card Heroes wasn't my favourite of the pair, but it seems to have a reasonably devoted following and it's good to see at least one of the Sengoku Basara mobile games continuing, especially as they're an excellent source of official illustrations in the absence of a new console game.

The relaunch will include new features, such as a twice-daily 'alliance battle', as well as new character abilities and attack modes. Existing game data will be carried across to the new version automatically. Sengoku Basara Card Heroes Matsuri is compatible with smartphones running iOS 4.0+ or Android OS 2.2+, and most featurephones from docomo, au or SoftBank compatible with Flash Lite 1.1. It's free to play (you just need to create a Mobage account), however, there are in-game purchases required for some items. The software is only available in Japanese.

The Card Heroes advertisement from back in 31st July 2012 gives an overview of how to play:

Additional details are available at the 4Gamer website.

Basara Matsuri 2013 ~Haru No Jin~ speculation

As waiting patiently between news updates is no fun, I want to speculate a little! As previously reported, the two-day Basara Matsuri 2013 ~Haru No Jin~ festival will be taking place in Japan on the last weekend in March this year. What follows is my own imagination running wild, not any kind of actual news.

Here's what we know so far (accompanied by vague commentary).

1. Nishikawa Takanori will be appearing as T.M.Revolution, rather than abingdon boys school who performed the most recent song for the series. This might mean nothing at all, however, it might hint that a new song is on the horizon. And why would T.M.R. be releasing a new Sengoku Basara song..?

2. The Matsuri events tend to involve a preview of the next game which is coming out. At the last Matsuri in 2012, however, there was no new game coming up and instead a new stage play was announced. As 2013 is already fully loaded on the live performance side with both Butai Sengoku Basara 3 Utage and the Takarazuka Sengoku Basara lined up, it seems unlikely that there'll be any more announcements of that nature in the near future.

3. It's not impossible that they could rerelease the PSP game yet again and finally add the rest of the Sengoku Basara 3 characters to the roster. However, the PSP games have always been pitched at a wider audience and come at the same time as a new anime release. There's nothing similarly mainstream announced for 2013 - yet.

4. There are a number of other Sengoku Basara developments due at a similar time, including the new dedicated magazine (which was originally dated for the end of March before being changed to the more vague "spring 2013"). The Sengoku Basara Triple Pack is also coming out at the end of March along with some new novels. The first anniversary of the official fan club falls at a similar time, and the Tsuchiura museum tie-in begins in mid-March too. It might be that the highlight of KobaP's Matsuri announcements ends up being the full details of the magazine, which will in turn carry some information on the next project when it comes out. We already know that Masamune will be the cover star of the first issue so if they end up announcing anything in the magazine, could he be a more central figure again in the story of the next game?

5. The new stage play will probably save some kind of announcement for when it finishes in May. Wouldn't it be perfect if there's a new game on the horizon, so that they can announce that the next stage play adaptation will be Sengoku Basara 4 at that time, matching the new game at the peak of its hype?

6. At events where a new game has recently been announced in the past, we're often treated to previews of some of the dialogue live on stage. The main seiyuu guests announced this time are Keiji, Kojuurou, Yukimura, Hideyoshi and Motochika. Nobunaga, Motonari and Sourin will be joining them on the first day and Hisahide, Ieyasu and Mitsunari on the second. For the most part, the guest list is of limited value as it depends on the availability and willingness of the individual voice actors to some extent. I can think of a few interesting new scenes I'd like to see from the selection of characters available.

7. It's worth noting that there has never been a big game announcement at a Basara Matsuri event before. Of course, Capcom might break with tradition at any time. What would fit the usual pattern best would be an announcement in the gaming press a few weeks before the event. Here's an incomplete, very simple timeline I made showing the game announcements:

2005 July: Sengoku Basara is released.

2006 February: Sengoku Basara 2 is unveiled.
2006 July: Basara Matsuri 2006 ~Natsu No Jin~ previews Sengoku Basara 2.
2006 July: Sengoku Basara 2 is released.

2007 March: Sengoku Basara 2 Eiyuu Gaiden (Heroes) is unveiled.
2007 March: Basara Matsuri 2007 ~Haru No Jin~ gives more details on Sengoku Basara 2 Eiyuu Gaiden (Heroes).
2007 July: Sengoku Basara X is unveiled.
2007 October: Basara Matsuri 2007 ~Fuyu No Jin~ previews Sengoku Basara 2 Eiyuu Gaiden (Heroes).
2007 November: Sengoku Basara 2 Eiyuu Gaiden (Heroes) is released.

2008 April: Sengoku Basara X is released (arcade).
2008 June: Sengoku Basara X is released (console).
2008 September: Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes is unveiled.
2008 October: The anime adaptation of Sengoku Basara is announced.

2009 April: Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes is released (and television anime begins).
2009 May: Basara Matsuri 2009 ~Haru No Jin~ announces the first Butai Sengoku Basara.
2009 June: Sengoku Basara 3 is teased.
2009 July: Sengoku Basara 3 is unveiled.

2010 May: Basara Matsuri 2010 ~Haru No Jin~ previews Sengoku Basara 3.
2010 July: Sengoku Basara 3 is released (and second season of the anime begins).

2011 January: Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes is unveiled.
2011 January: Sengoku Basara Fifth Anniversary ~Budoukan No Utage~ event gives more details on Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes.
2011 July: Sengoku Basara 3 Utage is unveiled.
2011 July: Basara Matsuri 2011 ~Natsu No Jin~ previews Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes.
2011 July: Basara Matsuri 2011 ~Natsu No Jin~ gives more details on Sengoku Basara 3 Utage.
2011 July: Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes is released (tie-in with June's anime movie).
2011 November: Sengoku Basara 3 Utage is released.

2012 January: Sengoku Basara HD Collection is unveiled.
2012 August: Basara Matsuri 2012 ~Natsu No Jin~ previews Sengoku Basara HD Collection.
2012 August: Basara Matsuri 2012 ~Natsu No Jin~ announces Butai Sengoku Basara 3 ~Setouchi Kyouran~.
2012 August: Sengoku Basara HD Collection is released.

2013 March: Basara Matsuri 2013 ~Haru No Jin~.

What would I like to see happen in the next two months? First and foremost, the announcement of Sengoku Basara 4 for Playstation 3. I want them to make a huge deal about it and create as many tie-ins as possible. It doesn't matter if it takes a long time before the game is finally available to buy; simply knowing it's coming is enough for the time being.

If not a new game, then a new anime would be wonderful (either a television series, or another movie). Ideally, I'd like it to deal with the characters who haven't yet made their anime debuts. While a full anime would be best, given the current popularity of comedy shorts, an anime adaptation of Mame Sengoku Basara or one of the other manga series seems like a possibility.

The other area where the series is strangely lacking is character songs. I personally own seventy-eight different Sengoku Basara audio CDs and yet there has never been a single character song (that wasn't also a theme song); odd given the popularity of the characters and seiyuu with female fans! Although a lot of stalwart overseas fans would sigh if this ever happened, I'd definitely buy the CDs...

There's a lot of demand for more figurines of the characters as well on the merchandise side. The Sengoku Basara 3 characters don't even have official One Coin trading figures yet to go with the original cast. Another possibility is a second season of the television drama Sengoku Basara -Moonlight Party-, which wouldn't interest me that much (three completely different live action interpretations in the same year?).

Of course, it's very possible that all they'll do at Basara Matsuri 2013 ~Haru No Jin~ is hype the upcoming stage events more and announce some crazy new merchandise tie-ins. We'll have to wait and see!