Capcom have had a lot of franchises over the years, but not all have seen the success of, say, Mega Man or Street Fighter. Resident Evil is another of their biggest IPs, and a bunch of Capcom's series were originally meant to be RE titles before being spun off into their own thing. Devil May Cry was famously based on early concepts for RE4, Dino Crisis is just RE with dinosaurs and Onimusha is RE but you play as a samurai.
Originally called Sengoku Biohazard, it was meant to be a RE spinoff set in a ninja house full of traps. It was meant to be released for the doomed Nintendo 64DD expansion, but when that was canned it was renamed Onimusha and released on PS2 in 2001. It has the same fixed camera angles and awful English voice acting as RE, but is set in feudal Japan and focuses more on melee combat as you cut down demons.
Since the first game there's been a sequel with an awesome theme tune, a Smash Bros clone with Mega Man and Zero as unlockable characters, a third game starring French actor Jean Reno as a modern-day Parisian cop who gets time-warped to feudal Japan to fight oni, and a fourth game in 2006 that itself had two manga tie-ins and a CG movie that was more or less a cutscene compilation. There was talk about a live-action movie at one point, but since that last game Capcom have been sitting pretty quietly on the series, with only a few references in games here and there instead of trying to reinvigorate the franchise.
The first game was remastered and rereleased on modern systems as Onimusha: Warlords in 2019, which must have done a good job on some level at getting people interested in the series again since they recently announced it's getting a brand new anime, produced by Dragon's Dogma studio Sublimation Inc.. Dragon's Dogma director Shinya Sugai will be directing, but the series' chief director is none other than prolific director Takashi Miike, the man behind Audition, 13 Assassins, Ichi the Killer, Ace Attorney, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Like a Dragon and scores of other movies including many manga and video game adaptations.
The anime seems to be an original story set in the world of Onimusha, and continues the series tradition of having a fictionalized version historical figure from that period portrayed with the likeness of a famous Japanese actor. In this case, legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi appears as the main character, based on frequent Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune.
Samurai-themed games are pretty popular these days, so I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom are using the anime as an opportunity to see if fans are interested in a new instalment in the series. I'd love to see a brand new Onimusha built in the RE Engine, terrible voice acting and all. What do you think of the series? Let us know below!
