Takeda Shingen (1988)

An English navigator becomes both a player and pawn in complex political games in feudal Japan.

In a land controlled by feudal barons, a great warrior and a young boy embark on a journey across a dangerous land to find enlightenment. A genre-bending martial arts series very loosely based on the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West.

During the Sengoku period, there are many factions constantly at war. One of these is led by a one-eyed man named Date Masamune and another by the imposing Takeda Shingen. The latter has a fiercely loyal subordinate named Sanada Yukimura who goes head to head against Date Masamune multiple times, but the battles between them tend to get interrupted. One such battle occurs when both men try to go after another leader named Imagawa, and they’re forced to break off their heated duel when Imagawa attempts to flee the scene with his body doubles. Yukimura and Masamune go after separate Imagawas, but all of the doubles are killed by a third party, and when their paths cross again, they are in front of the menacing Oda Nobunaga and his army. It was Nobunaga’s subordinates that killed those body doubles, and Nobunaga himself proceeds to kill the real Imagawa with a shotgun blast to the head.

In the early Meiji era, Shujiro, once known as an undefeated samurai, decides to participate in a deadly survival game to save his family and villagers.

A young orphan named Biwa is taken in by the powerful Taira Clan—also known as the Heike—after their leader witnesses her extraordinary psychic abilities. Unfortunately, what she predicts is a future of bloodshed, violence, and civil war. Inspired by the 12th-century epic tale Heike Monogatari.

Young Tatsumi travels to the capital of the Empire in order to earn money for his starving people and encounters a world of unimaginable depravity, dominated by the ruthless Prime Minister who controls the child Emperor. Tatsumi is recruited by Night Raid, a group of assassins dedicated to eliminating corruption by mercilessly killing officials and privileged nobles.

A villainous masked wrestler becomes a hero for the sake of protecting the orphanage in which he was raised.

On the front lines of the war, Tanya Degurechaff, blond hair, blue eyes, and porcelain white skin, commands her squad with lisping voice. Actually, she is one of Japan's most elite salary men, reborn as a little girl into a world of magical warfare after angering a mysterious being who calls himself God.

In the Warring States period, young orphan Xin vows to aid King Zheng of Qin in his quest to unify China by becoming a general himself.

The story of World War II told through the intertwining fates of ordinary people from all sides of this global conflict as they grapple with the effect of the war on their everyday lives.