The opening episode executes a blood oath that most anime only dream of: a feudal battle that feels genuinely consequential, where a supernatural curse births eight scattered souls with nothing but violence and incomplete purpose in common. After that, the OVA fractures, different animation teams, uneven pacing, episodes that feel like they're adapting different source material entirely. What saves it is that the best episodes remember what the novel understood: these eight are not heroes bound by destiny, but broken people carrying pieces of a single curse, and watching them collide across feudal Japan feels like reading something old and dangerous that nobody bothers with anymore.

Feudal Japan bleeds with war as the Awa clan teeters on the edge of annihilation, hunted by a rival clan empowered by demonic forces. Salvation arrives in the form of the family dog, who returns with the enemy warlord's severed head but demands an impossible price: marriage to the lord's daughter. The unnatural couple are killed before their eight pups are born, and those unborn souls are reborn as eight warriors. These eight Dog Warriors emerge across the violent landscape, walking separate roads stained with blood and driven by revenge. Fate gradually pulls them toward one another, their individual paths converging into something greater. Together they embody the eight virtues of bushido, uniting to slay the demons and redeem their clan. The result is an action and adventure saga where personal vendettas intertwine with supernatural forces.