The Mighty Magiswords

The Mighty Magiswords (マイティ・マジソード) is a 1998 Japanese isekai film directed by Hideo Nakata, from a story by Koji Suzuki. The film stars and  as its main cast and follows the two warriors who go on serious adventures and dangerous quests around the world to find and collect magical swords known as "Magiswords".

The film was succeeded by two direct-to-video films Hoppus the Bold One and Hokusai, the Wish Maker! in 2000 and 2003, respectively.

Plot
Two high schoolers, Vitória Ferreira and Junko Yamamoto, talk about a videotape that was allegedly recorded in Gunma Prefecture and bears a curse that kills the viewer in one week. Yamamoto reveals that a week ago she, her boyfriend Mitsuo, and two other friends watched a strange tape and received a phone call afterward. The two hear the phone ring, but it turns out to only be Yamamoto's mother, much to their amusement. As soon as Ferreira goes back upstairs however, Yamamoto witnesses her TV turn on by itself, and soon thereafter is killed by an unseen force.

The next day, graphic designer Hidemitsu Nakano is almost content with his monotonous life, despite the fact that he doesn't have a girlfriend. During a casual encounter with his colleague Yasuo Tsutsumi at the office, the TV appears behind him and turns on by itself, and an unseen force kills Nakano in the process.

Meanwhile, the cursed video story is being investigated by Yamamoto's maternal aunt, newspaper reporter Ayako Yuasa; so when Yuasa and her young son Shuichi attend Yamamoto's funeral, she learns from some friends of Yamamoto that Mitsuo and Yamamoto's two other friends all died the same night she did, and their bodies were found with their faces twisted in fear. The next day, Yuasa is investigating Yamamoto's for clues when she finds a receipt from a photo development shop. She picks up the unclaimed photos, which show the four friends staying in a rental cabin in Gunma. In one photo, their faces are strangely distorted.

After regaining consciousness, Nakano and Yamamoto discover that they have been reincarnated as the warriors in an unfamiliar world. At the same time, they are the founders of the "Warriors for Hire" team.

Cast

 * as Prohyas/Hidemitsu Nakano
 * as Vambre/Junko Yamamoto
 * Gabriela Sousa as Vitória Ferreira, Yamamoto's best friend from Brazil
 * as Phil the Thief
 * as Ayako Yuasa, a journalist who investigates her niece's death and finds the anime tape.
 * as Yasuo Tsutsumi, Nakano's colleague.
 * as Hoppus/Shuichi Yuasa
 * David Schmidt as Omnibus, a magician and magical being.

Release
The film was released by Toho in Japanese theaters on May 6, 1998, to critical acclaim. An English-dubbed version by, was released by Warner Bros. on September 29, 1998.

A loose Cartoon Network web original adaptation premiered online on May 6, 2015, as well as the interactive games shown in the app Cartoon Network Anything. The film aired on Cartoon Network on September 28, 2016, the day before the series premiere.