Yasuke! A wild samurai anime? or a complete mess. So get this
You have Japan's first black samurai. Let's also toss in magic.
Some discount Gundams too. They love twilights or war Wolf chick too. You know,
avatar is popular so why not toss it in! 12 episodes? No,
let's give Mappa challenge with half that. So go ahead and Colossal smash that like,
and let's try to dive into this. This new Netflix anime. Is it worth your time?
The premise of this anime,
or at least the main character is actually based on a real life figure.
Japan's one and only black samurai. The introduction to this begins right away,
jumping into Yasuke already having been a samurai for a while
now. You got a historic samurai battle taking place with magic and Mech.
Unfortunately, Yasuke aside is getting pushed back.
Ultimately Yasuke is even the one that helps to end his lord's life,
which is something that eventually troublesome years later,
the actual story you get in these six episodes actually takes place 20 years
after this big battle. Yasuke has given up the sword.
Instead he's drinking every day,
he's working a boat to get by and really just laying it easy in this remote
Japanese village,
you really spend a story flipping through two different time periods,
the present day,
and sometimes seeing the past that are flashbacks that Yasuke has. Like times
when he was actually at his prime as a samurai, which honestly,
I really found a lot more interesting than the story you are given.
Unfortunately, this short anime has a ton of issues.
First off for the characters. There really are just like two.
Are any of them likable? You do have Yasuke it's been 20 years later.
I'm guessing the guy's in his forties or fifties.
The guy actually seems very similar to Joe from the current season,
he's gone through some trauma. He's dealing with his demons,
despite giving up the sword.
Something happens that pushes him back into the ring or in this case sword
battles. Second character,
a girl you may love like Gabi turns out she is a superpower little girl,.
Unfortunately she's gotten sick. Maybe got in the rona. Now, the reason Yasuke
has he been involved with this little girl,
is that the mom actually asked him for some help to help take the little girl to
this remote location, to see this doctor. And let me just say,
I did not like this girl by the end of this.
And I was trying. Right at the beginning, you do see the mother getting killed.
Oh, who knew it was Disney making this. thing is the girl doesn't even seem to really
care. I mean, if you don't care about your mom dying, why should we?
After this moment,
it really just becomes a road trip with the superpower psychic girl.
and Yasuke. This overpower and a little girl pretty much has X-Men abilities
that keep on getting stronger and stronger as the story progresses.
And unfortunately this is really where the trouble starts. Unfortunately,
the story really becomes more about this little girl than Yasuke. In story
She actually admits that she doesn't even need Yasuke.
The guy could go on back to drinking, doing whatever he wanted,
not putting himself at risk for the little girl, but no,
she wants him to tag along because she's lonely. For Yasuke
I do want to say the anime gave you the foundation for an interesting character,
but it feels like the just didn't do enough for him. Throughout the episodes
you keep on saying this guy flashing back to his past, for example,
when he switched over from being a servant? Yeah.
"Servant", into ultimately the path that would make him into Japan's first black
samurai. At the beginning of this,
I thought I was going to get really annoyed with that.
But then seeing the actual main story that was given,
I would have much seen that Yasuke at his prime. Yasuke.
doing the work struggling. I mean,
of course there were going to be people that didn't like seeing this guy as a
samurai or really just in samurai gear. So right here, you really have the biggest sin.
The story they chose was unfortunately, really not interested,
like screw this little X-Men girl.
I want to know more about Yasuke. Then the biggest second sin committed at the
same time. Fine. You don't have to have the ultimate God tier story
but at least give me likable characters,
which is a shame since that story gave you characters that could have been
likable. You have Yasuke. In the past you do see
Nobunaga that eventually made him into a samurai.
You guys seem like a chill dude. From the bounty hunters going after them.
Perhaps I'm reaching for a scraps,
but actually like the Russian thick bear chick. Oh,
was it supposed to be a werewolf? I don't know,
but getting back to Yasuke and even the little girl,
here's a different problem besides not getting fleshed out enough.
Unfortunately,
these two don't really seem to ever face a real challenge or struggle in the
story. They show you enough of Yasuke's past.
There really shouldn't be a surprise.
This guy not having trouble versus normal samurai
but then fighting shape-shifters mutants, super power, people with demons,
the tic bear lady, I'm like,
they're eventually gonna reveal that Yasuke has some super power? At points
you see this guy battling out with them jumping and doing these super powered
moves? Like I'm sorry that Yasuke just train on his days off for decades,
a guy had given up the sword. Really just drinking, taking it easy,
not to mention the guy who's in his forties or fifties at this point.
At one point in the story Yasuke
gets beat up to the point of almost dying, bleeding out.
And it was really expecting for one of the superpowered individuals to heal him
up. But no, the guy just sleeps it off and he's AOK the next day,
like I know this is supposed to be fantasy with scifi elements,
but at least be consistent with the rules you've set up.
You do know that Mappa is the studio behind them.
Did they perhaps set up the bar too high? Over hyping show? I mean,
besides recently doing Attack on Titan season four and Jujutsi Kaisen
they've done Dororo and Taiso samurai they're kicking with zombieland saga
airing right now. For the music department,
the characters in the story were lacking
So it was really hoping this would at least make up for it a little bit.
Unfortunately,
I found it really silent or just non-existent. it was that not notable.
There might've been one piece I liked,
but that wasn't thoroughly another letdown. But how about the animation? I mean,
this is Mappa studio. No surprise really no God tier animation scene here.
Even past that. No wonderful stuff like seen
Jujutsu Kaisen or Attack on Titan season four. As a positive.
I can say that at least it did look consistent.
I wasn't expecting the animation to dip at some points notably with Yasuke,
but I really didn't notice it if it did for the actual fight scenes. I'm sorry,
but this did not deliver again, perhaps because you had the Mappa stamp on this,
but the stuff you see here,
it looks like it was done by some bottom tier studio. You know,
those seasonal anime that are right at six or less on my anime list. Yeah.
The stuff seen here, it gives me a vibe from that. And trust me,
I've seen my fair share of those.
Another issue that I thought at the beginning was that the pacing was way too
quick. Felt like the similar issue I had with Attack on Titan season four.
like fricking give me a minute to take it in it. You got no excuse,
but instead the opposite happened.
They seem like they were racing through their lines,
which really gets into the voice actor issue. I actually realized later,
this was an issue since the anime prioritized the English dub.
Now you have the Japanese dialogue suffering due to it vastly
being different in a lot of cases. For any of you dub Watchers that seen the
English version or the other version let me know how it was.
I have seen dub Watchers being vocal about hating, how Yasuke sounded bored,
throughout this. I felt that way from the trailer,
but honestly I really don't have the ear for it.
I think the last of dubbed anime I watched was Ghost in the shell.
I've seen many illnesses and nothing like this for other weird pacing issues.
You do have a weird transition in the story from episode four to episode five,
like, Hey, the main issue of revolving around the little girl has been resolved,
I guess. And Yasuke is like, let me go fight in this war now. I had to go back.
I thought I missed an episode or two, but were there any positives?
I don't want to be overly negative about this.
I think at the very least Yasuke will succeed
letting people know there was a real life black samurai.
You could go ahead and check out the Wiki page on him. Unfortunately,
that tends to happen with history
there's almost nothing known about him. At the same time
I do need to mention that Afro samurai already did something similar for Yasuke.
The design for Afro was based on him after all of them. I guess,
throughout the series of backgrounds look nice,
which almost seems like false praise.
And so it seems like a given for anime nowadays,
most animate studios outsource art work to a different studio anyway,
for this Mappa studio used bamboo studio Easter and even JC staff is credited
for episode three. At the end of the day, how could you improve this?
And definitely chime below. I think being longer definitely would not have hurt.
I mean, forget about being great. How many anime struggle being good?
with only 12 episodes. With more episodes,
you really could have fleshed out Yasuke. Instead of flashing back to him,
just spend an entire episode with him in the past or open up with that.
Like don't joke
I would've much rather focus on Yasuke him trying to become this samurai instead
of being the bodyguard for this kid, or if you really wanted to do this story,
spend the first six episodes fleshing him out in the past.
Let us know why we should care about this world.
A super easy fix was to get rid of the discount Gundam. Who thought that was a
good idea?
It felt like the rider here wanted to throw in every trope from fricking anime,
max shapeshifters, Shaman spirit users,
which they didn't bother to explain, by the way,
in some ways I sent them actually reminded me of Dororo.
Despite me having my issues with that series, at least it was entertaining.
I'm not gonna lie. Yassky was a snooze Fest at parks. It really is frustrating.
And they could have done so much with us.
You ask it could have been the next Samurai Chamloo or Vinland Saga, but no,
instead they crapped on anything promising here.
That is a real kicker for my final writing.
This is just dull and wasted potential. I don't recommend watching this,
but if you are still curious about this, check out the Japanese version,
I don't think it's that God awful, but it really is just mid-level.
We got done with so much amazing animate from winter anime season.
Go catch up on some of that instead it sucks. You're saying,
but I got a feeling that the ask is going to end up in a lot of worst that 20,
21 anime list. I would much rather watch the guy out of high school.
Like again then this, but anyway, let me know your thoughts. Maybe you liked it.
Did you have any similar problems? Did you love parts of it?
How was the voice acting or just say hi,
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