English Dub Review: YAIBA: Samurai Legend “Episodes 13-24”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Yaiba and his comrades set out on another journey to search for the Dragon God Orb, as he continues his training to become a powerful samurai.  Meanwhile, Onimaru prepares for his conquest over Japan while sending out new enemies to eliminate Yaiba.

Our Take:

The 2025 iteration of Yaiba: Samurai Legend caught me off guard with how enjoyable it was.  However, this is coming from the guy who hasn’t watched the 1993 anime adaptation.  It does retain the similar problems seen in that version, particularly its sex gags and bratty protagonist.  Fortunately, the 2025 adaptation compensated for it by faithfully adapting its kooky art style and thrilling action scenes through the animation by Wit Studio.  However, as we can see in its episode count, the first half of Yaiba was just the beginning for the young protagonist’s coming-of-age journey, as he’s now on another quest to save Japan from Onimaru.

The second half of Yaiba sees the young samurai and his allies traveling throughout Japan in search of the Dragon God Orb.  Along the way, they encounter several powerful orbs with unique abilities, including water, fire, and shapeshifting.  Additionally, Yaiba contends with more demonic enemies sent by Onimaru to retrieve his sword, such as the ninja Kotaro Fuma in “The Rise of Ninja Kotaro”.  If any of these elements sound familiar to you, you’re clearly not alone.  The season’s remaining episodes lean heavily into Saturday Morning Cartoon territory regarding the episodic structure.  The group heads to one location to find an orb, only to confront a monster-of-the-week situation regarding Onimaru’s demonic animal assassins.  This structure changed in its seventeenth episode, “The Man of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu”, with Yaiba retrieving the stolen orbs from Goemon and the addition of Musashi’s Yagyu student, Jubei, who serves as a replacement for Kojiro for the remainder of the season.  Other than that, it’s essentially a big treasure hunt with the fate of the world in the hands of an immature child samurai. 

However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a pleasant time experiencing this treasure hunt.  The second half of Yaiba: Samurai Legend continues to lean towards monster-of-the-week territory amid the orb-hunting quest, which is one of the similar flaws that faltered the first half, including Yaiba’s impulsive nature.  Fortunately, it also retains some of the merits that elevate the 2025 adaptation’s enjoyability.  One such case is the animation by Wit Studio, which highlights the series’s stylized energy, kooky visual gags, faithfulness to the manga’s art style, and thrilling action.  Its sixteenth episode, “A Battle of Giants”, is one of the few examples of the latter, depicting a Kaiju-like battle between Yaiba and Mr. Spider’s giant bot through its solid blend of 2D animation and CGI.  

The other is the final four episodes, depicting Yaiba’s hunt for the Dragon God Orb in Mt. Fuji, during which he learns what it really means to be a true samurai.  Basically, they’re some of the few instances of character development we get to see from the sword-wielding pipsqueak.  Overall, Yaiba: Samurai Legend may not be legendary in its narrative and crude humor, but it manages to slice and dice its way into entertainment territory with its fun action and animation.  More importantly, it serves as another example of reintroducing classic source materials with a modern coat of paint.  With the second season already announced, which will cover the Kaguya arc, we can expect more of Yaiba’s samurai adventures sooner than we think, albeit with a sci-fi twist.