Season Review: Yasuke Season One

 

Overview:

Yasuke pulls from samurai history’s apocryphal legend of Yasuke, the first foreign born warrior of African descent that fought in feudal Japan under Oda Nobunaga. Yasuke pushes this fabled backstory in the audience’s face like it’s an enemy blade. However, rather than deliver a straight adaptation of this historical legend, Yasuke remixes the tale with magic, supernatural elements, and mecha technology to inject a heavy anime influence into the historical action drama. Yasuke gets tasked with a mission of protection and transportation as he travels across a vast and dangerous land, but as soon as it seems like Yasuke is about to lean into musty archetypes it bombards the audience with an aggressive display of magic, violence, and destruction that’s nearly overwhelming. The result is a whirlwind of style and imagination that turns Yasuke into an unpredictable mix of old and new. 

Our Take:

There have been a number of Netflix original anime series that have reached out to prominent talents across different industries for inspiration. Yasuke continues this tradition and brings Lakeith Stanfield and Flying Lotus on as executive producers, but Yasuke is really LeSean Thomas’ baby. Thomas initially got Netflix’s attention with his anime contribution for them, Cannon Busters, but his work on Black Dynamite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and (especially) Legend of Korra feel more representative of Yasuke’s flavor. If anything, Yasuke is the culmination of the many themes and fascinations that Thomas’ previous work have explored. Warriors brazenly tell Yasuke that “history will forget you,” but Yasuke the series lays the groundwork to create a legacy and become an anime that everyone remembers.  

Studio MAPPA’s involvement as Yasuke’s animation studio also guarantees that the unleashed fight sequences look gorgeous and carry the proper chaotic energy. There are moments where the CG elements don’t perfectly blend together with the traditional 2D animation, but these scenes are typically so ambitious and busy that they’re minor concessions. The action is lavish and lengthy right from Yasuke’s opening frames and these absurd clashes of power will connect even for those that think the story and characters fall flat. 

Yasuke presents some exciting ideas and creator LeSean Thomas is obviously a devout anime fan that understands the archetypes of the genre, but the various trapping of Yasuke all feel fairly pedestrian when it comes to anime, whether it’s Yasuke’s unconventional child sidekick, the desperate damsel in distress, or the supernatural infusion of a historical time period. These overused staples don’t ruin Yasuke and the anime eventually attacks these ideas from creative angles, but they do make the series feel a little derivative of better fantasy-action series when it first begins. The opening minutes alone make Yasuke look like the brooding and attention-seeking lovechild of Netflix’s Castlevania, Blood of Zeus, and Pacific Rim: The Black. Yasuke wants to get your attention and it will, either out of fascination or sheer exhaustion.

Yasuke begins as the quintessential stoic hero that’s on a traditional escort mission to keep Saki safe while he transports her to her destination, but she ends up saving him just as much as he does her. This dynamic helps give Yasuke more depth and the series elevates the character from a stoic samurai to this perpetual martyr and Christ-like figure. Saki becomes just as important to this story and the other supporting characters around Yasuke also receive lots of attention. Many of them become even more compelling than Yasuke in certain ways. Yasuke accomplishes the same thing with its villains, who puff out their chests and operate like exaggerated antagonists from Saturday morning cartoons, but are still legitimately disturbing and exhibit a wide range of monstrous abilities. Every showdown is electric, but the finale in particular is full of incredible battles that make sure that the season goes out on top and with a passionate battle cry.

Yasuke has a bit of a Kung Fu: The Legend Continues vibe with its episodic approach to a wandering samurai, but there’s still a heavy serialized element that strings it all together and keeps a constant threat on Yasuke’s heels that forces him to continually move forward. The series also occasionally utilizes a bifurcated chronology that juxtaposes Yasuke’s actions in the past with his present nomad lifestyle where he faces attacks from mercenaries for the sins of his past. This structure feels natural when it’s used and both of these timelines compliment one larger story about what Yasuke fully represents. It’s not a situation where chronology is made needlessly complicated to create artificial tension. Yasuke uses this approach to show that Yasuke has changed a ton since his days in war, but that this piece of him is still an important rosetta stone to the reserved, yet passionate, warrior that he is today.

There is no shortage of samurai anime and there are even existing shows like Afro Samurai that specifically deal with a similar perspective to Yasuke. This makes it difficult for Yasuke to stand out, but it also means that it needs to work harder to do something different. There’s a lot of passion on display in Yasuke, but that’s not enough in an overcrowded genre that deals in stereotypes. Yasuke is an entertaining new addition to Netflix’s growing anime library that dwarfs some of their other original animation projects, but in this six-episode first season it still needs to do more to justify its continued existence. The slick animation, accomplished voice acting, and phenomenal score all make Yasuke a dazzling spectacle, yet it does feel slightly disposable and easy to forget about once it’s over. Yasuke may be one of LeSean Thomas’ more technically impressive and polished series, but it’s not necessarily better than Cannon Busters or Thomas’ previous collaborations.

Yasuke is a fun escape that is full of gorgeous animation and unbelievable fight sequences that reflect the barbarism of the samurai genre and the limitless imagination of fantasy narratives. This anime crafts an entertaining story that embraces history, but blends it together with such unusual and fantastical elements that it never feels like homework. Yasuke’s first season is confident and covers a lot of ground in six episodes, but it also feels like a tease of what this anime can accomplish with a longer leash. Hopefully Yasuke will get the opportunity to go even further with the unique foundation that it builds. Season one of Yasuke is a shotgun burst of creativity. It casts a wide blast that reflects the anime’s broader strokes and themes, but season two is ready to become a precision sniper shot that focuses Yasuke’s ideas into a deadly concentrated explosion.

 

Yasuke’s first season is available to stream April 29th, only on Netflix