Yasuke

While it has the spirit right, script has a lot of problems. World-building is a disaster, trying a bit too much to be different when its just being lazy. Characters are okay, and except for Yasuke, they overall feel quite empty. They feel real, but you never fully understand them. MAPPA's animation saves the show by a lot, even when it can feel too much for the screen at times, specially concerning the CGI. The argument is solid enough for a truly remarkable show, but it never reaches that potential. Dont expect the next Castelvania, just an okay show.

I was pretty excited to watch this show, especially after the intro scene with a Demon army, superpowers, mechanicals soldiers and good fights.

Then, I lost interest after 3 episodes. The story id really bland, uninteresting and predictable. You have nice character design and potential great character developpement, but eventually, it's just to show off and tick cases.

That's not the first "international" anime-like series from Netflix and they're all very disappointing. But I guess Netflix is more interested in mass producing easily watched-easily forgotten series, rather than quality and long-term series.

Yasuke is one of the most intriguing historical figures that I can think of and as a black African man who lives a fascinating life as a noble samurai warrior under the shogunate of Oda Nobunaga. His story can be easily turned into a fantastic historical anime series and in 2021, we finally got one under the hands of studio MAPPA and I cannot stretch enough how god-awful this piece of mess is. To keep the review short, I just gotta say this anime contains about 5% of the actual story about Yasuke and the rest was your usual anime extravaganza that makes little to no sense other than to let people know that it was in fact "AN ANIME SERIES". I don't want to talk about race politics when it comes to entertainment media cause I believe that anyone can make any kind of story about any people that they want if they got a good story to tell and sadly despite how much back talents behind the anime, they still don't believe Yasuke can stand on it own two feet as a historical piece of series without shoehorned in a bunch of old and tired anime tropes that plague the medium right now. One positive thing that I can say about this one is it look and feel like something Yoshiaki Kawajiri would make back in the late 80s and that is also the reason why I don't drop this series right after episode 1.

Yasuke is best viewed as an Onimusha or Afro Samurai reboot so a real retelling of Yasuke´s story continues to elude us. He even feels like a side character in his own show and don´t ask me why this wasn´t produced as a 2-part movie. The plot is a bit all over, almost like a videogame as villains come and go at random. The miniseries most importantly would have been better off without the badly explained sciences fantasy elements (why is The Force in this?) but the overall picture is better than its assorted elements and the anime works well enough as a one and done pulp adventure. The music is what I will remember the most and a lot of the animation is well done for a TV production. Another "Good Enough" production by MAPPA and reminiscent of the ultra-random OVAs we used to get till the late 00s.

'Yasuke' may have disappointed some viewers as they thought it was going to be more grounded in reality, with the main character - Yasuke being a realistic portrayal of his real world counterpart. Instead the show takes a rather different route incorporating heavy magical elements.

I'll admit that the lore of the world is pretty basic and not fleshed out at all which leads to a little bit of deus ex machina on top of Saki being kind of boring. Other than this however I found the show to be extremely enjoyable. There's nothing inherently wrong with tropey anime stuff as long as you're not expecting something entirely groundbreaking and serious. Not every anime needs to be Evangelion, guys.

Some of these reviews complain about the 'forced agenda' of the show but I really don't see it. Yasuke really was very highly regarded by most people of his time with no stigma towards black people existing other than the fact that they were foreign. Oda Nobunaga was famously interested in other cultures so it's not too far fetched to say that if he's lived longer Japan may have become a more accepting place. Secondly, homosexuality was accepted in bushido (the general warrior philosophy of the time). Having a gay character is also nowhere near the reach people have described it to be

It virtually goes without saying that the music and animation are absolutely top tier. 'Yasuke', in my opinion is delightfully fun and binge-able. Very much worth a watch. Just don't expect a masterwork or anything.