Yasuke

Binged this as soon as I could. Wish there was more than 6 episodes. It's absolutely amazing, Lakeith Stanfield is awesome in everything he does so I was so happy to hear he'd be a part of this project. My only complaint is that it is only 6 episodes. WATCH THIS!

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.

This is a pretty MOR anime, but the soundtrack is incredible. I watched about two minutes in English and was relieved to be able to switch to Japanese. For some reason, every anime just sounds much much better in Japanese and so I found it easier to parse the deliberate anachronisms and tried-and-true anime tropes. I did find the lead character quite likeable. I definitely consumed the album soundtrack a number of times on Spotify before watching. Perhaps that led me to like the film more, as the music connected me first, then the visuals and story. Now I'm going to watch Princess Mononoke.

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.

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.