Yasuke

Netflix made sure to inform everbody that Grammy Award Winning producer Flying Lotus executive produced this series, and provided its entire OST.

Yet when the show released it took minutes to realize something is wrong.

Some of the shots, including stills, look beautiful, yet the animations are stiff and lifeless The english voice acting is not very enjoyable, gladly I could switch to German which is better in my opinion.

The trailers painted this as a grand epic with incredible Lo Fi beats, akin to cult classic Afro Samurai, great action and an interesting supernatural touch.

But the series itself goes nowhere. Episodes end at random, the pacing is not great and the production quality is all over the place.

I wanted to make this review to call Netflix out on this.

They went out of their way to advertise this with the FlyLo OST. Yet the trailer music isn't even in the series, nor on the album. They put all of the best action and shots in the trailers.

I expected to at least get some enjoyment from anime fights with a good soundtrack from this, sadly it doesn't provide anything of the above.

Stay clear of Yasuke. Just play the album on Spotify and watch something worth your time.

I had high expectations after watching the trailer. Therefor I was very dissappinted when watching the first episode. The English voice acting didn't sound good to me and it was a strange mix of short fragmented scenes and music that didn't seem to fit. I wasn't sure I would want to continue watching it. However, I decided to give it at least one more episode and I also watched it in Japanese this time. What a difference. I ended up enjoying it a lot more and enjoyed the story and the characters.

'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.

I watched this in 2 sittings, it's easy to watch and a fun time that feels rushed in the last 2 episodes.

The good:

• Main character is interesting and developed to some degree
• Action sequences are mostly cool and exciting
• Good chemistry between the main and secondary characters
• Backstory sequences are interesting but...

The bad:

• ...They don't spend enough time with the backstories and character development.

• Needed more world-building (I would say 2 to 4 more episodes to really flesh out the characters and the world)
• Could have done without the "magical" aspects, even if some are central to the plot (something more on the lines of the "Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuioku-hen" action would have been more interesting for my personal taste).

At the end of the day, I did have fun with it and would watch more of this world if it's made. There is potential to really bring depth to these characters and the world they live in.

Regarding reviewers calling this "Woke" or "Political" I completely disagree, There are a lot of cases of shows being worse than they could be, because of "on the nose" political stuff (The Good Doctor and The Rookie for example) but this does not fall in that category. If your problem is the race of the protagonist, than that is on you, not on the show-runners.

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.