First Impression: Yaiba: Samurai Legend

Yaiba Kurogane is one kooky wild child. Raised by his father, Kenjuro, in the jungles of Japan, Yaiba has one goal and one goal only: to be the strongest samurai ever. After sparring with a powerful gorilla, our little bro seems pretty cocky…that is, until the gorilla’s friends come along to get revenge for their fallen comrade. Yaiba, Kenjuro, and his pet tiger Kagetora hide in a crate of bananas…which then gets put on a plane and carted off to the big city. Airport security? What is that? In any case, our group meets up with Sayaka Mine and her father, Raizo, and heads off to his kendo dojo where, after proving that Yaiba can back up his big mouth with his skills by defeating the strongest student in the dojo, he gets left behind by his father to further hone his skills, much to the chagrin of Sayaka and Raizo. FATHER…OF…THE…FREAKING…YEAR. Our jungle boy samurai follows Sayaka to school (having never been before) and immediately finds a rival in kendo club member Takeshi Onimaru. Will this bald bro bash our jungle samurai? Cue the shenanigans!

As someone with little to no knowledge of the source manga by Gosho Aoyama or the first anime that came out in 1993, I had no idea what direction this reboot would go. Would it be a straight-up sports anime? Would it be a comedy? Drama? Fantasy? Maybe even a slice of life anime like 2007’s kendo anime Bamboo Blade. But this show’s premiere episode said, “Yeah, we’re going to be all of the above and then some!” I was fascinated by this first offering. Our title character is pretty much Gon from Hunter x Hunter and Goku from Dragonball thrown in a blender and set to puree. He has that “country boy in the big city” vibe of Gon with the “strong yet stupid wild monkey child” vibes of Goku, which can make for both an endearing and an exhausting character to watch. Speaking of Gon, Yaiba’s pop is pretty much Ging, who sticks around a little longer before leaving his son with the nearest caring family. I would bet five bucks that this dude will not send one cent of child support. Regarding our female lead, Sayaka, she seems like your stereotypical “straight man” to Yaiba’s antics. I am glad she looks like a competent kendo pupil, taking down our jungle samurai several times. She is in the same pattern as Ran/Rachel from Detective Conan—right down to the prodigious fighting prowess and the inexplicable sharp horn hair at the top of her head. The amount of hair product used to keep it upright will undoubtedly put another hole in the ozone layer.

Speaking of atmosphere, the animation of this show is fluid and pleasant to look at. Wit Studio did the dawggone thing with this show. It’s very much Detective Conan in style, looking like an anime from the 90s but with motion and clarity of the modern day. The opening titles almost move a little TOO fast for my tastes as they go from one character and scene to another without giving you a chance to focus on one thing. I guess they’re trying to capture the essence of our main character—just a ball of prodigious energy and unrestrained chaos. The song “Blade” by Blue Encount matches these crazy visuals well, while “Pineapple Tart” by Otoha is very sweet and goes well with the simple visuals. No word on a dub yet, but one might come down the pike sooner or later.

So where does that leave us with Yaiba: Samurai Legend? I have to say, this is endearing enough and interesting enough to be worth a follow. While it does seem like this show will lean hard into the “ha-ha, jungle boy in the big city and all the shenanigans he can get into” plot, I think this show has the potential for some good stories. Heck, the original anime went on for over fifty episodes, so there must be SOMETHING there, right?

Yaiba: Samurai Legend is available to stream on Netflix, and on Hulu if you’re interested in giving your money to the Mouse instead of Lady Whistledown.

Josh
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