Sengoku Youko: Yonaoshi Kyoudai-hen

Aspiring samurai Shinsuke Hyoudou's world is turned upside down when he witnesses hermit Jinka Yamato and fox girl Tama Youko slay a brigands' lair in the blink of an eye. Tama happens to be katawara, a magically gifted species, who can share her powers with Jinka through a special ritual. Together, they travel the world as vigilantes to stop evil beings, be they katawara or human.

As Shinsuke learns more about this new world, he discovers that monks perform inhumane research on spiritually gifted civilians, in the hope of creating human-katawara hybrids that can fight against monsters. Soon joined by Shakuyaku—a girl they manage to save from the monks’ experiments—and other allies, the group embarks on a quest to achieve their respective dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hyoudou, Shinsuke Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Youko, Tama Main

Takada, Yuuki Japanese

Shakuyaku Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Yamato, Jinka Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Senya Supporting

Nanami, Hiroki Japanese

Douren Supporting

Inada, Tetsu Japanese

Mountain God Supporting

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Jinun Supporting

Nomura, Kenji Japanese

Resshin Supporting

Miyagi, Kazuki Japanese

Higan Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Iwasa, Gaku Producer

Cao, Cong Producer

Matsui, Yuuko Producer

Usukura, Ryuutarou Producer

Reviews

Jun 22, 2024

moozooh

Recommended

I bid you good day, tired adventurer. Have you grown weary of the endless deluge of isekai and reincarnation in your fantasy? Have you yearned for characters that have empathy and compelling motivations? Perhaps you would be partial to stories that don't rely on familiar tropes and instead seek to subvert your expectations?

Give Sengoku Youko a chance.

I know, its current rating of low 7 isn't exactly a great sell in the age of inflated scores, but hear me out. It's the kind of story that starts off in a very modest fashion but continuously picks up momentum as it goes. With nearly every single episode, ... you're watching its best episode yet. What starts off as a road trip turns into an epic tale of love, friendship, and camaraderie.

The author, Satoshi Mizukami, has earned his cult following for a reason. His works showcase a very particular style of storytelling focused on creating a diverse cast of unique characters with compelling motivations and letting them figure out the story based on what these motivations are. In his worlds, there are no truly good or truly bad people; rather, there are people who care for different things and finding themselves in misfortune or conflict with each other. You could say it's kind of like Game of Thrones, except not edgy or cynical; quite the opposite: the character interactions in Sengoku Youko and Mizukami's other works are remarkably warm and soulful—to the point where you end up loving the entire cast, and even antagonists can be empathized with.

This adaptation by studio White Fox isn't breaking any records in terms of production values and cuts corners relentlessly where it can afford to, but it's clearly crafted with passion and is honestly much better than I would've expected for a very niche manga from the late 2000s, showing respect to the original work and enhancing it where possible. The early episodes are the weakest episodes as I've alluded to earlier, mostly due to the source material's somewhat haphazard pacing and the need to fit six volumes of manga material into a single cours of TV runtime, but once it finds its stride mid-season, it's all smooth sailing from there. The soundtrack by the famed Evan Call is fantastic as usual and helps set the tone for the action, and the opening by MindaRyn was one of my favorites from the winter 2024 season.

Overall, the first season tells a compelling story by itself, but in the grand scheme of things it merely serves as a setup for the main bulk of the narrative. And trust me: the second half, coming summer 2024, will reach much greater heights. I, for one, cannot wait.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 3, 2024

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

Sengoku Youko - The 1st arc of 2 for a renowned author, and it still has a lot of cooking to do.

If you have been in the AniManga scene for quite a while now, you would recognize a famed mangaka by the name of Satoshi Mizukami. This prolific author's stories are a mishmash of unorthodox proportions, but yet creative at the same time that you'd be wondering how someone like him is able to be so gargantuan at his many notable series. From the likes of the famed series of Spirit Circle (which is the mangaka's greatest work that hasn't got an anime adaptation yet) ... to the rather lukewarm adaptation of Fall 2018's Planet With (which J.C. Staff did decent where the "original" anime came first before the manga's release), and the abomination that was Summer-Fall 2022's Hoshi no Samidare a.k.a Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer (which the anime was the series's biggest sin by way of poor and lackluster production values), the anime counterpart definitely needed a lot, and I mean, A LOT of time in the oven to cook.

All of this, leads us to the other ironic side of the coin, which is this Winter's season's Sengoku Youko, which covers the 1st part of the manga: the Yonaoshi Kyoudai-hen a.k.a World Reform Siblings Arc through the first 13 of its intended 37-episode series for a "complete" split 3-cour season. And for an interesting fact (if you want the TL;DR critique) of the show in general: Sengoku Youko is Satoshi Mizukami's weakest work, but given the most competent AniManga adaptation thus far from a near-far-gone, returning renowned studio.

In Sengoku Youko's fantasy world, there exists 2 factions of creatures: ordinary human beings, or monsters in the form of Katawara, experimental beings who are laden with power. The latter is true for a girl named Tama Youko (yes, which literally means fox), whose only goal is to like Jesus Christ (if he was not a human), correct the people in their evil and sinful ways and guide them back on the proper path of goodness and justice. However, what is said truer to her, doesn't apply to her brother Jinka, who is a human, and still hates humans in both bone and flesh, with his grudges unknown. Their journey to reform the world is met by Shinsuke Hyoudou, who's a samurai, but a coward by the main fact, who vows to become stronger to protect his loved ones. Together, the trio may have their separate ambitions, but the goal is one and the same to explore and reform the world as they deem fit. But enemies stand in their way, not to mention ruthless, and a ploy to experiment on humans and transform them into the aforementioned Katawara creatures, set them onto a path where dangers lurk at every corner, fighting against people that will give them quite the challenge on the road to purification.

At first, the trio are faced by the Dangaisyuu: a group of monks who're just as they look, innocent monks. But its leader, Yazen, is one that has a quench of power, and the people that serve him, serve the Katawara side of the community on their path towards evil, so much that they have power unabashed to trample on their opponents with much katawara power. But then again, this is the sibling duo of Tama and Jinka they're facing against, and the trick about them is that while Jinka is the human, Tama is the Katawara source which provides him powers to be transformed into a powerful Katawara, much like Tama's namesake of being a Youko to give Jinka fox powers, which the more tails, the more powerful Jinka is. The more colourful characters that follow thereafter, say, from Shakugan (saved from being a Katawara), to Jinun, Douren and Resshin, these are the true masters of their craft who also sides with the Dangaiyuu to push Yazen forward in his world-conquering quest of transforming humans into Katawara, which does not bode well with Tama's philosophy, while testing Jinka's limits of becoming a human-Katawara hybrid to the detriment of his thirst for power.

If you ask me, Sengoku Youko's a pretty wild story of the standard Satoshi Mizukami style that is really Mizukami levels of unmistakable both from the manga and anime standpoint, though Part 1 of 2 here of the Reformed Siblings Arc that covers the manga's first 6 volumes of 35 chapters worth, it does take some time to get used to, especially if this is your first time watching a Satoshi Mizukami show or have been burnt by Hoshi no Samidare a.k.a Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, and wanted an exoneration in his name in the animation department. Well, we finally got that treatment.

Well, well, look who's back. I did not expect to see the famous Re:Zero studio come back from the grave, especially since the studio's massive undertaking to complete another season of the Utawarerumono series. Taking a year apart to get back to the Re:Zero groove coming back this Fall, studio White Fox may have an episode of their fall from grace, but that doesn't NOT give us a chance to praise their ever-so-consistent production, even if this is kind of a re-start for the studio before the famed series will take up most of their time, leaving the 2nd part of the show after Season 3 (which I'm totally fine with). Finally, Satoshi Mizukami gets the name recognition along with good production values to boot from White Fox, albeit with director Kagetsu Aizawa who had a misstep with 2018's Hakyuu Houshin Engi modern reboot.

The OST by Evan Call, really helps liven up the atmosphere of the show greatly, even if the show does kinda wobble from time to time. Still though, that does not stop the theme songs from being great songs, of which MindaRyn has a song that I finally can say that her OP song "Hibana" is her best Anisong thus far. KEIKO's ED song does the job following the show's historical and mythical fantasy, which is great since it's famed composer Yuki Kaijura, showing that her craft is still unmatched.

Despite all the praise I can really give about Sengoku Youko as a whole, the story unfortunately is still the weakest link tying everything together, and it will not be until it's latter part of the double-length, 24 episode-long Senma Konton-hen a.k.a Thousand Demons Chaos Arc, is shown that has the story explode in terms of mythical lore. Again, I can only judge the show by its completion one-third of the way, which is decent overall.

Still though, this is your best chance to experience a new Satoshi Mizukami anime, and trust me, things in the future will look better once Part 2: The Thousand Demons Arc arrives later in Summer...just not now, not yet.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 6, 2025

BadDecisionFan

Not Recommended

Preliminary (5/13 eps)

It's kind of like Inuyasha except kagome is a helpless 15 year old boy with the personality of a 2X4.



Five episodes into a 13 episode season and it feel like nothing has happened. The MC has used a sword exactly once in the first episode. Several characters have been introduced, but they have no personality beyond jokes that never land.

Occasionally the show threatens to do some world building, but it always seems to go in the most boring direction. The supernatural creatures can apparently fuse with humans to give them power. Our MC is a human who they spent a bunch of time showing as ... powerless. This is obviously setting uo the MC to make a deal with one of the "monsters" and become powerful, right?

Nope.

The purpose of the MC appears to be comic relief. Comic relief that has yet to be funny. The genre of this show is supposedly action/fantasy, but they really don't like to engage with the fantasy elements much, nor is there any sign of power creep. Basically, you've seen all it has to offer by the end of episode one.


Maybe it gets better, but the standard is give it 3 eps to have a chance, I was generous and gave it 5.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Complete Anime Adaptations (part 15)

by Yuriko_Sakai

50 Entries · 31 Restacks

Kemonomimi

by CatEar

46 Entries · 86 Restacks

🎧Anime with Thai dubs🇹🇭6｜🎧อนิเมะที่มีพากย์ไทย🇹🇭๖

by Adrena

50 Entries · 2 Restacks

Winter 2024 Simulcast List [Update 2/3]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of television anime acquired for simulcast release during the Winter 2024 season. Anime series licensed for hom...read more

Jan 2, 2024 2:51 PM by Snow | Discuss (40 comments)

Winter 2024 Preview

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of Winter 2024 titles with an accompanying promotional video, commercial, teaser, or trailer. This post will be...read more

Dec 22, 2023 8:20 AM by Snow | Discuss (3 comments)

	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 9 Discussion Stark700 - Mar 6, 2024	34 replies	by EmperorPHNX »» Feb 11, 2:30 AM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 8 Discussion Stark700 - Feb 28, 2024	37 replies	by EmperorPHNX »» Feb 10, 5:11 AM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Jan 24, 2024	42 replies	by Playcool »» Dec 30, 2024 11:06 AM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 10 Discussion Stark700 - Mar 13, 2024	35 replies	by GavrocheN7 »» Dec 12, 2024 8:48 PM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 21, 2024	85 replies	by GavrocheN7 »» Dec 12, 2024 6:56 PM