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

Matsui, Yuuko Producer

Usukura, Ryuutarou Producer

Usui, Hisato Producer

Katou, Shinichirou Producer

Reviews

Jun 17, 2024

Kgandhi00

Recommended

Criminally Underrated anime, first few episodes start pretty typical run of the mill supernatural anime set in feudal? Japan. Very similar in setting at least to Inuyasha, and once it picks up, each episode is has you anticipating the next. Each character is unique with their own conflicts, well though back story, and personal motivations so you will definitely find one to attach to. Initially thought of this as a anime with an intended audience of younger children but the show quickly subverted my expectations and quite literally had my jaw dropped. Its been a solid few months since I've seen this, so hopefully this ... review is fairly unbiased.

I went into this show not really expecting much and after the first few episodes I thought I was right. I stuck with it because I was bored at work and thought it was pretty looking/wholesome at least and as the season went on I was surprised by it time and time again. I'll start with what I disliked about the show first.

Cons: Personally, as an young adult, I don't like having main characters of a show I'm watching to be actual children, sometimes its fine but that's mostly a personal thing. To be fair, there is literally nothing childish about this and I would not watch any child watch it. Next, like others have said, the show starts pretty mediocre and slow paced but again it quickly makes up for it. Another thing is the pervy anime tropes, like I said the characters are literally children and even if it's "totally a 10000 year old spirit bro" and taking place in feudal times, that gives me the ick and WILL dock points. Another thing is that certain plot elements seem kinda forced and make you think "literally why is this happening like no rational person would do this." But in the show's defense they are children and people are inherently dumb so I'll let it slide. Also the power scaling is dumb and makes no sense but its anime so who cares.

Pros: Firstly, the opening is an absolute, certified, gym banger. Next, ALL the visuals from color to art style, to backgrounds and more were amazing. They were incredibly detailed, vibrant, and fairly unique. Next, the character designs were all pretty fire and the little guys are all cute (iykyk). Story is pretty milk toast at first but slowly gets deeper and more interesting, still nothing crazy but interesting enough to be unique. The main thing that draws me is each the characters' individual motivations, internal struggles, and interactions with the others in the world. This show does a fantastic point of showing all sides of human emotion and thoughts, def had me tearing up at times and laughing at others. If you enjoy supernatural action adventure anime taking place in the past, or those that take heavy inspiration from Japanese folklore like yokai, give it a shot. If you have have a short attention span, go away.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 26, 2024

Sir_Zedmore

Recommended

As I write this review, Sengoku Youko has over 8,000 ratings - and yet the score is exactly 7.00. Does it deserve this figure of widespread agreement? Should it be higher or lower? In my opinion, it's exactly right.

STORY: 6 (Fine)/10
I was about to put a higher rating - but the story is quite basic until the end. My main problem with this show, something that holds it back from an 8 or even a 9, is the first few episdoes. I almost dropped the show - twice - because of it's incredibly dull start. The progress is very slow and nothing very interesting ... happens until around episode seven. The reason my rating is 6 is because it's quite a simplistic story, and lots of it is setup. However, I think that the second season (and I believe third, which will come out if the next season does well enough) will be much better, getting that 8 or 9 I mentioned.

ART: 8 (Very Good)/10
The artstyle of this show is my favourite - with lines and borders of various thickness and great shading, so it might just be my opinion, but I thought it was great. The coreography was pretty good but the moves themselves were not half bad, and the transformations were beautiful. It definitely adds to the vibe of the show and fits the setting.

SOUND: 6 (Fine)/10
I might go back and change most of my 7s on sound to 6, because I am yet to see a cast that sticks out as particularly bad, let alone below average. For the original sound track, I enjoyed the music played during the show, but as for the OP and ED, I think they were just average, but I have seen a handful of reviews describing each as a masterpiece, particularly the opening.

CHARACTER: 7 (Good)/10
The characters were like the story, but slightly better - they start out appearing quite basic, but they get more interesting and complex as the show progresses. Once again, my rating is held back by the slow start - so I'm definitely hoping for a good season 2. The character development was definitely good, especially with two characters in particular. I also enjoyed the antagonist because most modern shonen nowadays that I see have antagonists like Shigaraki and Sukuna, forces of chaos and destruction. In Sengoku Youko, the characters remind me of the World Government in One Piece or the (if you've watched, you'll know, this is a twist so I won't say it) of FMA - most of them believe they are fighting for good, but on the inside, they are corrupt and even experimenting on humans.

ENJOYMENT: 7 (Good)/10
Here, I will use the expression 'high highs and low lows' because that's pretty much sums up this show. To mentally illustrate it, if it was a graph, it would rise slowly, shoot up a bit around episode 7 and then rise slowly again. I did enjoy this show a lot, particularly the fights and episodes 7-10, but I also think the first 6 episodes really drag this down.

I reccomend this show, especialy since you no longer have to watch the boring start over 6 weeks, and can breeze past it in a day or two. But, I don't really reccomend it for the show itself, but so you have context for future seasons that I can imagine will be great.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 4, 2024

whiteflame55

Mixed Feelings

Not a bad start by any means, though it took a little while to solidly get going for me. Speaking as someone who has read Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, it certainly hasn't hit as hard as that series did, but it's planted opportunities to do a great deal more.

It's not so much that the series is slow, but rather that it lacked an identity beyond its worldbuilding and basic establishment of its core cast. From there, it just became a series of fights that slowly built on those identities before a couple of big moments started to shift the momentum. The series has been ... slow to become more dynamic as it builds things out from a basic "let's fight a new powerful opponent" as a template for most episodes and has started to introduce the larger issues in the world surrounding them and how each character relates to them. I can't say any of the characters have been terribly investing so far, but they've given them enough building blocks to make them worth following.

This is a long series, slated for 37 episodes in total with these 13 episodes comprising the first arc and the remaining 24 comprising the second. Moving slowly to create an investing narrative in order to build out the world and establish the characters is fine by me if there is certainty that there's going to be more, and based on that ending, there's a lot to expect. I'm cautiously optimistic, especially as we've seen some admittedly abbreviated character arcs play out over the course of the series so far. I can't say any of the characters have really grabbed me yet, and though there's some interesting worldbuilding, it seems minimal so far, largely kept as background noise while the series focuses on the central characters. That's not bad, but it does mean that the second season needs to go pretty hard to make this series more than just a good time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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2024 Hype⭐

by Chosarttrain

32 Entries · 19 Restacks

Kemonomimi

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Anime with fox characters: Kitsune /Huli jing /Gumiho /Nine-tailed fox /Fox spirits 狐❤️

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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, 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)

	When does this get good? Ankz - Jan 19	41 replies	by ejleon »» Jul 14, 9:23 AM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jan 10	90 replies	by Apreggi »» Jul 11, 7:33 PM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko: Yonaoshi Kyoudai-hen Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 ) KANLen09 - Apr 3	69 replies	by Rexnihilo »» Jul 3, 1:47 PM
	Poll: Sengoku Youko Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 21	83 replies	by ropiel »» Jun 13, 1:15 AM
	Low score TheRealRouges - May 18	9 replies	by KayKimii »» May 18, 6:44 AM