Let’s start with the positives and work our way down. The music by Flying Lotus is a fun blend of traditional Japanese, Nu jazz and neo-soul, and hip hop production. Essentially, it’s a fun, slick good time and like you took one of his albums and set it in the late 1500s. It isn’t “You’re Dead” levels of greatness but it’s a rock solid OST. The OP, done by Flying Lotus and featuring Thundercat for vocals, is a solid, traditional-sounding track, though their previous anime song, “Unrequited Love” from a far worse Netflix show (Carole & Tuesday) was probably better. The ED features Niki Ronda and is a tender, melodic piece akin to Samurai Champloo’s ED. All in all, Flying Lotus did a bang-up job as expected.
Visually speaking, the show is kind of nice but has some issues. The art direction is particularly striking at points, especially in the latter half of the show when things get weird. There are several moments where, long with the music and the events unfolding, the show starts feeling like a psychedelic hip-hop record, and it looks mesmerizing. The one AMV-esque sequence the show has in episode 3 is particularly evocative. Director LeSean Thomas knew exactly what kind of eye-popping aesthetic he wanted to go for, and Junichi Higashi was definitely the right art director for the job.
The fight scenes also showcase some solid animation by the staff working at Studio MAPPA. There are several clean cuts and filthy sword fights that get downright brutal. Takeshi Koike’s character designs also had a fair amount of detail put into them that stayed pretty consistent, even during the battles. Thankfully, they never resorted to using CG for whenever samurai warriors such as Yasuke were clad in their armor. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for most of the mechs in the show. The CGI for the mechs is honestly terrible. They don’t fit well with the show’s aesthetic or world (more on that later) and the frame rate becomes absolutely jittery when they’re around. The first scene of the anime is by far the worst in this regard, as there are even some 2D elements that crumble during it. However, there are other moments where this is the case. Still, all that aside, the anime has fairly solid production values, and you can tell they wanted to do something interesting with the show’s aesthetic. As an action spectacle, the show’s pretty decent.
However, the writing is...a bit of a subpar mixed bag. Yasuke himself is a decent main character. He’s a somewhat depressed man haunted by the past, the war his people lost, and the deaths of those closest to him decades after the end of Nobunaga’s campaign came to a violent end. He’s long past the point of needing to prove himself worthy as the first black samurai --a slave turned warrior-- as the flashbacks showed that militaristic rise. His characterization isn’t anything groundbreaking or especially compelling, but it gets the job done well enough, and his badassery and reactions to those around him make him likable enough to watch. The kid characters range from annoying to tolerable, with the show’s deuteragonist, Saki, going from an ill girl with uncontrollable powers to a bit of a snarky kid with some spunk. She and Yasuke make for an ok duo, though it never feels like they have to struggle to rely on each other, as the show kind of just brushes past any kind of event or point that could make for a reasonable character arc.
Some of the side characters are pretty alright, namely the mercenaries initially hired to capture Saki. They have a decent dynamic to them, as they can barely tolerate each other, much less the person who hired them, but are able to get along just enough to bicker constantly without it detracting from them in any way. They even have some solid rapport with Yasuke. This is especially the case for scythe girl Ishikawa and the mech, Haruto. Sadly, it takes until episode 5 for their names to be revealed in the show proper for some reason, and by then, people start dropping like flies They’re at least better than the incredibly bland villains, like the corrupt Catholic priest, the xenophobic rival samurai turned evil general who wants to adhere to the old ways where women and slaves weren’t allowed to be warriors, or the final boss. They’re as threadbare as most of the Dororo antagonists.
Speaking of threadbare, the show ultimately becomes a case of “strong man takes the kid with crazy powers to a school so they can defeat an ancient evil”. It’s a pretty weak and rushed example of that kind of narrative, too. No time is ever spent training or even really letting the narrative or characters breathe. The show just goes from point to point. Sometimes, it feels like there are episodes that could have been split in two and just have fake endings as a result. Probably the worst example is in episode 5 where the aforementioned hired mercs come back and one of them is piloting a giant mech suit. Where did they get it? God knows. Why did they decide to join the fights of the last two episodes? Because they were asked to...offscreen.
Speaking of the mechs, despite the talking robot being probably the best character in the show, Yasuke’s sci-fi elements feel kind of tacked on. The mechs in this show are just tossed in here during the late 1500s with absolutely no explanation. There is a giant amalgamation of armor made from evil spiritual magic, but that’s the closest we have to an explanation on how...anything works! There are no mechanical facilities shown in this time period, so how and why do mechs exist in this universe? If you’re going to introduce sci-fi elements into your historical time piece series, you should at least offer s o m e t h i n g so the viewer isn’t just questioning the integrity of the setting. Even the weird, nebulous magic stuff has spirituality to fall back on as an explanation, even if the powers become absolutely ridiculous, tank the frame rate on occasion, and lead to probably one of the most groan-worthy resurrection scenes this side of Sonic 06. Much like Carole & Tuesday, this feels like another Netflix title that just throws in sci-fi elements haphazardly into a bare setting. When there are other rushed elements and weird holes in the script, the last thing we need is for the setting to crumble like this once you think about it for even one second.
This is probably yet another case of a relatively forgettable Netflix original having striking audiovisuals, but not much in the way of good writing. It's a shame the show turned out kind of mediocre when you consider that if the show gave itself another episode or two so it could have some time to breathe and explain certain things, Yasuke could have been a good action spectacle where the heavy-handed writing doesn’t get in the way of anything. The show definitely commentates on tradition, and the mix of xenophobia and racism of 1500s Japan in a way that validates its black characters without feeling especially self-aggrandizing. However, it really needed a tighter script as what we have here is kind of rough and mediocre, with a cool aesthetic and likable elements to keep it afloat. Anime featuring black creators and musicians is certainly welcome, and we definitely need more shows like this. For what it’s worth, Yasuke is still a decent time thanks to its audiovisuals and the relatively likeable characters. Still, hopefully, the next project LeSean Thomas works on ends up being more polished than this.
