Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

Long before Gosho Aoyama pumped out chapters of Case Closed/Detective Conan like my heart pumps caffeinated blood, Aoyama-sensei dabbled in a few other manga. One of said manga was a twenty four volume series known as Yaiba which got an anime adaptation in ’93 courtesy of Pastel. I don’t know about its Japanese success as I’m not Japanese but I can inform you with due certainty that I didn’t know anything about it prior to the new adaptation by Wit Studio which has now ran for five episodes at the time of this blog post.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A young warrior who lives away from society trains in the middle of nowhere until he’s forced to travel the world partially due to his incessant need to grow stronger and partially due to an evil looming threat. He learns how to interact with people and cultivates friendships along the way as he also fosters the power within himself in spite of his short stature. Now, did I very very vaguely describe Dragon Ball or just adequately describe Yaiba: Samurai Legend because that’s how similar they are at heart. Yaiba is a product of a different time and I can’t really tell you that Aoyama ripped Toriyama off in any capacity. I mean, Toriyama was making a spoof of Journey to the West so it’s mild thievery all the way down. It’s just that, factually speaking, by the time Yaiba had started its run was when Goku was fighting Tien at the Budokai Tenkaichi. The plot had been well established. From what I’m aware, everyone wanted a piece of the Dragon Ball pie so it isn’t like Yaiba is being a cruel imitator in an attempt to grab market share when it was released in manga form. I’m just making this my preamble because, from my experience, if you like original Dragon Ball then you’re going to enjoy Yaiba. It probably will also help if you like samurai as well because, if you couldn’t tell from the title (and jeez why are you on a blog if you couldn’t tell from reading the title), there are samurai in Yaiba: Samurai Legend. There may even be legends as well but who knows?

Actually, I do know because Yaiba meets Musashi Miyamoto in episode three. He’s apparently the REAL Musashi Miyamoto and grants Yaiba a lightning blade so apparently I missed something when I was reading Vagabond. Oh, I suppose Vagabond isn’t finished so maybe we haven’t seen that part of Musashi’s life yet. Damn you, Takehiko Inoue! Your indefinite hiatus of Vagabond has made Yaiba unintelligible! Anyways, do you notice how I’m bouncing all over the place? I’m trying to give you the Yaiba experience in this blog post because Yaiba does not stay in the same place for long as an anime and that’s much to its own success. Yaiba is a brilliantly animated show that is hitting the ground on the run and it’s not going to let a pitiful thing like a brick wall stop it. That’s probably to Yaiba’s benefit since it is, in fact, an adventure comedy story and suffers when it has breathing room. What I mean to say is this: when the anime Yaiba is doing nothing is when I lose my interest the most. That isn’t to say that anime aren’t allowed to have slow moments to bridge story beats. It would be ludicrous for me to expect that or even want that really. You cannot be a hype machine 24/7 because your metabolism is going to crash and burn and there will be no survivors. Yaiba is animated like the finger of an almighty deity graced the pencils/pencil tools of those who animated it. And why wouldn’t it? This is Wit “We Made the Good Seasons of Attack on Titan and Don’t You Forget It You Filthy Animals” Studio! The fight scene between Yaiba and Onimaru in episode two is factually sublime and it is Wit in all their glory, hallowed by their name.

I also want to highlight just how much I adore Aoyama’s art style reinvigorated for this remake. It doesn’t treat their art as a strict guidebook that has to be enforced but rather gives it a little tweak. I’ve not kept up with Detective Conan’s transition into 2025 but maybe Detective Conan is doing the same thing? It looks solid regardless.

So Yaiba has great animation. Is there anything else to it? Honestly… not really. The humor is frankly mediocre at best but it does feel like it’s straight from the original manga so there’s that. There’s something to be said for that, I guess. This definitely feels like a manga manufactured in the late 80’s/early 90’s and that’s not a terrible thing really! I just don’t really like it. The characters, at this juncture, seem pretty flaccid and just stock characters. Onimaru is so upset after one loss that he decides that “oh yeah I think I will just turn into a demon” because the plot demands it so we have to have ONIMARU turn into an Oni. Brilliant writing. I mean, I’m scrutinizing an adaptation that was published in a magazine called Weekly Shonen Sunday. Clearly I’m the problem.

So final verdict? I’m still going to watch Yaiba but exclusively for the glorious animation. I don’t think the plot is going to reach to any stars that I’ve ever seen so just letting the shonen adventure ride will probably suffice. It’s at least easy on the eyes and that’s just what you need sometimes. There’s been no concrete announcement of how many episodes will be within this season of Yaiba and I wouldn’t expect it any longer than maybe 24? The manga ran for, as mentioned previously, 24 volumes and unless they do some insane Hoshin Engi thing where it adapts a volume into an episode then I don’t think we’ll get a complete run. I’m sure the Yaiba fans won’t be too irked if they skip around because, outside of a middle aged Japanese people who watch this for the nostalgia, I don’t know how vocal they might be. I’ll probably have to watch this weekly just to savor it any if I’m being honest. It’s just a little too dull otherwise.