User reviews

Binged this as soon as I could. Wish there was more than 6 episodes. It's absolutely amazing, Lakeith Stanfield is awesome in everything he does so I was so happy to hear he'd be a part of this project. My only complaint is that it is only 6 episodes. WATCH THIS!

While it has the spirit right, script has a lot of problems. World-building is a disaster, trying a bit too much to be different when its just being lazy. Characters are okay, and except for Yasuke, they overall feel quite empty. They feel real, but you never fully understand them. MAPPA's animation saves the show by a lot, even when it can feel too much for the screen at times, specially concerning the CGI. The argument is solid enough for a truly remarkable show, but it never reaches that potential. Dont expect the next Castelvania, just an okay show.

'Yasuke' may have disappointed some viewers as they thought it was going to be more grounded in reality, with the main character - Yasuke being a realistic portrayal of his real world counterpart. Instead the show takes a rather different route incorporating heavy magical elements.

I'll admit that the lore of the world is pretty basic and not fleshed out at all which leads to a little bit of deus ex machina on top of Saki being kind of boring. Other than this however I found the show to be extremely enjoyable. There's nothing inherently wrong with tropey anime stuff as long as you're not expecting something entirely groundbreaking and serious. Not every anime needs to be Evangelion, guys.

Some of these reviews complain about the 'forced agenda' of the show but I really don't see it. Yasuke really was very highly regarded by most people of his time with no stigma towards black people existing other than the fact that they were foreign. Oda Nobunaga was famously interested in other cultures so it's not too far fetched to say that if he's lived longer Japan may have become a more accepting place. Secondly, homosexuality was accepted in bushido (the general warrior philosophy of the time). Having a gay character is also nowhere near the reach people have described it to be

It virtually goes without saying that the music and animation are absolutely top tier. 'Yasuke', in my opinion is delightfully fun and binge-able. Very much worth a watch. Just don't expect a masterwork or anything.

I watched this in 2 sittings, it's easy to watch and a fun time that feels rushed in the last 2 episodes.

The good:

• Main character is interesting and developed to some degree
• Action sequences are mostly cool and exciting
• Good chemistry between the main and secondary characters
• Backstory sequences are interesting but...

The bad:

• ...They don't spend enough time with the backstories and character development.

• Needed more world-building (I would say 2 to 4 more episodes to really flesh out the characters and the world)
• Could have done without the "magical" aspects, even if some are central to the plot (something more on the lines of the "Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuioku-hen" action would have been more interesting for my personal taste).

At the end of the day, I did have fun with it and would watch more of this world if it's made. There is potential to really bring depth to these characters and the world they live in.

Regarding reviewers calling this "Woke" or "Political" I completely disagree, There are a lot of cases of shows being worse than they could be, because of "on the nose" political stuff (The Good Doctor and The Rookie for example) but this does not fall in that category. If your problem is the race of the protagonist, than that is on you, not on the show-runners.

Yasuke is best viewed as an Onimusha or Afro Samurai reboot so a real retelling of Yasuke´s story continues to elude us. He even feels like a side character in his own show and don´t ask me why this wasn´t produced as a 2-part movie. The plot is a bit all over, almost like a videogame as villains come and go at random. The miniseries most importantly would have been better off without the badly explained sciences fantasy elements (why is The Force in this?) but the overall picture is better than its assorted elements and the anime works well enough as a one and done pulp adventure. The music is what I will remember the most and a lot of the animation is well done for a TV production. Another "Good Enough" production by MAPPA and reminiscent of the ultra-random OVAs we used to get till the late 00s.

This is a pretty MOR anime, but the soundtrack is incredible. I watched about two minutes in English and was relieved to be able to switch to Japanese. For some reason, every anime just sounds much much better in Japanese and so I found it easier to parse the deliberate anachronisms and tried-and-true anime tropes. I did find the lead character quite likeable. I definitely consumed the album soundtrack a number of times on Spotify before watching. Perhaps that led me to like the film more, as the music connected me first, then the visuals and story. Now I'm going to watch Princess Mononoke.

Netflix made sure to inform everbody that Grammy Award Winning producer Flying Lotus executive produced this series, and provided its entire OST.

Yet when the show released it took minutes to realize something is wrong.

Some of the shots, including stills, look beautiful, yet the animations are stiff and lifeless The english voice acting is not very enjoyable, gladly I could switch to German which is better in my opinion.

The trailers painted this as a grand epic with incredible Lo Fi beats, akin to cult classic Afro Samurai, great action and an interesting supernatural touch.

But the series itself goes nowhere. Episodes end at random, the pacing is not great and the production quality is all over the place.

I wanted to make this review to call Netflix out on this.

They went out of their way to advertise this with the FlyLo OST. Yet the trailer music isn't even in the series, nor on the album. They put all of the best action and shots in the trailers.

I expected to at least get some enjoyment from anime fights with a good soundtrack from this, sadly it doesn't provide anything of the above.

Stay clear of Yasuke. Just play the album on Spotify and watch something worth your time.

I'm sorry that this story didn't meet many peoples' preconceived expectations, but it has a great story and the art is beautiful. Yeah, maybe the robot doesn't fit, but most of the other elements make sense.

I had high expectations after watching the trailer. Therefor I was very dissappinted when watching the first episode. The English voice acting didn't sound good to me and it was a strange mix of short fragmented scenes and music that didn't seem to fit. I wasn't sure I would want to continue watching it. However, I decided to give it at least one more episode and I also watched it in Japanese this time. What a difference. I ended up enjoying it a lot more and enjoyed the story and the characters.

I thought oh wow, an historical anime about a story of the first black samari this should be awesome right? No. Within the first 5 seconds I knew they messed up. ROBOTS, MAGIC AND FANTASY!? Are you kidding me. Instead of being original and telling a deep story of struggle and war they give us this. And Instead of focusing on the "main" character who they try to show off in all marketing I feel like it's lacking we just get bits and pieces of his life but it's not the main focus. Which I feel like would have been way more interesting than this fantasy plot line. Just disappointed...

It's good action feature anime, How it is to be. So I don't know why people whining about? It's not a bad anime, just short but enough content to make story. Not a childish one, it's a good one. Trust me you don't disappoint.

It's a good anime, beautiful animations, beautiful world, beautiful characters. People hate this but then love the Castlevania series which has really ugly animations, stupid story and not so interesting characters.

So disappointed with this one. There was no character development at all. It should have been about his journey to become a samurai leading up to the war depicted in the first episode. That would have been a lot more interesting than the fantasy elements they added. It had potential to be an experience but feels more like something they threw together with ideas everybody in the room had when it was being written. I wanted and expected to be submerged into Yasuke's journey as the only black samurai in Japan.

To be honest, I was expecting a historical anime about the real black samurai. Instead I saw a freaking anime about the first black samurai with fantasy, mystic powers, and ROBOTS. Those are my cons of Yasuke. My pros about Yasuke, my man Lakeith Stanfield is doing the voice of yasuke, the actor is fire, FLYING LOTUS IS PART OF THE SHOW's SOUNDTRACK. His music is fire, and the show' ost is great it reminds me of Samurai Champloo. Lastly, that opening, oh my gosh I can't stop replaying. I'm giving Yasuke a solid 7.

It took me about halfway through episode 2 to "get" this show. It doesn't do anything groundbreaking, but is an interesting, well- written spin on the samurai redemption story.

I see a lot of the reviewers on here salty about about the unrealistic aspects of this show (magic, robots, etc.). I've never ever watched an anime show for its realism, so none of that bothers me in the slightest.

Lakeith's voice acting is great and FlyLo's production is solid. I'm happy this exists and enjoyed watching it.

The series was a little short but at the same time not overly long or drawn-out with filler. Good to watch for a binge. Did try a little hard to be like Afro Samurai but at the same time original enough.

It's not perfect. There's some occasional voice acting flaws and story telling beats can be a little strange in the first couple episodes, but those are overshadowed by phenomenal action sequences, stellar animation, and great music and sound design.

If you're looking for a historical drama, this is not it.

If you're looking for a fun binge, I highly recommend it.

Was pretty excited for this because the trailer looked cool but it ended up being pretty bad. The animation is the only decent thing, the story and the characters are unintereating and it just gives off a weird vibe, it's like they were stuck inbetween wanting make an anime or an american cartoon.

Feels like a homage to the anime films I grew up on like Ninja Scroll and Sword for Truth. Takes me back to watching anime on the Action Channel when that existed. As with those there isn't really much here in terms of story, but the great action will keep you around. It's over before you know it. Also Flying Lotus kills it as always and I'm happy to see them compose something like this 100%.

In my opinion, the most interesting thing about this series. Is that it references a real person. That is, a man of African heritage that was a samurai in 16th. Century Japan. While the voice acting is good, I do feel the lead character's voice actor LaKeith Lee Stanfield was kind of muted at times. It could be the fault of the script writers. The animation, and plot are good and interesting. However, there are characters that seem to be from Science Fiction genre rather than that of Fantasy/adventure. Also, I think the production company could have made a very interesting and somewhat informative series. If they had based the series on a Samurai adventure based on the life and times of the real Yasuke. Rather than making him the center of a fantasy drama.

I was pretty excited to watch this show, especially after the intro scene with a Demon army, superpowers, mechanicals soldiers and good fights.

Then, I lost interest after 3 episodes. The story id really bland, uninteresting and predictable. You have nice character design and potential great character developpement, but eventually, it's just to show off and tick cases.

That's not the first "international" anime-like series from Netflix and they're all very disappointing. But I guess Netflix is more interested in mass producing easily watched-easily forgotten series, rather than quality and long-term series.

This anime is very short with only 6 episodes and it delivers. It remains interesting all the way through. It has beautiful animation and a good soundtrack too that can appeal to hip-hop fans by having flying lotus compose the soundtrack and have thunder at perform the main opening. Overall, I love and appreciate the talent and work that was put into this anime. It's a great anime to pass the time and I feel like people are looking too deeply instead of taking it for what it is.

How could any anime fan give this a 1,2,or a 3?!! Just for background info, I'm 40 and have been watching anime since I was a kid. My first movie was Akira, after that, Fist of the North Star, Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Crying Freeman, Golgo, 3x3 Eyes, Vampire Hunter D, and all the classics.

This show gripped me from the first scene. I will say it seems to want to bring in many diverse anime tropes, which may not help it in the end. What it does do is have solid characters, action, and it doesn't have too much drama which I think a lot of modern animes have way too much of. The drama that's there serves to move the story forward and doesn't over stay its welcome.

If you're an anime fan watch the first episode, if you like it, you'll like it.