Forum - View topicREVIEW: Yasuke
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 653 |
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Top rated review:
Next top-rated review:
A bit further down the page:
I could continue, but I'm sure you get the idea. A lot of these reviews give other reasons for disliking the show, and I don't have a problem with that! But once again, this many people complaining about historical accuracy is unprecedented. |
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El Hermano
 Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't a big marketing point of Yasuke that it was a historical piece about a real person who existed in Japanese history? That might be why people are mentioning historically accuracy more compared to stuff like Gintama or Afro Samurai who never made any claims that it was going to tell a lesser known aspect of Japanese history. It might very well be a case of the old meme of that old Playstation 3 E3 conference with the guy talking about Genji and describes the game as having actual battles that actually took place in Japan and then it cuts to him saying "so here's this giant enemy crab..." I don't know if Thomas himself marketed it that way, but a lot of outlets seem to be doing so as we speak. Men's Health review is titled "Yaskuke Is Based on the True Story of a Real African Samurai Warrior in Feudal Japan. New York Times is calling it "Yasuke’ Reclaims a Black Samurai From History". CBR's seems to focus on it as well with the more critical "Yasuke Is Better When Focused on History Rather Than Fantasy" headline. Wherever it originated, it seems like historical accuracy has been associated with this show for a long time, so a lot of criticisms bringing it up seems inevitable. Worst case scenario, a lot of outlets marketed this as a historically accurate series when Thomas himself did not, which would be rather unfortunate. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3819 |
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That was the initial impression I got from the headlines and such about the show, but then things went on and mechs were brought up and I was just 
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but based on what's written here it seems like the advertising is as unfocused as the show is. Well, this season is pretty packed, so I wasn't sure if I was going to watch this, but at only 6 episodes I'll probably find the time to squeeze it in. At least I should be in for some nice visuals if nothing else. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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Did a little cleanup. Let's move on from the Kickstarter controversy please. Yes it's a shitty thing to do and I personally won't watch this due to those tactics, but this thread is for discussing Yasuke.
Personal insults towards the reviewer will also not be tolerated. Neither will hypocritical arguments claiming it's bad faith for someone to critique something (or point out other people's opinions) based on a different view than your own. People can have different opinions, that doesn't mean they're arguing in bad faith or disingenuous nor do you get to be rude to them due to that differing opinion. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4597 Location: New York |
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Boseman was the one pushing to make the film. That’s where the lament is. With him gone, I have no idea if anyone else wants to make a Yasuke film. As for Afro, at least it’s consistent in being a mishmash. It doesn’t try to add historical characters to fight Samuel L. Jackson. |
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JoelBurger
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For both of those top reviews, it's not simply a matter of complaining about historical accuracy. The top-rated reviewer goes on to state multiple questions they have because they believe the show does not supply the adequate context for the fantastical elements. The next top-rated specifically takes issue with the shift from historicism to the fantastical, and that they believe the inclusion of mechs and magic are not blended well. In both cases, it's a matter of execution, not the principle of having historically inaccurate content. While a show like Gintama is obviously greatly inaccurate, its spoofing of the Edo period is done for purposeful comedic effect. Whereas stuff like what has been pointed out in this thread (such as Yasuke being seen as an outsider in a world of robot people and werebears) leads many to consider this a lack of coherency within the world Yasuke built around those elements. So it's not too much of a surprise that viewpoints on both, despite the similar blend of historical and fantastical, would be different. There's also the matter of fatigue. Seeing the Sengoku period mixed with magic and/or mechs for the first time is novel; seeing it a dozen times gets tiring, as with any genre or trope. So something in the genre produced in 2004 is going to be reviewed very differently than something produced in 2021 as a matter of course, because the shows don't exist in a void. Last edited by JoelBurger on Sat May 01, 2021 3:27 am; edited 2 times in total |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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It's funny that you mention Sengoku Basara and "basically every anime ever made about Oda Nobunaga" because I'm not only a fan of the Sengoku Basara franchise (well, within certain limits/installments, anyway), but I also have a huge soft spot for Sengoku themed manga and anime with some kind of a twist. And you know, your comment just shows how little you know about these. But about Sengoku Basara in particular: you know why it works and Yasuke doesn't? Because Sengoku Basara has a concept behind its OTT weirdness and hilarity. It's not just "weird stuff because that's what anime is like ain't it", there's method to the madness. For one, it does't take itself seriously at all, it's not trying to be a serious, dark and gritty story (and actually the moment it does it just stops being fun as far as I'm concerned, and turns into unintentionally hilarious at best, and tryhard at worst). It turns everything up to eleven to the point where it's intentionally funny, and just goes from there. Keyword: intentionally. Two, it's not random. At least for the main characters from the original game, the designs actually have a reason behind them. Sanada Yukimura lives on in legend as a paragon of samurai virtues of loyalty, honor and bravery - so he's turned into a young warrior so passionate he screams all of his lines; who is blindly loyal to his lord to the point where the lord himself is worrying about his blind devotion; and whose sense of honor is so strong it's completely impractical and borders on suicidal. Date Masamune was widely known as a wild eccentric who was kind of the delinquent of his era, and who also loved Western culture (in fact he was I think the first daimyou to try to find allies in Europe) - so he is now the leader of a juvenile motorbike gang who spouts Engrish phrases all the time. Oda Nobunaga sarcastically referred to himself as a demon king - so now he's an actual demon (of sorts). Honda Tadakatsu was said to have been the best fighter who has never gotten as much as a scratch - so they turned him into a literal mech among superpowered but still flesh-and-blood humans. And so on and so forth, there's puns, references, tighter or looser connections - but basically, it's not just random stuff thrown together, there's a cohesion in the setting. Hell, SB aside, even serious works that indulge in over-the-top stuff or weirdness like Shigurui or Kakugo no susume or Blade of the Immortal and so on have an artistic concept in their worldbuilding that makes them coherent and makes the weirdness work. It's not just "let's have werebears and mechs because anime is kooky like that!" What I've seen in Yasuke is someone taking all these "kooky" or "cool" elements he's seen and enjoyed in anime and just copying and pasting them without any particular vision behind it other than "shows I enjoyed had these elements as well" - without giving a thought to how those other shows used these elements and how they made them work. (Edited for typos) |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4597 Location: New York |
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There's a quote from Python Vladimir Anghelo, the creator of several pinball games including Pin-Bot, The Machine, and some others when after he left Williams, they re-tooled his old work into JackBot, a mishmash of his old work around a new casino theme that just didn't blend together.
That quote describes Yasuke. People liked Afro Samurai, they liked mecha shows on Netflix, they liked the documentary Age of Samurai, and they like supernatural battles. Now let's mix all that together without rhyme, reason, or any sort of grounding elements and it'll be great. |
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Panino Manino
 Posts: 751 |
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I watched episode 3 and I'll try to finish just to see how "bad" it is.
Can't say I'm disappointed because what could anyone expect from something made by westerners about japan (and it's "culture")? I'm just a bit angry, because while I'm used to see all these bad tropes and vices in japanese productions, a western production is a rare change to avoid all of those, not to double down and make it even worse. At lease it surprised... I wasn't expecting that they would make the scenario of the sengoku war so much a "cultural war", and they would even use the tired "gay villain gay bad" card. Oh, found the video chinese complains about all this "honor" nonsense. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16963 |
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A bit more cleanup done. Look people, you're more than welcome to disagree with the review. Provided you post some actual thoughts and discussion. Simply leaving trollish "is this review serious?!" or "so many things wrong with this" bait comments are not actual discussion. If you didn't like the show, or don't agree with the review, actually post why so there can be some sort of actual discussion.
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Panino Manino
Posts: 751 |
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Oh, yes, I finished and it ended as bad as it looked like it would end.
You know, I didn't expect it to be an "actual history", but I didn't expect so many lasers and robots (along with magic). I think I watched the trailer without paying much attention and don't remember seeing any of this. And what about all those machinery artifacts buried in the ground? So random and was there just to look "cool" (it didn't). Like other pointed already there was zero sense of place and time in this ting, overall the conflict was very incoherent, without much logic and reason. While I continued watching the only thing that I was fearing that didn't happened was they reveal that the "Damiyo" was the mythical Empress Himiko. Wasn't her, but the actual reveal was worse. Seriously, the big villain was an old rugged woman that wanted to live more? And the way she could do this was to suck the life of a young fair maiden? And said maiden was the big savior against the corrupted women? Oh Satan, give me patience. That's the problem. Is not that the anime is bad, that the story is bad. If it was just bad, ok, we watch and forget. But can we point that there where a lot of "wrong" things in this? |
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Charou
 Posts: 123 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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One little problem with this irksome "but you guys normally love mecha in your sengoku jidai anime" angle: Yasuke is about not only a real historical figure but one who hasn't had decades of pop cultural representation. Were this, say, the first pop work to feature Oda Nobunaga, you would want it to serve the reality a little more closely than, oh I dunno, a young girl with a huge gun or something TOTALLY random like that. After the public knows who he was, then you can start playing around. You don't subvert an interesting historical account with lazy genre tropes and cliched elements before anyone has a clue who the protagonist actually was.
Now thanks to this ill-conceived approach, a bunch of casual netflix watchers are going to associate the name "Yasuke" not with a historical figure of unique experience but, y'know, the usual anime BS that makes them dismiss it as little more than subpar silliness. If you enjoyed it, that's perfectly fine. Just understand that this was a chance to bring awareness to one of the most underrepresented figures from an era already romanticised to hell and back, milked for all its worth, and they completely squandered it in favour of absolutely nothing anime fans haven't seen done far better before, because that sort of idea-spaghetti-wall-toss is, as other works might indicate, Thomas' MO. This anime did not need to be yet another "alternate mecha magic Feudal Japan" affair. Surely Yasuke himself is unusual enough as a hook... I'm glad someone took on "Yasuke" as a character. I just wish it'd been someone who could do so in a more historically respectful, nuanced sense.
Nah, mate. That isnt hollywood conditioning. That's how narrative works. Has worked for millennia. Unless you want to reach back to, say, Homer and the mythologising of Troy, and even then I'm willing to bet people of the day knew who these major figures were beyond the bombast of the Iliad. Closer to home, Samurai 7 came long after Seven Samurai... Or, specific to the quote, AL:VH relies entirely on people knowing who AH was and why the idea of him being a VH is so left field. That, as they say, is the joke. That's the subversion. You can't subvert something that hasn't been established as serious. It is meaningless. And sure, sengoku jidai is perfectly established and ripe for subversion even now...but this was not the place to start with a character who deserved a more grounded, memorable debut. But perhaps as I said earlier, derivative anime trope assembly is Thomas' default creative mode, in which case refer back to my desire for a writer/director more inclined to create something people can take seriously. Not to mention one who won't waste such a powerhouse production staff... Edit: upon reflection, I am not sure that well-worn anime elements like mecha samurai, onmyoji magic and shapeshifting qualifies as subversion. Diversion and distraction from deficiency in other areas, maybe... |
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loempiavreter
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Not established? Where were you guys when they showed stuff like Karasu Tengu Kabuto, Yotoden, Kyomu Senshi Miroku, Samurai Resurrection and even Black Lion?
They have established this Oda Nobunaga having futuristic arms, weapons and robots for yeaaars, mostly because of the legacy of Oda using foreign weapons or the myth on being aided by demons or whatever. It's established for years that his stories are always connected to either Aliens or Demonic pact. So therefor the first I saw the robots and stuff i was like ah it's kind of like this throwback to these kind of stories. So I get what they were going for. They didn't need to explain me the setting... that fault is on you guys. I enjoyed the series, a bit mediocre maybe. Kind of like the OVA's I mentioned except Karasu Tengu Kabuto, because Buichi Terasawa is god and he cant do no wrong, they are like those entertaining, if rather bland, titles from the 90s. And I really miss them! Because at least I'd watch those, the anime they make these days is not the stuff I grew up on and funnily enough all the reasons why we rejected comics back in the days, because it was mainly superhero stuff, is the reason why I reject contemporary anime and manga, it caters to 1 type of fan. Ironically, comicbooks have a had a great resurgence of original stories from the likes of Image, Aftershock, Black Mask and other independent publishers doing the stuff anime was making stuff about in the 60s-90s. I miss those sci-fi stories in anime these days. But every once in a while a title like Yasuke appears, to be shat on by the conservative anime community. But darn it, im glad this stuff still exist! That being said... for sure it ain't no Dorohedoro, which is a contemporary title that I enjoy (but frankly that's because it's based on an early 2000s product, i remember reading that stuff during history class in high school!). |
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loempiavreter
Posts: 26 |
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Not established? Where were you guys when they showed stuff like Karasu Tengu Kabuto, Yotoden, Kyomu Senshi Miroku, Samurai Resurrection and even Black Lion?
They have established this Oda Nobunaga having futuristic arms, weapons and robots for yeaaars, mostly because of the legacy of Oda using foreign weapons or the myth on being aided by demons or whatever. It's established for years that his stories are always connected to either Aliens or Demonic pact. So therefor the first I saw the robots and stuff i was like ah it's kind of like this throwback to these kind of stories. So I get what they were going for. They didn't need to explain me the setting... that fault is on you guys. I enjoyed the series, a bit mediocre maybe. Kind of like the OVA's I mentioned except Karasu Tengu Kabuto, because Buichi Terasawa is god and he cant do no wrong, they are like those entertaining, if rather bland, titles from the 90s. And I really miss them! Because at least I'd watch those, the anime they make these days is not the stuff I grew up on and funnily enough all the reasons why we rejected comics back in the days, because it was mainly superhero stuff, is the reason why I reject contemporary anime and manga, it caters to 1 type of fan. Ironically, comicbooks have a had a great resurgence of original stories from the likes of Image, Aftershock, Black Mask and other independent publishers doing the stuff anime was making stuff about in the 60s-90s. I miss those sci-fi stories in anime these days. But every once in a while a title like Yasuke appears, to be shat on by the conservative anime community. But darn it, im glad this stuff still exist, bad plotting included! |
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Hal14
 Posts: 717 Location: Heart of africa |
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This is one of the worst takes on this show, or possibly any show, I've seen so far. You've gone beyond the standard: "blaming viewers for not watching source material" and into "blaming viewers for not being familiar with specific media portrayals of a character". Viewers are not expected to do research on a character before watching a show or film about them or featuring them. Far more popular characters like Dracula or Godzilla still establish their mythos within new works about them. On top of all that, the interview with the creator is about how viewers shouldn't have to know the "truth" about a character to accept the "fantastical". So you're trying to make a defense of a series worldbuilding, whose creator may not even agree with that defense. |
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