The Elusive Samurai

Episodes 1-3

If there is anything that is bound to be divisive about The Elusive Samurai, it would be the show's tone. When a story tries to balance between two seemingly opposite poles of ridiculous absurdity and abject horror, it can cause folks to instinctively reject the thing wholesale. Here's a perfect example of what I mean, from Episode 2:

After the tragic events of the show's stunning premiere, our hero Tokiyuki finds nothing but death and destruction in the ruins of his old home. Takauji Ashikaga has betrayed the Hojo clan and not even the children can escape the resulting bloodshed. Upon learning that his gentle older brother Kunitoki was sold out to be beheaded by their treacherous uncle Muneshige, all Tokiyuki can do is collapse in a puddle of his vomit and tremble in the reckoning of everything he has lost… that is, until, the goofy-ass clairvoyant Suwa Yorishige shows up to turn the whole thing into another one of his many goofy interjections. In an instant, all of the melancholy and terror gripping the show is gone and we're back to the vibrant and gorgeously animated shenanigans, as usual.

I can see why people might be put off by how The Elusive Samurai forces its characters to confront all of the ugly brutality of life in 14th-century Japan, even as it refuses to let anyone take it too seriously for more than a few seconds at a time. Between the ugly fate of Kiyoko and the shocking scene of the nine-year-old Kunitoki getting his head chopped off, you would think that this show would be a grim and “realistic” affair that would make even the most hardened Game of Thrones fan hold up their hands and say, “Hold on, do we need to go that far?” Instead, The Elusive Samurai is a Technicolor fever dream of deliriously beautiful action and adventure that is, more often than not, one of the most unrepentantly fun anime to premiere this year.

If you couldn't tell already, I was in love with every single frame of the show's first three episodes (except for the awful child-murder parts). The sequence that made me realize I was one hundred percent on board with this insane show's particular wavelength was the climactic battle between Tokiyuki and his uncle Muneshige in Episode 2. The constant thematic allusions to strategy and board games crystalized alongside the way that Tokiyuki's supernatural “evasion” talents are used to characterize his approach to the fight: Here is an eight-year-old orphan who is facing off against the terrifying ogre that got his little brother slaughtered—and even as he is ducking and weaving blows that would be instantly fatal if they were to connect, the kid is having a blast. And so we are meant to do the same, no matter how dire things might truly be.

I don't know if Suwa is truly a prophet, or a god, or a weirdo time-traveler with a borderline fetishistic love of Japanese history—though his insistence that his little squadron of orphans keep playing him in a tabletop version of Momotaru Dentetsu makes me think that “Option C” might be the correct one. Either way, his over-the-top demeanor belies his cunningness and sense of strategy. The way that he deploys Toriyuki's new retainers in the battle is exactly what a seasoned player of historical strategy games would do; first, you must evaluate your different units and their unique skill sets, and then you must deploy them effectively to protect your Hero Unit and achieve the mission objective. It's an extremely clever and layered approach to telling this otherwise simple Hero's Journey of a story, and I cannot wait to see where the show takes it from here.

Finally, a word on those retainers, aka The Elusive Warriors. This review is getting long enough. I will simply explain that their fun battle against the ancient boar in Episode 3 cemented two important facts. The first fact is that The Elusive Samurai is very deft at crafting compelling and likable characters despite their simplicity; all we know about Shizuku, Kojiro, and Ayako are their respective talents and the fact that they're all very nice—but that's all we need to know, at this point. This is because of Fact 2, which is that The Elusive Warriors are an adorable and perfect band of little heroes and anyone who speaks ill of them will immediately be dragged out into the street and mercilessly pummeled by yours truly.

Is everyone here on the same page? Good. That's what I thought. Tokiyuki Hojo is a venerable young master walking the dangerous path of destiny alongside a trio of the best pals a lord could ask for—and one impossibly ridiculous maybe-god. He demands nothing less than our utmost respect and support. The boy needs it if he's going to get through chopping off all of those traitorous heads waiting for him on the road to revenge.

Rating:

The Elusive Samurai is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.