“Meeting Yaiba”
What They Say:
Yaiba’s whole life has been spent training to be a samurai and he doesn’t know about anything else, not even girls. When he returns to Japan, a pair of cursed swords makes life even more exciting and hilarious.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While most people know Gosho Ayoma for his work on Detective Conan, they’ve got a number of other works over the years, such as Yaiba. The manga began in 1988 and ran for twenty-four volumes in Weekly Shonen Sunday for Shogakukan. It previously saw a 52-episode anime adaptation in 1993 that has never been licensed or released in English. This new adaptation has brought on Takahiro Hasui to direct it with the series composition by Touko Machida. What definitely caught some attention was Wit Studio handling the animation production as well.
While I don’t have a huge affection fot the manga and anime of old, I did read a lot of them over the years and have logged hundreds and hundreds of hours watching them. I understand their charms, the pacing and structure, and I have lamented that the modern anime world needs more of these kings of long-running works that are pretty episodic, good drop-in and drop-out kinds of projects that aren’t super high-end. The show introduces us to the titular Yaiba, a young samurai who has spent his formative years traveling and learning to be a samurai with his mentor Kenjuro and a couple of animals, such as the tiger Kagetora. Kenjuro has taught him a survival of the fittest kind of mindset but you have to laugh that when they’re overwhelmed by the gorillas, as they know enough to just get the hell out of there quickly. It’s straightforward and simple but the kind of cute comedy that makes you smile, especially as they hide in some boxes of bananas that are being shipped to Japan.
The timing of it all works out well for Yaiba and friends as they end up back in Japan at the same time that Sayaka has come to the airport to pick up her father. Who, it seems, has a longstanding grudge against Kenjuro whom he feels is a challenger. So, a quasi-standoff duel in the airport is a delight, especially as Sayaka steps in to protect her father from Yaiba. It’s the best kind of classic meet-cute! It’s also the moment that we learn that Yaiba has only been around dudes for the longest time, as he’s excited to meet a girl, which of course has an attempt at flipping a skirt. Again, old school antics that may bother some but there’s an amusement in seeing it utilized here in the way it does as Yaiba is introduced to a sprawling modern society. Yaiba is definitely taken with Tokyo and the show provides a good montage sequence for it, but the end result is the best – Kenjuro has come back to Sayaka’s house with her father so they can move in for the time being. You definitely have to feel for her father, Raizo, as Kenjuro just rolls right into this all being normal and acceptable.
The episode does a lot of introductions, especially since there’s a dojo on the grounds and we see how Yaiba just puts the students there through their paces, but it manages to balance his frenetic energy well with a more laid-back approach of others. Sayaka’s one to worry about as she could easily fall into a nagging category but she’s just trying to get him to calm down and fit in more since he’s so overactive. There’s a lot going on that they try to establish fast, including a mild attempt at sending him to school and not quite getting it, but he also gets to see that there’s some martial arts being taught there as well that’s a draw to him. A lot of it works to show how Sayaka and Yaiba get along but it’s just playing into the familiar gender stuff of decades past, but through this kind of obliviousness of someone who has essentially lived wild. Sayaka is good at smacking him around but it just reminds you that Kenjurou failed in many ways.
In Summary:
I’ll admit, I went into Yaiba with the lowest of expectations because I’ve had such mixed reactions to Ayoma’s works over the years. I can appreciate them but they’ve largely not been for me. Yaiba, however, manages to be what a lot of the original work was without sanding off the edges, such as the recent Ranma ½ and Urusei Yatsura shows did. Those felt like imitations of 1980s works. Yaiba feels very much 1980s but just gussied up with modern animation techniques and brighter colors that can come through. The end result is something that feels incredibly out of place and time but absolutely a delight because of it. I totally get why people will take issue with some of the antics of Yaiba, mostly with Sayaka, but if you’re going to animate a work like this, it’s one of the central pieces and to remove it does change it significantly. I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and may actually be a contender to stick with because it doesn’t feel like every other show this current decade.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Netflix
