The legendary “Black Samurai” has retired – but his past is catching up with him.

Yasuke arrives onto Netflix with quite a bit of fanfare; an original anime by the streaming service featuring a Black Samurai based on a figure who actually existed.

I went into the show expecting anime tropes of course but what I wasn’t expecting were robots and African shamans and scythe wielding mercenaries in improbable armour alongside the Japanese elements.

Sure, you could argue these too are staples of anime, but I think I’d been expecting something more focussed on the central character, Yasuke, and who he is as a person and the type of life he might have led in Japan in that era.

The show isn’t really interested in that and, to be honest, doesn’t really know how to handle it except with crude and clumsy references to his skin colour. From this first half of the season we have no sense of where he comes from, what drives him or what he thinks. Really, he is nothing more than a Black body on screen helping us, the viewer, access what is otherwise quite a strange world the show has built.

Yasuke is a blank slate of the old-fashioned kind – the reluctant warrior with a kid in tow who they’ve decided needs protecting and who, in turn, might just be much more significant than the titular hero.

As with many anime, this show does little in the way of explaining what’s going on. People have powers but there’s no discussion of why. We don’t really know where they live or if there are big cities or who’s even in charge. People are fighting but we don’t really get a sense of what the stakes are. Right at the beginning of the show there is a big prologue that lays out the barest threads of what’s going on, but the bulk of the show takes place much later and it’s not entirely clear how the two time periods really connect in terms of politics or the wider world.

Does it matter that Yasuke is such a bland figure? It does to me – for so unique a character it feels like a huge missed opportunity to tell a story with them and not to unpack some of what makes them so unique. As far as it goes Yasuke does not need to be a person of colour and, to some extent, that’s fine. Not every story needs to focus on such elements of identity… but, in this case? It’s a shame the story doesn’t give us more of a sense of who he is and what he wants.

The fact we see him in a flashback at the Dutch East India port which was also the only place in the country non-Japanese peoples were allowed to come ashore is never explained (if you know, you know). Even exploring this a little more could have helped build the world in a way which would make it feel lived in. After all, this isn’t some mythic land we’re talking about but the Sengoku period and Yasuke was a real person who arrived as an assistant to an Italian missionary (not a slimy salesman per the show). His story is super interesting and feels completely underserved.

The story itself is pretty standard fare but well delivered. There are no surprises so far but LaKeith Stanfield does a great job as the laconic and weary Yasuke and despite some of the missed elements, it is fun enough to watch.

I’m halfway through the season at this point and I’m expecting this to go the same way as the recent Dragon’s Dogma and League of Legends anime which ended their first season, six episode runs, without really telling entire arcs. We shall see.

The animation style is competent and very similar to that of the other two anime I mention above. It’s something of a house style for Netflix it would seem.

The supporting characters are great fun – idiosyncratic, off the wall and snappy. With the season’s first three episodes closing with the end of a mini-arc, I’m not sure we’ll see many of them again as things look to be switching gear from this point on, but if the show can continue to provide interesting secondary characters it will be fun to watch.

I’d note in closing that there is a lot of gore and many beheadings – the age label is well earned.

Verdict: Yasuke may end up being little more than a curiosity – a mid-list show which is entertaining enough but doesn’t do anything special. Half way through season 1 I’m still on the fence – still hoping for more as episode four kicks off.

Rating? 6 robot prototypes of 10.

Stewart Hotston