Heroes from shonen manga often possess unique abilities. Their one-upsmanship allows them to win whatever fight they have to, from tremendous strength or speed to extraordinary suppleness. However, what if a hero's strength was their capacity for escape?
The cover describes the elusive samurai as follows: a historical drama that follows Tokiyuki Hojo, the astute successor to the Kamakura shogunate's regent, in 14th-century Japan. Instead of following his lessons, he chooses to run about the town, escaping his exhausted professors and doing rooftop acrobatics.But everything changes when his family is killed and deceived. Now all of a sudden, he is ripped from his easy existence. A not-so-subtle priest gives Tokiyuki a not-so-subtle push as he looks down a grim end among fire and swords, but this is just the beginning of a crusade for retribution and the ultimate recapture of his hometown, with Tokiyuki's ability to escape being his greatest asset.
In the middle of its first season, The Elusive Samurai , which is now streaming on Crunchyroll in the United States, is based on the manga by Yusei Matsui, which has been published weekly in Shonen Jump since 2021. I've had this series in my ever-expanding manga backlog for a long now. Using CloverWorks (Bocchi the Rock!, The Promised Neverland) But before I started production, I reasoned that it would be worthwhile to try the first episode.
It is immediately apparent that The Elusive Samurai will be an aesthetically spectacular series. The tale begins, apart from a very catchy and entertaining opening sequence, with a full-motion video prelude on Takauji Ashikaga and Japanese history. Then, the book is physically closed and Tokiyuki is shown running about.
The animation that follows is breathtaking, showing the young lord bounding and leaping throughout the town in the midst of Takauji's farewell celebration. In a couple of minutes, the audience is shown every facet of Tokiyuki's dreamlike palace existence, including his father's puppet regency, Takauji's stoicism, and his satisfaction in avoiding responsibilities in favor of savoring life's little pleasures.
A fortuitously occurring meeting with a priest further solidifies The Elusive Samurai's humorous abilities. Yorishige Suwa and his helper serve as the ideal comic foils to upend Tokiyuki's life in the series, which effectively blends wordplay and physical humor.
Though The Elusive Samurai is very much a samurai narrative, which does include its fair amount of blood and devastation, it would all be quiet before the storm. It's enough to practically send Tokiyuki over the brink, but as he stumbles and falls, he discovers that his agility masks a surprising ability to stay safe and out of harm's way. During a smooth and exquisitely animated sequence, Tokiyuki soars through a swarm of samurai, evading both swords and arrows, and rising with the grace of a phoenix.
This becomes the central theme of The Elusive Samurai, a program that may switch between hilarious antics and graphic bloodshed at any time. Although it sometimes seems discordant, it functions quite well, reflecting Tokiyuki's personal astonishment and feelings at the time. It's amazing how CloverWorks handles what, in other circumstances, may have been a challenging adaption.
When you combine amazing landscape shots, more deft animation and transitions, and even the way CloverWorks presents the whole scene, The Elusive Samurai is unquestionably one of the finest anime visual delights of the summer. Because of its devotion to the moment, an early joke in Episode 2 about a dice game develops into a full-fledged visual humor that plays out across the whole show.
The future episodes will reveal how the humorous and emotional aspects combine, but for now, let's just say that The Elusive Samurai is definitely worth keeping an eye on this summer. Over the last year or two, there have been several excellent manga adaptations, such as Delicious in Dungeon and Frieren. Furthermore, it seems that The Elusive Samurai is about to become just as popular.