If you look back at the anime and manga scene in the 2010s, and the types of series that were popular at the time, you’ll notice that the vibe back then was very different than it is now. Weekly Shonen Jump Always popular, but nothing like the Big Three emerged in the first decade (Naruto, bleach, piece) became popular. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen really started to become the face of the Wall Street Journal, so popular anime include Leaflet, Psycho-Passand Assassination Classroomand now you never hear about them again.
The last entry, Assassination Classroom, seemed to be very well received in its time – what’s not to love about a classroom full of teenagers who are asked to kill an anthropomorphic, incredibly stupid octopus man? While its concept is wacky, it also manages to deliver some emotional moments, but in the 2010s, the style of manga and anime adaptations seems to have been forgotten. But Assassination Classroom is now over a decade old, which means people may miss it in the same way that some people missed anime from the early 2000s last decade – if you miss anime from that era, you may want to check it out, even if it’s not that long ago. The Elusive Samurai.
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Last week, the first episode of The Elusive Samurai was released, an anime adaptation of the manga of the same name, which just happens to be written by Assassination Classroom creator Yusei Matsui. The manga has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since 2021, but despite being drawn by a fairly well-known artist – at least in the West, it has largely seemed to fly under the radar. This is probably because it’s a historical drama, set in Japan in the 1300s, and Japanese period pieces tend not to do well in manga and anime unless there’s some kind of fantasy element.
The story follows Hojo Tokiyuki, the then-Shogun, a young boy who avoids all samurai training at all costs – a trait that allows him to escape death after his entire family is killed (you can see where the show’s name comes from). The first episode sets the stage for all of this and introduces us to Yorishige Suwa, a mysterious priest who believes Hojo will become a great hero who saves Japan. Fans of Jujutsu Kaisen may quickly become enamored with him, as he is voiced by fan-favorite Gojo Satoru voice actor Yuichi Nakamura.
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I’m not going to lie and say the story immediately drew me in, and since this is only the first episode, it’s really just setting the stage for the rest of the series, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be excited about. Firstly, the animation is fantastic, pardon the pun. The direction of the first episode is really engaging, with one particular cut switching between a lighthearted comedic tone and a truly horrific moment of violence in a really impressive way. You’ll find a scene where Hojo’s elusiveness is really on display as well, and it’s a kinetic, frenetic, and energetic scene that brings a lot of life to what could have otherwise been a dull scene.
Back to the topic of nostalgia, the humorous parts of the first episode are closer to the kind of comedy you’d see in anime and manga from the 2010s – exaggerated, unrealistic, and scene-breaking. The opening of the anime is also nostalgic and a bit cheesy, the songs aren’t very good, but funny enough not to be annoying, and the characters dancing in front of a mostly neutral background is funny enough not to be annoying, even if you wouldn’t add it to your “best anime OP” playlist. It really feels like an anime you rarely see nowadays, and while I may not be super nostalgic for anime from the 2010s, it’s still refreshing to have something that doesn’t have to conform to current trends.
I’m not sure how this series will pan out, and there will definitely be spoilers for manga readers (comic readers, behave yourself), but the first episode was enough to keep me going. To be safe, I’ll have to prepare myself for a talking octopus to show up one day.
