My rule about anime is "when you see an anime, watch it or bookmark it for later". This principle has guided me all through the years and ensured I never miss an anime, whether good or bad. Yasuke is somewhere in the middle and overall, it wasn't too cringe.
I ran into the anime while scrolling through my Netflix suggestions and overall, I'm glad I watched it. Yasuke(real name Eusebio) chronicles the life of a former slave who was converted to a Samurai by his master.
The problem is that Yasuke is well, black and in Japan, a lot of his peers and rivals didn't entirely accept him. In fact, on multiple occasions, both his opponent and teammate regarded him as an outsider posing like a Samurai.
However, due to Yasuke's confidence and extreme loyalty to the cause, he pleased his master who had a more open-minded view about society at the time.
The series was set up during feudal Japan when Damiyos fought a lot of battles. After Yasuke's master, the previous Damiyo was defeated by some dark lord lady with magical ability, he had to slice of his master's head after the said master performed the Samurai ritual of Harakiri(Suicide basically).
After cutting off his master's head, he was instructed to escape and live out his days. That's exactly what he did until disaster struck and he had to guide a young girl with magic abilities on her quest to defeat the currently ruling dark ruler.
The anime had the typical "you're the chosen one" storyline, with Yasuke constantly fighting off bad guys. The fight scenes are pretty epic too and yasuke constantly proved to be a badass with the sword.
The fight scenes were pretty gory and there was mature language, so you might not want to watch it with young audience. Overall, it was a nice experience, though riddled with cliches and boring dialog.
There was also unnecessary deaths of some characters I like and spoiler alert, my favourite character was a shaman from Benin kingdom currently the capital of Edo state in Nigeria. Edo is also what Tokyo used to be called, so there's some history lesson for you. The shaman didn't die and ended the series super rich, so that's a happy ending.
I recommend you watch the anime if you enjoy hardcore violence and badass fight scenes. Conversations are cringe but then again, almost all anime conversations are cringe anyways.
