Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba

This is one of the best anime I watched during childhood. Now that a new adaptation is in order this year 2025, how does this anime hold?

In my rewatch, this is still a delightful watch.


§ Overview

Kurogane Yaiba has always trained to become the best samurai in the world. One day, his father tells him to go to Japan. He quickly encounters Onimaru Takeshi, whom he defeats. Takeshi holds a grudge, so when he finds the Sword of the Devil Wind, he becomes evil and threatens to rule Japan and then the world. What would Yaiba do?


... § Notes


1. This is Aoyama Gōshō's underrated and largely forgotten anime and manga. It is still to be seen if newer anime watchers would love this because Yaiba is a product of its time.


2. Its power system is fairly basic. A legendary sphere powers your sword, and the only way to level up is, apart from physical training which hasn't been explained sufficiently, one must acquire either new spheres or a more powerful sword.


3. Its audience is children around 10 or people who are children at heart, especially like me who have seen this when I was young. Most anime fans who have seen the staple shounen like Hunter x Hunter or Full Metal Alchemist might not like it as this is not something that will make you think about life, but Yaiba really does it best for what it aims to do.

Since the target audience is grade schoolers, it uses immature and childish humour. It doesn't pretend to be something more serious the way the Elusive Samurai does. If you watch it as an adult, this may be your guilty pleasure because the slapstick humour is great. It still holds up.


4. It is mostly juvenile humour all throughout, but there is an arc where it gets serious for the show. Kids get to practise exercising their reasoning on a moral dilemma. It's not too deep but way serious for its intended audience.


5. We also meet different personages of Japanese history such as Miyamoto Musashi, Sasaki Kojirou, etc. They are a parody of these characters. Despite the power system being basic, it has some depth because it is grounded in Japanese lore and history.

I suspect one of the goals of Aoyama-sensei in creating this anime/manga is for young kids to be entertained while at the same time learn a small bit of history by contrasting the real-life persons they are learning in history class to the parodies in his anime.

There are some life lessons you can somehow gain from this childish anime, though the lesson in the final episode may seem too tacky for my taste.


6. I was surprised on my rewatch that it has a lot of word plays. Maybe not to the level of NISIOISIN in Monogatari, but they're there.


7. Whilst I enjoyed all 52 episodes, it's only halfway through the manga. Wit Studio's new adaptation aims to cover all chapters of the manga, but they'll execute things differently and perhaps make things a little less childish.

If this were to happen, then there's still room for any fan or would-be fan of Yaiba to watch this classic adaptation. I'm not sure if this even deserves the sakuga polish of the new adaptation.


8. The OP and ED are a banger.


§ Conclusion

This anime is a forgotten classic and I hope the interest in it will be revived once we get the new adaptation. But as it stands, the classic version of Yaiba is an entertaining watch. I highly recommend it.

Yaiba was one of Gosho Aoyoma's earlier manga before he created the smash hit series Detective Conan. I have yet to read the manga, but I have heard it does not adapt it all the way and the anime had an anime-only ending. But despite all of these claims, this was a very good show and I hope to see it grow in popularity soon.

The plot really isn't all that hard to follow; it basically goes this kid named Yaiba wants to become the best samurai so his dad sends him to Japan. But this guy named Onimaru wants to take over Japan. So Yaiba ... and his ever expanding friend group have to defeat his troops and Onimaru himself. It has a very simple plot, but it executes pretty well. The fights weren't too interesting in the beginning of the series but they get very exciting in the end. The pacing is kind of slow however, and some scenes were very predictable. But the comedy was alright. Some jokes were pretty funny (ex. kintama joke) but others just fell flat. Overall the story was okay.

The art is pretty good, it's what you'd expect from Gosho Aoyoma; big ears, tiny noses, and large heads. The animation honestly wasn't too good, but the show was made in 1993 by an obscure studio so it can be excused. The backgrounds were pretty appealing and the character designs fit the characters very well.

The voice acting was very good and the voice actors portrayed their characters very well. The opening was memorable and the ending was catchy. But I think the OST takes the cake here. The music fit the show perfectly and there were a few insert songs here and there. I honestly think the music is one of the best things about this show.

Though they were some likeable characters in this show (Jubei, Gerozaemon, Musashi, Yaiba [sort of]) there were a lot of annoying and bad ones, like some of Onimaru's henchmen (Kumo-Otoko I'm talking about you.) But the most annoying character of all is Sayaka. She takes on the useless annoying girl anime trope and she made the show so unwatchable because she was so annoying. However she redeemed herself at the end of the series by improving her character a bit.

Overall, I think this is a pretty good anime if you want some action, adventure, and comedy. Despite all of its flaws, it does a lot of stuff well and I highly recommend it. If you liked 1986 Dragon Ball, you'll probably enjoy this.

What the hell happened to this adaptation?
I don't know how many people have never read this manga and watched this anime for the first time. It was a bad journey. I'm not talking about kids under 7 who watched this anime. I say people older than 7. God, I know this is an anime from '93, '94, but look at Dragon ball GT, I won't say more. The story was cut halfway, and believe me, they cut the best parts. The only positive thing I found is the ost, the songs are quite nice and smooth, I mean the song in the last episode. I ... don't know why they had to drop the story and make up a fake ending but I have to review based on real feelings. And perhaps with such art, it is hard to ask for more of a failure version of the Yaiba fake samurai.