Television series
Yasuke
Yasuke reimagines Japan's real first African samurai as a weary swordsman dragged out of quiet retirement into a fractured land where daimyo armies fight alongside sorcerers, spirits and towering mechs. LeSean Thomas builds a lean six-episode fable, all mood and momentum, scored by Flying Lotus into something woozy and melancholic. It's gorgeous, occasionally goofy, and built for one long sitting rather than a slow burn.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want a samurai story where history's gaps get filled with mechs and sorcery, and you enjoy a lean, stylish anime that treats its loner hero's weariness seriously.
Skip it if you're after a fully fleshed-out epic, since at six short episodes it sketches its world in broad strokes and hurries its emotional beats.
What it asks of you: Brief and brisk, roughly half an hour an episode, so one evening settles it; expect action bursts between quieter, melancholy stretches rather than long build-ups.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Samurai Champloo2004
Same blend of anachronism and swordplay - hip-hop scored, wildly stylish, and just as interested in melancholy loners drifting through a fractured Japan.
But Looser and funnier than Yasuke, with episodic detours that can feel like filler if you want constant plot momentum.
Afro Samurai2007
The most direct sibling Yasuke has - a Black warrior cutting through feudal Japan with unapologetic style, rage, and a killer soundtrack.
But Thinner story than Yasuke, mostly an excuse for gorgeous, relentless ultraviolence rather than character depth.
Cowboy Bebop1998
Watanabe's genre-blending masterpiece shares Yasuke's mood of tired warriors carrying old violence into new lives, scored by music too good for TV.
But No samurai, no magic - space bounty hunters instead, so the surface similarities end quickly.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Yasuke
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance1972
Yasuke's whole plot - the retired killer forced back to violence to protect one vulnerable child through a fractured Japan - is lifted almost wholesale from this 1972 grindhouse classic, minus the mechs.
The original template: a disgraced swordsman with a violent past pushes a small child in a wooden cart through warring feudal territories, killing anyone who gets close. Brutal, stylish, deadly serious.
But No fantasy at all - real steel, real grime, and a slower, colder pace than Netflix action typically allows.
More like this (8)
The Mandalorian2019
If what hooked you was a lethal loner reluctantly guarding a strange, powerful child, this is the live-action, big-budget version of that exact engine.
But Trades Japanese folklore for space opera entirely - zero samurai, zero mecha in the way Yasuke means it.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust2001
A lone, ancient supernatural swordsman wandering a gothic future-past, animated with the same painterly seriousness Yasuke aims for.
But Slower and stranger, closer to horror-romance than action - patience required.
Sword of the Stranger2007
A masterless swordsman reluctantly escorts a hunted child across a hostile countryside - basically Yasuke's plot, told straight, with some of the best animated sword choreography ever made.
But No fantasy elements at all - if the mechs and magic were the draw, this will feel comparatively plain.
Ninja Scroll1993
Nineties classic samurai-fantasy anime, packed with monstrous villains, poisoned romance and gonzo violence in a similarly mythologized feudal Japan.
But Dated in places, and the treatment of its sole female lead has not aged well.
Castlevania2017
Western-made but soaked in anime influence, this pairs brooding antiheroes with monsters and magic in a similarly moody, gore-happy register.
But European gothic horror, not Japanese folklore - a real tonal jump despite the surface similarities.
47 Ronin2013
Same impulse to bolt fantasy monsters onto real samurai history, big studio spectacle included, if you want the messier live-action cousin.
But Widely considered a misfire - clunky, over-produced, and nowhere near as confident as Yasuke in its own weirdness.
The Twilight Samurai2002
Strip away every fantastical flourish and Yasuke's core sadness - a warrior out of step with a Japan that no longer has room for men like him - is exactly what this film sits with, unhurried and unarmed.
A quiet, humane portrait of a low-ranking samurai just trying to survive a changing world with his dignity and family intact - no swordfights until they truly matter.
But Almost nothing happens for long stretches, and there isn't a mech or spell in sight - a real mood shift from Yasuke's spectacle.
Kubo and the Two Strings2016
Same bones as Yasuke - a protector duty-bound to shepherd a marked child through a mythic, dangerous version of Japan - but rendered by hand, frame by frame, for an audience half Yasuke's age.
A stop-motion fable about a child guided across a magical, monster-haunted Japan by a guardian sworn to protect him - achingly beautiful, and genuinely moving.
But It's a family film at heart - gentler, sadder in a different key, and without Yasuke's gore or moral murk.
People
Writing
- LeSean ThomasCreator
Recommended by
Samurai Champloo, Afro Samurai, Heaven Official's Blessing, The Eccentric Family, Rurouni Kenshin: The Final, The Lion King