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2025 is almost a quarter of the way through,and the Spring anime season is now fully underway, and it is already shaping up to be an exciting one with several anticipated new anime, including the reboot of the anime adaptation ofCase Closedauthor Gōshō Aoyama’sYAIBA, which isreturning after 30 years. In the very first scene of the first episode of the new anime titledYAIBA: Samurai Legend, the fated battle between the titular protagonist and his biggest rival, Takeshi Onimaru, is teased as the narrator explains that in this world, unfathomable powers used to rule and clashed often.
Yaiba and Onimaru becomevessels of powerful opposing forces, and once again the war of yore wages again, but before we get into all of that, did WIT Studio just give us a candidate for animation of the season withYAIBA’sintroductory scene?
What’s YAIBA About?
A Nostalgic Shōnen Feeling
YAIBA: Samurai Legendfollows the titular character, Yaiba Kurogane, son of a great swordsman who lived together with his father in the forest until his father sends him to live with the Mine family, as the father of the Mine household happens to be his rival in kendo. With very little knowledge of how the world works, and a burning desire to become a samurai (not realizing that those no longer exist), Yaiba took to his new environment, excited by the prospect of seeing so many sword arts practitioners in the same place.
One day, after following Sayaka to her school’s kendo club,Yaiba has a fated encounter with Takeshi Onimaru, the best at the school’s dojo, and engages him in a sparring match. Yaiba loses, but the excitement burns in his heart as he realizes that he has a rival, not realizing the roles the two will play in an age-old war, with Onimaru eventually succumbing to the effects of a demon sword and becoming the vessel of the Demon King. From the jump, the series reveals the possibility of the supernatural in its narrative, which explains the scale of the battle that opens the series.
The Brilliant Animation of Episode 1
WIT Studio Is Cooking
The first scene ofYAIBA: Samurai Legendis exactly the kind of taste tester the series needed to convince people who were unsure about if it would be worth their time this season. Many knew going into episode 1 that WIT, the studio famous for the production of the first three seasons ofAttack on Titan, would be working on this, and those who saw some of its trailers would have been intrigued by the visual style of the series, but no one could have expected the kind of sakuga we got inYAIBA: Samurai Legendepisode 1.
Talk aboutbreathing new life into a classic. The series boasts production staff like Takahiro Hasui, who directedMob Psycho 100 IIIat BONES, as director; Tōko Machida, who wrote the scripts for a few episodes ofAkame ga KILL!serves as scriptwriter and oversees the series' composition; Yoshimichi Kameda, arguably one of the most important action animators of the past decade, maybe even two, serves as one of the animation directors and was responsible for the animation direction of episode 1.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, this is the animation director who gave usthatRoy Mustang moment inFullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. While the epic light show of a battle that we witness in the show’s initial moments piques the curiosity of the viewer and gives them a good taste of nostalgia as it culminates in an epic beam struggle between the two combatants,Dragon Ball Zstyle, it’s the rest of the episode that really impresses the viewer.
It combines a nostalgic, 90s anime feel with unmistakably modern animation and highly-detailed choreography, dynamic angles and beautiful flowing movement unimpeded by too much flash. What episode 1 ofYAIBA: Samurai Legendshows us is the series' ability to depict less superpowered combat in a manner that is still exciting for reasons that differ from the excitement you get from seeing the initial sequence. Based on the first episode,YAIBA: Samurai Legendcould have the potential to drop even greater visuals andsome of the best animated sequences we’ll get this yearwill most likely come from this show. But time will tell.
