Episode 7 – Yaiba: Samurai Legend

With how crazy last week’s episode got thanks to its presentation, I’m bummed out that this one feels like a downgrade. Visually, it’s strong but narratively feels like a set-up, as we’re introduced to a new character in the form of the legendary swordsman, Kojiro Sasaki. Given the show’s breakneck pacing, I’d be all for an episode that feels like it’s taking its time a little more, but the series is still moving as fast as ever, and what we end up with is an episode where it somehow doesn’t feel like much actually happens despite how fast the story is going.

As Onimaru continues to terrify the populace of Japan (and possibly kills a few hundred civilians when he slices the Tokyo Tower for someone daring to talk back to him), he soon catches wind of Mr. Bat’s defeat. Now that his Eight Ogres are down to just Mr. Spider, Onimaru tasks him with stopping Yaiba and the others from retrieving Kojiro Sasaki’s sword, by resurrecting the man himself. Of course, bringing a corpse back from the dead is no easy feat, and requires a few steps involving mixing an old magic brew, along with the most important requirement: ripping a hole in the space-time continuum to retrieve Kojiro’s soul from the exact moment he died. That last bit certainly caught me off guard, and while it’s not exactly the best joke we’ve gotten from this show, I do appreciate the novelty of seeing a series as silly as this one suddenly bringing up space-time physics.

Meanwhile, as our heroes go to retrieve Kojiro’s sword, Musashi decides to regale Yaiba and Sayaka with tales of the epic rivalry between him and Kojiro, and how even he feared having to face the power of his sword. However, when Yaiba asks how he managed to defeat Kojiro head-on if he was so afraid, it turns out he didn’t, as Musashi won their final duel by showing up late to throw Kojiro off his game and slew him before he could properly react. Despite this underhanded victory, this old man still has the audacity to claim that even someone like Kojiro could never hope to be his equal with a sword which just makes it all the more beautiful when a resurrected Kojiro overhears this and decides to take his (frankly justified) vengeance. This results in a pretty slick-looking sword duel between the two, and while it’s too brief to reach the heights of the one we got with Mr. Bat last week, it’s solid enough to make for a notable highlight to the episode. It also does a good job of showcasing that for as egotistical as Musashi is, he can back up his claims and hasn’t slowed down much in his old age.

Rather than just watching from the sidelines, Yaiba decides to jump into this fight as well but doesn’t have the skills to keep up with a master swordsman like Kojiro. Not only that, but he also fails to notice the still open space-time portal behind him and gets flung into the distant past alongside Mr. Sea Cucumber. This leads them to have a run in with a younger, ruggedly handsome-looking Musashi, who is in the middle of settling his long-standing rivalry with Kojiro as they prepare for their ultimate duel. Yaiba realizes that the best thing to do is to wait things out until Musashi and Kojiro have their duel and hop back through the time portal that will open up when the latter dies, considering that this little jungle boy seems like his head would explode if you explained to him what a time loop is, it’s equal parts surreal and funny to see just how quickly he picks up on the details. He also realizes that the wait here could be a good opportunity to get in some sword practice, and decides to train under Musashi until the day of the fated duel arrives. Just before it does, though, Yaiba lets it slip that he knows how Musashi is planning to cheat his way through that duel, and with how much this younger version of Musashi prides himself on being perceived as a noble warrior, he’s not about to slip up and get caught playing dirty. This, however, creates a bit of a problem as his fighting fairly might risk altering history, and if the duel doesn’t go down the way it’s supposed to, Yaiba could end up stranded in the past with no way back.

While that tension lets this episode end on a solid cliffhanger, it also means that it’s hard to come up with much to say about this plot, and I can’t form much of an opinion on it until we see how it ends. While I did get some laughs out of Musashi’s underhanded tactics and the sudden importance of space-time theory, nothing outside of that left much of an impression on me and otherwise left me feeling the closest I’ve gotten to being bored with this show. I also thought it was a bit of a wasted opportunity to have Yaiba’s training with young Musashi be played out as a montage over the ending credits rather than something for the story to focus on. I’m not always the biggest fan of the pacing of training arcs but spending an episode or two on it would have been a great way to follow up on what we saw last week with Yaiba deciding to get more serious about his sword training, and see him mature a little more. Instead, this sequence blends into the rest of the episode without leaving any kind of impact and contributes to it feeling like not a lot happened here, even with how quickly the plot is moving. Thankfully, this whole space-time adventure isn’t over yet, there’s still time for it to win me over. Still, this was one of the show’s weakest outings so far.

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Yaiba: Samurai Legend is currently streaming on Netflix and Hulu on Saturdays.