#Elusive Samurai

[nijigasakilove]

Starting to think the hype for a show is inversely proportionate to its quality because wtf all the best premieres this season have had no hype! Like where the hell did this show come from, Cloverworks knocked this first episode out of the park and if this is any indication of how the rest of the series is gonna look, look out for a dark horse AOTS contender.

There’s no better studio to handle shows that have a blend of action and comedy than Cloverworks. They’ve shown us time and time again with Spy x Family, Balance Unlimited, Windbreaker and now this, but this actually looks better than anything they’ve done imo.

First 12 minutes of the episode totally lull you into thinking it’s gonna be a peaceful slice of life anime about a prince who likes to slag off his training, only to seamlessly transition, thru the use of the ball hitting the ground turning into a decapitated head, into the reality of the era. This period in Japanese history was filled with bloodshed, war, betrayals and stuff that would make George RR Martin’s novels look like Disney colouring books and they nailed that here.

The bloodshed, the fall of the Hojo clan and their territory, it all feels so sudden and you’re as broken as Tokiyuki is by the end of it. Everything’s going so well, you get the prophecy from the sage and boom, your world is flipped upside down. Brilliant use of direction to evoke empathy from the audience for the MC. Almost a Ghost of Tsushima style start to this.

The animation during the scene of Suwa pushing Tokiyuki off the cliff and him running thru the crowd of warriors was astounding.. this really is one of the best looking shows this year and one of the best premieres as well. After the success of Shogun I’m very much down for more stuff in this era of Japanese history and can’t wait to see how Tokiyuki gets his revenge.

[inbestigator]

The Elusive Samurai

[askbloatedbellyblog]

So in an attempt to fluster @dumdumdrawstumtums and to get more practice with a new video program, I edited this scene from Elusive Samurai episode 3 to add burps (with some extra lip flaps) and some stomach noises. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though I think I'll have to edit audio in a different program because the audio effects weren't as rich as other programs.

If I try it again, I might try something that doesn't have music in it or add it later so I can mix it in later. Which is maybe a good limitation as I would have made this worse.

[benthic-girl]

Elusive samurai is so insanely horny about tokiyuki it's crazy

[playtheshadw]

Thinking a little more about this scene. I think that Fubuki hasn’t really properly been recognized or appreciated by anyone (considering his relationship w/ his father was bad enough to resort to murder) so Tokiyuki’s praise must have meant so, so much. The thing with Tokiyuki is that he’s so honest & kind despite the era. His words always hold so much weight, both due to his status and personality.

Fubuki being moved to tears is SO! For someone who’s always hiding their emotions, hiding something, to be so moved…

His body language contradicts what he’s saying, he’s clutching his heart and ohh for Tokiyuki’s kindness to be directed to him. Fubuki was finally the person being chosen.

Tokiyuki offered Fubuki warmth to quell his hunger, and Fubuki wants to help him the best he can in exchange. Their friendship is so special to me

[bloodysparklez]

my son. my baby boy. light of my life, the center of my universe, my darling little guy

[rmorde]

Okay. I am so fucking sold on Elusive Samurai.

Omfg. This anime is so gorgeous. Just so fucking gorgeous.

I love the variety in art styles and how they just blend together.

The burnt background is a rough charcoal drawing yet it doesn't clash with the brightly colored characters drawn with smooth and clean lines.

Then this really clever visual of how evil and demonic the wretched fucking uncle is.

He is just pure evil barely contained with those thick, dark, inky line work.

Such a fucking piece of shit with a fitting Oni theme.

I swear this anime is just so so gorgeous. My favorite sequence was Tokiyuki just fighting his uncle one-on-one. The screen just goes black and...

Just beautiful. Even the smears are lovely.

I also love how it just seamlessly switch between styles without losing its quality like with the blood.

Blood splash that's really bright red. Flat and sharp in shape.

Then here its darker red and less sharp. It has more volume.

This anime is just beautiful.

[itwillbelonelywontit]

we are truly living in the correct timeline

[yutamayo]

Was just planning to maybe watch the first few episodes of The Elusive Samurai with my brother yet here we are on episode 6 with me like maybe we can finish this before I have to make the 2hr commute home bc like holy SHIT THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING BANGER SINCE LIKE HONESTLY KNY OR AOT TO BE FRANK

it's unique and has so many beautiful foundations and plot tropes done so Fucking well like a combination of so many genres this anime is gonna STEAL awards when the crunchyroll award time comes around like

Was only 15min into the first episode before I knew this is an anime that is going to stay in my top faves forever.

It gives me a combination of vibes akin to Princess Mononoke, Zom 100, Demon slayer, and just so many other beautiful things.

The art style!!!!! The characters!!!! The animation!!!!!!!

The CI NEMA TO GGGGRA PH HYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

This anime will win best cinematography in the next awards I can bet my life on it.

If ur looking for an anime to grab your heart and make you cry with a smile on your face as your heart breaks but ur also laughing and just crumbling into pieces of god damn AWESTRUCK WONDER, then go watch The Elusive Samurai, Right. Now.

[tokiro07]

Toki Reads Shonen Jump 2024, Issue #51

HxH: A Kakin soldier, Borksen, is captured by the Heil-Ly; Morena tries to recruit Borksen through a complicated and clearly rigged card game. Welcome back, Cipher Academy.

Yozakura: Tsubomi tells the twins how they can save Kyoichiro from sacrificing himself; the key is Rei's heart, which is only present because Hifumi previously spared Nii; Momo and Taiyo are freed of Asa's control. Hifumi's kindness is retroactively proven to be objectively correct, trumping any strategy or logic from the rest of the cast

Undead Unluck: Fuuko activates Remember, successfully upgrading the entire cast and allowing Julia to steamroll all of the Master Rules. Seems rushed at first, until you realize that Soul still hasn't been dealt with, and Julia just taught him a new facet to his Rule...

Roboco: Roboco writes her own relationship chart and can't help but ship herself with JJK's Gojo and Blue Box's Taiki. Watching Roboco fall into her delusions in real time is certainly a ride, and I'm really hoping that this chapter spawns a new meme template

Sakamoto: Tenkyu pulls off some sick tricks with his bow; Atari saves Shin with one of the most romantic displays of fate I've seen in Jump outside of UU. After all of that, it's going to be so funny when it turns out that Heisuke is her soulmate

EluSam: Kojiro's cousin, Kojiro, arrives to aid the team, but Uesugi sends Nagao to aid Sadamune. It looks like we're going to wrap up Kojiro's character arc soon, since his family and nemesis are converging

Witch Watch: The flashback continues and we see the rivalry between Moi and Kanshi's dads forming. All of the comments are suspicious of the kappa guy, Taiga, but I don't remember enough of the story so far to understand why

Blue Box: Chinatsu comes clean to her dad about her relationship with Taiki, and he tries to take her way; to compromise and make things easier on Chinatsu, Taiki volunteers to live with her dad in her stead. Chad move, honestly, props to you kid

Akane-Banashi: Issho and Shiguma approach Kiroku Kashiwaya to become his apprentices, but are initially turned away until they make amends with the soba shop owner; they learn of Kiroku's past in the army. I don't fully understand what made Kiroku accept them, but I was certainly touched by their apology scene

Kill Blue: The Butler/Maid Cafe uses underhanded tactics, selling idol merch, wearing cat-ears and sending scummy dudes to harass Noren; Noren awakens a femdom fetish in said dudes. We have yet to establish any real stakes aside from pride in this battle, but at least it's funny

Nue: Gakuro is revealed to have done some extra training off-screen with Hakutaku and manages to beat Rido with his new move, Massacre Gear. Not only is that a bad name for a move inspired by Gakuro's friendships, I truly don't understand what it does or how he acquired it; the presentation of events is sloppy, and the exposition of the power system is coming at an odd time

Kagurabachi: Billy Samura explains his motives to Uruha, claiming that he's going to use the Hishaku to eliminate the Swordbearers and then personally wipe out the less experienced Hishaku once they have the Enchanted Blades; Uruha understands his reasoning, but opposes his methods; as Uruha is killed, Hakuri manages to summon Chihiro. Compelling, but Samura seems kind of shortsighted here, since his plan is to ALLOW THE HISHAKU TO HAVE THE BLADES! They will definitely hurt more innocents before he gets to them!

Chojo: Kirara challenges Lily at the arcade and loses at everything, but they form a friendly rivalry. Every comment I saw agreed they should kiss.

Astro Royale: Kinpa takes a page out of MHA and realizes her invisibility can be used to refract light into a laser. I like that she was able to find an alternate use for her Astro, but it felt really sporadic; at least it suggests that other Astros can be upgraded too

Kiyoshi: On the brink of despair, Kiyoshi remembers Yamada's advice to breathe through his fears and gains the upper hand against Asuta. This definitely looks like an axe, but Asuta could escape OR it could turn out he's not the strongest enemy available afterall

Hima-Ten: On the bus to the school trip, Tenichi and Honoka lose at bingo and are forced to sing bad karaoke, but get to go to a coveted date spot as a consolation prize; Himari gives out lip balm that brings good luck in love, but ends up with one left over for herself. I appreciate that we're not dancing around Honoka's feelings, but if Himari is going to be competition, I wish someone would tell her that

Ichi: Shirabedonna suggests revealing Ichi to the world, but the Silver Snow Witch, Togeice, counters that Ichi needs to be taught proper manners first; Shirabedonna proposes that Togeice and Ichi compete to see who can capture a mushroom Magik first. Most of the comments seem to expect Ichi to lose to force a school arc, but I'm expecting this to show off Ichi's style a bit more

Shinobi Undercover: Hachikuma is revealed to fight with strings; Aoi is weirdly calm and keeps talking about fun upcoming events until she gets knocked out; Yodaka manages to take her back, and the fight intensifies. I assume that Aoi's positivity is her coping mechanism for losing her family, and she's not actually as calm as she appears to be

Hakutaku: Hikuma and Noto convince Zenji to help them make their next game; two months later, Noto very creepily convinces a bunch of kids to download what turns out to be an AR game. Wasn't this...supposed to be about dodgeball...?

Syd Craft: A master detective turns out to just be a savant at observation who just wants to know love; despite constantly finding out his love interests are murderers, Syd never realizes that his plucky assistant, Elio, is actually a girl in disguise or that his rival inspector, Souffle, is actually his childhood friend, both of whom are in love with him. Love the premise on its face, but right away it's another harem manga with no clear leading heroine, so time will tell if it's me or Tsutsui who truly Never Learns

Of everything this week, I'd say that Sakamoto Days was actually my favorite; Tenkyu's bow stunts were very cool, and Atari invoking impossible probability to make a gun out of scrap metal is a fun image that will stick with me for a while

UU would have been my favorite if not for the character moments it unfortunately skims over, most notably Tatiana and Billy's reunion. I still have faith that Tozuka is building up to something great, but that moment at least has been lost

Syd Craft's introduction is a lot of fun, I just hope that Tsutsui actually goes the poly route this time, or at least includes one if he does the multi-ending trick again

Supposedly next week or the week after we're going to be seeing a manga by ONE, Bug Ego, moving in from Young Jump; I don't know if it's going to start over or just pick up where it left off, or even if this is only a temporary move, but I'm worried about whether it will necessitate that something else gets the boot. At the moment it's looking like Kiyoshi, but I really hope not

[nijigasakilove]

Cloverworks were back to their best in this episode, it looked great and that Takauji/Emperor’s son scene at the end was sublime.

Two kids up against super hearing and super sight, what could possibly go wrong. In perhaps the most unsurprising twist of all time Genba tried betraying Tokiyuki, but Tokiyuki embracing and accepting him was too much for even Genba to resist leading to them working together to escape. Now that whole scene just looked gorgeous, Genba using the environment and his agility to overstimulate Sadamune’s lieutenant’s super hearing. Love how they visualised his rapid movements

“Always take the money, even if you like them” pretty solid advice for anything in life really lmao. But Genba definitely respects Tokiyuki and is going to be a good ally now. That was probably Yorishige’s secondary intent sending them in on this mission together. Good bonding experience and they got rid of the imperial command which means the Suwa land is safe!

Did not expect to see Genba’s whole ass out at the party tho 😂

The ending with the emperor son running thru the crowd as everyone welcomes and celebrates Takauji as a hero is one of the most creative and visually scintillating scenes I’ve ever seen. Absolutely horrifying how Go-Daigo’s own son is forgotten about by the crowd and they flock to Takauji. Otherworldly strength, charisma and an evil lurking within.. Tokiyuki is a looong way from being able to take him down but I’m excited for the journey.

[nexitodot]

[arkan59]

The Elusive Warriors play a board game!

I haven’t seen anyone else do this yet, so here’s my take on this meme. They practically reenact this meme in the anime opening, so I had to make a version that fits the meme.

Alas, click the image for better quality photo.

rambles below the cut

Don’t look too closely at Tokiyuki’s hands, I fucked ‘em up (sad face).

Here’s the op screenshot that inspired me to do this

Yorishige’s face is taken directly from this scene, so is Genba’s distraught face.

Fubuki eating the mound of rice I HAD to include, so he goes into jail to enjoy his rice in peace. Fubuki is also the only one i didn’t reference to draw, there was barely any of him to draw in the first place!

Tokiyuki would be the only one that would be sad for Genba. Ayako and Kojiro? They be celebtrating his receival of the God of Poverty.

My options for color weren’t great so I chose to not color everything fully to just convey what color it’s supposed to be (no skin colored markers ahhhhh). Yorishige’s godly glow turned out surprisingly well imo, pretty happy w that.

Don’t know if this is something others would want to do but if you want to try your hand at coloring this here’s only the inked version. Just credit me if you post your coloring! I’d love to see other people’s coloring of this.

[xtabay-cat]

I've acquired a new son!

[benthic-girl]

Superpower, nearly getting killed makes him so fucking horny

[playtheshadw]

God he’s so funny. “I smell someone cooking eel” this is the most frantic he’s been omg he wants that eel so effing bad