Anime Spotlight #54: The Elusive Samurai

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Elusive Animeister.

Welcome to Samurai Week in the month of Anime August, Ticketholders!

I was at a loss for words when I began writing this (insert easily-made "elusive" joke here), but then I woke up Saturday morning to the shocking, infuriating realization that a bug on Reddit removed the ability to post on user Profiles. So all of my Profile-only posts have been deleted or hidden as a result (that's four years of content evaporated overnight). With the exception of a few communities, Reddit is a paradox of intellectual sodomy founded on selfish idealism, regulatory hypocrisy, and toxic positivity. And if my losses weren't the result of a bug, I'd be tempted to cut ties with the platform as severely as possible.

For now, though, I'd like to surrender my emotional investment in frustrating things that are beyond my control, and move onto something more positive, so let's start off this review with a reprint of my first episode impressions of The Elusive Samurai as I gave them in Anime Spotlight #41: Spotlightning Round (Part IV) FROM August 5, 2024. 

Period anime aren't usually my cup of tea, but the animation in the first episode alone is some of the best I've seen outside of a Demon Slayer fight, and this may end up joining my OP/ED banger list going forward. In The Elusive Samurai, a prince in a feudal Japan-like era has parkour and hide-and-seek skills that drive his instructors crazy with worry trying to chase him down. But when a former ally of his father betrays the empire and leads the slaughter of his people, the prince must team up with a hilariously over-animated fraudster shaman and a young apprentice priestess to prepare for a revenge battle so he can restore the empire and become a hero. I'm glad I didn't let this elude me.

Now that we're back in the present, my initial impressions still stand. The animation by CloverWorks (Shadows' House, Girumasu, & Bunny-girl Senpai) is consistently smooth and intricate regardless of the level of action, and the opening and ending music are "I must watch/listen every time" good (so in the tradition of Call Of the Night, Kaiju No. 8, and Dragon Ball Daima, it's only fitting that I "begin"—like I haven't "begun" this review twice already—by showing you how hype the OP is).

"Plan A" by DISH//

The Elusive Samurai is adapted from an ongoing manga (no novels or light-novels this time, folks; otherwise the title would be something like Elusive Samurai: I'm A Feudal Prince Who Learned To Save His Kingdom With Friends And A-Rank Dodging Skills) by Yusei Matsui (Assassination Classroom), and despite having a satisfying ending after twelve episodes, it's still listed as an ongoing anime on Wikipedia.

While the setup, as described above, is very much something we've seen before in series like Bleach (the Lord's best friend is basically Aizen without all of the necromantic eugenics alchemy and mind control) and Yona Of the Dawn, what follows is still pretty formulaic at its base (the prince/young Lord recruits his own Magnificent Seven at the advice of the aforementioned shaman so he can better learn to use his Iruma-kun-level evasion skills in battle and reclaim his lands from the evil uncle and his crew of "demon-possessed" generals), but looks incredible and has a compelling, often suspenseful element of strategy to it. Plus, the shaman's foresight ability allows for some anachronistic comedy, like if Yoda, a way less perverted Master Roshi, and the Genie from Aladdin were smashed together into a Gintama character.

I also stand by my comparison to Demon Slayer, and for reasons beyond the animation. Like that series (which I intend to finally talk about once the Infinity Castle movie hits streaming), Elusive Samurai takes welcome artistic liberties with reality to turn something like evil behavior into demonic possession or to make heightened senses like hearing into a legendary, multi-purpose shōnen superpower, blurring the lines between a grounded, history-inspired world and its mythological interpretation. It's like that Hercules movie with The Rock where he did a lot of the same stuff as in Greek mythology but he was just a bigger, stronger than average dude, or Troy, where the Illiad played out without all of the Olympian meddling and Helen wasn't very attractive. Only, in Elusive Samurai, it works because the writing, art, and animation are good and the classic Japanese media tropes (the non-Japraved ones like training through menial labor, winning through strategic intelligence and friendship, beating a gauntlet of imposing warriors at their own game in satisfying fashion, etc.) are used incredibly well to the point that, were Akira Kurosawa alive today, this series would have been worthy of several live-action treatments by his hands. Give The Elusive Samurai a watch before it slips away!

And again in the tradition of the aforementioned anime with banger music, I shall end this review with the surprisingly hype ending sequence:

"Kamukura Style" by BotchiBoromaru

As I was writing this, I came to the conclusion that Samurai Week didn't have enough samurai in it, so some changes to the content calendar are in order.

Please remember to comment at the bottom of my Blogger posts, Become A Ticketholder because I know you haven't already, help out my ad revenue as you read because a samurai's salary in rice isn't worth much in 2025, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit (pending that bug fix I'm trying not to think about), Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and to receive the latest news on my content and calendars thereof.

Here it is, updated:

• Wednesday (August 20) - Just the Ticket #191: Snow White & The 7 Samurai
• Thursday (August 21) - Just the Ticket #192: Seven Samurai
• Friday (August 22) - Just the Ticket #193: Yojimbo
• Saturday (August 23) - Time Drops #115: Week of August 24, 2025

In case you were wondering, samurai were traditionally paid in units called koku, which were subjectively sized annual supplies of rice based on the samurai's rank and social status. The modern value of this is between $600 and $1200 per year. And because rice is perfect for when you're hungry for two thousand of something, it was once possible for samurai to exchange their rice stipends for land, gold, silver, textiles, or other gifts. Inflation is insane.

Animeister,

Out of Rice.