Netflix Reveals Samurai Rabbit Series, Based on Usagi Yojimbo

You could recall that again in 2020, Netflix introduced their plans to create a an animated collection based mostly on Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo graphic novels. During the preliminary announcement, Netflix revealed that they didn’t plan to do a straight adaptation of Sakai’s rabbit ronin Miyamoto Usagi, however slightly develop the mythology of the collection by specializing in one in every of his descendants. Now, they’ve lastly given us a have a look at the upcoming collection—referred to as Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles—and it seems to be like an fascinating twist on the Usagi tales.

Having grown up listening to tales of his legendary ancestor, Yuichi Usagi (Darren Barnet) has dreamed of combating yokai and saving lives like Miyamoto. After coaching to be a ninja, it seems to be like he’s lastly going to get his shot in defending Neo-Edo’s residents after a particularly highly effective yokai present up and begins to terrorize the town. Like with any children present, he’ll have some buddies to assist him defeat all of the yokai that are actually working round—on this case, the rhino bounty hunter Gen (Aleks Le), fox thief Kitsune (Shelby Rabara), and cat ninja Chizu (Mallory Low).

Not having learn the Yojimbo comics, I can’t personally communicate as as to whether or not Samurai Rabbit seize the spirit present in Sakai’s work. But the present has potential; the character designs from French studio Gaumont all look actually good, and in comparison with how western children animation can normally look—aka, extraordinarily chatty, offbeat humor and rapid-fire gags—the extra deliberate tempo that this present appears to have is appreciated. (It in all probability doesn’t harm that Sakai is without doubt one of the present’s govt producers, so he was in a position to assist information the collection alongside.) And a rabbit ninja swinging by a metropolis utilizing a mystic yo-yo is simply fascinating sufficient to pique pursuits, certainly.

Netflix’s animated output was pretty robust all through 2021, and so they’ve acquired one other potential winner on their fingers with Samurai, assuming they let it stay longer than two seasons. With how hungry animation followers are for one thing completely different, there’s certainly an viewers that’ll groove with this and get it on everybody else’s radar very quickly. And ought to it finish prematurely And if not, the present ought to at the very least encourage viewers to take a look at the supply materials it’s based mostly on.

Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles will hit Netflix on April 28.

[by way of ComicBook]

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