"For kids" is not and will never be an excuse for a bad show. There are plenty of shows for children that have good stories and world building. You can't say "show is really bad but it's for kids so it's okay". That is insinuating that children inherently are expected to and deserve less quality in work involving them, which is NOT okay.

"its for kids" is never an excuse for a show to be written poorly. children are smarter then what people give them credit for

I'm *sorta* with Goomber in that just because a show is "for kids" doesn't mean it shouldn't still have some quality to it. Heck, kids don't know how shoguns work? Maybe the show can be how they find out!

I liked how they don't portray the yokai as purely evil. Most of them are more mischievous than anything else.

You’d think after decades of children shows, even targeted at young kids, being treated like any other shows, with amazing writing and fun action scenes networks would actually put effort into cartoons.

It would’ve been more fitting if they had Kogane dictate his orders from his home via hologram/ communicator a la Dr.Klaw to give a modern twist on the Shogun. And instead of worrying about reelection, I would have him paranoid of being overthrown/replaced with an heir.

"It's for kids" should not be an excuse for low effort, cutting corners, or lesser quality. There are plenty of shows for children that are clearly made with care and respect for their audience. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a deep show like Teen Titans, Samurai Jack, or Avatar the Last Airbender. Even shows for small children like Bluey clearly have a lot of love and effort put into making it the best it can be. And just because it's a western audience doesn't mean they have to put in re-election jokes. Kids are smarter than adults give them credit for and things can be simplified without completely ignoring the culture it comes from.

We truly need more Usagi Yojimbo In our lives outside of the Ninja Turtles!

It’s 2022 and we still have Americans still Acting like it’s the 2000’s where kids were subjected to freaking 4Kids.

"You're youkai, you're monsters" "Some of you are monsters" Geralt of Rivia agrees.

When a show "made for kids" is also insulting their intelligence and capacity to learn, it's no longer a show made for kids. It's an insult to both its audience and its source material.

You know most kids can understand how a king works. They can understand a shogun

Probably a way to get the kids eased into Usagi yojimbo and dive in later on. Like wearing floaties in the shallow end while learning to swim. Unrelated, will you ever do a cultural analysis of Xiaolin showdown? Not chronicles though.

As I kid they taught me about Shoguns in History class, when giving examples of feudalism across the world, I don't believe it would be such a foreign concept to children 🧐 Also, I don't believe it would be that hard to explain in a child's understanding how a shogun works. No need to equate to a modern day mayor or governor.

I'd love to see a traditional 2D animated Usagi show. Saki's art would look amazing in motion.

Never underestimate Netflix to screw things up

Thanks everyone! This was a chonker of a cultural dive! (Though on my end I keep seeing a lot of weird skipping. Not sure if that's the player or loading issues...) Please be sure to check out my patron if you want to help keep these videos alive and going! tinyurl.com/4dcek4u3

I actually had a dozen or so of the issues of the comic from 1989 to '93 when I was little, and it was the adventures of Usagi that led me to want to learn more about Japan. Sadly, though, I no longer have them, as they were destroyed in the massive flooding the Red River Valley had back in '97. While the physical items were lost, though, my love of the Land of the Rising Sun has never faded. One of the adventures I remember better than most is Usagi having to deal with both a kamaitachi and an umibozu. I've loved the little sickle-weasels ever since.

Usagi's various appearances in the TMNT cartoons were how I got introduced to him, which led to me to start finding the comics because I wanted to know more. Truly amazing and I look forward to the day I've gotten all the collections.

This is distressing to me. I'm a huge fan of Usagi Yojimbo, and it seems like much of the depth, themes and most importantly trust in the intelligence in the audience present in UY were gone. It's also worth remembering that Usagi Yojimbo is a series that is for both kids and adults, I know people who started reading it in elementary school and continue reading it to this day, and revisited early content to understand it on a new level. I introduced people in elementary and middle school to it, and they stayed fans into college. This seems like they made a show for kids. Also, Usagi Yojimbo is made for westerners! It's original publication was in English by Dark Horse comics. Writer/Artist/Creator Stan Sakai was born in Japan, but grew up in USA. This whole thing just makes me sad...

I also felt like a pinball in a pinball machine during this first season. I went from 'yay' to 'no' to 'cringe' back and forth in random directions. All in all enjoyable to watch.

Great video! Here's some suggestions: Silver Samurai (Marvel Comics) Roronoa Zoro (One Piece) Mugen and Jin (Samurai Champloo) Katana (DC Comics) The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa film) The Jedi (Star Wars) Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear Rising)

I mean, might sound harsh, but......they have 0 excuse nor reason to treat kids like idiots that wouldn't know what a shogun is by oversimplification, just one scene, the shogun is talking with someone and says this "my family has been ruling these lands for over a 10p years" or something like that, kids aren't idiots, they would be able to connect the way a shogun leads and the way a king leads, or hell, if you wanna use a simpler way, call it an emperor or a king, not the same as a shogun but it makes more sense than elections

It honestly feels more like a producer/investor problem then a creator problem. The boots on the ground, the ones writing and actually creating the show seemed to know their way around and the stories and concepts they wanted to tell. The problems that come up seem more related to rushing, the Netflix wanted the show out of production as quickly as possible.

This show has so much potential,freaking R.I.P.

I'm not surprised, Netflix makes a lot of questionable creative choices *cough*Bebop*cough* when adapting intellectual properties.

So, it seems to me that they focused most of their effort on the one part they figured kids would be most into, the monsters (or rather, yokai), and kind of just phoned in some of the other stuff which they figured kids wouldn't, like the politics of the shogunate.

I Love How the show Refers to Yo-Kai; SPECIFICALLY as Yo-Kai; Not as Monsters; Not as Demons; But Explicitly mentioned as Being Yokai; though I was surprised that the Biwa-Bokuboku was Hostile in the show; Considering that Gaijin said in his Nioh video about yokai that aren't evil; that the Biwa Bokuboku AREN'T Malevolent entities; That the only problems caused by Biwa Bokuboku is Keeping you up at night; NOT TRYING TO MURDER YOU like some of the more Malevolent Yokai like the Nekomata, The Wanyūdō, Oni, or The Tsurube Otoshi! Seriously; When I first Watched the show; I Found it inconsistent How the Biwa Bokuboku was shown to be more Hostile than Gaijin Described it as being in his Nioh Video!

as jarring as it was story and art wise, the cultural references were spot on indeed and i hope that this show gets enough love to hopefully improve thoes two aspects. I also hope it continues because this is our first and only show about yojimbo not as a side character to the tmnt!

They should've made a pg 13 version instead of a rated G version seriously. But I'm not surprised it's Netflix bullcrap.

I decided to watch the show since I was curious how it would handle Japanese culture. And yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag. Feel's like there's definitely effort put into some aspect's, but it definitely feel's like some writer's only have second hand knowledge of what they're talking about sometimes. (and yes, the jokes are VERY cringey at times, even for a kids show)

I love listening to your voice when you're enthusiastically talking about a subject.

I like how you present the comparison and contrast duality with your two personas. Your human persona as the analysis. And your animated persona as a critical thought. It's a nice cooperative blend of entertainment and info lecture. I've learned a lot from you and I guess I'll continue to learn the more you make videos.

Kids may not get the intricacy of the Shogunate, but they'd certainly understand the basis of monarchy, which is much closer to the Shogunate than democracy.

6:25 ehhh… maybe for you yanks the whole “can’t know about bloodline pass down laws” but in Europe we had knights and kings who’s literal inheritance is passed down from father to son. They can understand it.

The show lost my interest. Little G is right about the writing being kind of bad. I couldn't sit through to catch all the Folklore and culture stuff. Blame Netflix for mucking it up, they have been failing hard lately.

It being for kids really isnt an excuse cause teaching kids though a fun show is something way better

Kitsune is automatically my favorite character. I’m an anthro artist. Seeing a fox girl smile and hearing her laugh is the epitome of where I want my art to end up.

Everyone is talking about Usagi Yojimbo… But who’s gonna talk about Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa? They crossed over with TMNT. Where’s the love for them?

Given that this is Netflix, I think you gave the show's creators FAR too much credit... Still, I'm always happy to hear your take on shows like this, and will always look forward to your next video!

Just looks like another cartoon that treats kids like they're stupid to me. When I was 4 to 6 I was watching shows with actual plot lines that didnt need to make a random gag every 3 minutes. And I had no issues keeping up with what was going on. And that was before the internet was widly available.

Damn Gaijin, as always love your content. I may actually check out the show now.

I first heard about Usagi from TMNT 2003 (which I don't remember very well but I instantly recognized Usagi Yojimbo, even though I discovered the Usagi in this show is a different character from Miyamoto Usagi). Weird how he wasn't in Rise when he was also in the 80s and 2012 cartoons, making Rise the only TMNT cartoon (not counting the Supermutants OVA or spinoffs like Half-Shell Heroes) to not have him.

Netflix seems to have a bad habit of producing a lot of shows with poor and rushed dialogue, animation, and plots, especially when aimed at children, like you said about this show. But it's good that the writers of the show were able to at least take care to include so many details of the yokai

I've only ever read about 3 of the original comics when I was a kid and I loved them.

This makes me wish modern day kids shows were sophisticated, and not watered down because of the whole: "We don't need to put effort into our shows, because kids are stupid." excuse.

anyone else feel like this should have been on his Yokai Catchers list?

The animation of the show definitely annoys me. Everything looks so slow. Usagi catching that dart didn't look like a showing of his speed, it looked like the dart was moving at a snails pace. And the run cycles make some of them seem like they're no faster than walking. Limb breaking or smears would easily fix that.

Let's keep in mind that many children's media creators are both still actively creating content and holding children in giggling contempt.

For me at least, another positive for this show is the outfit designs. It's this rather interesting blend of traditional Japanese clothing mixed with more modern styles, and everyone, even the background characters have a very appealing look.

I kind of like it, mostly for the character designs. I know it's not even close to the quality of Ninja Turtles or the original Usagi Yojimbo, but it could've been much worse.

Gaijin summoning that Misato energy to announce "Stay tuned for more fan service in the next episode."

I just want a proper animation of some classic Usagi Yojimbo stories. Is that so much to ask?

Honestly, the use of taiko as a fighting style would have been right up this show's alley... too bad the writers seem to have very little competence on how to use the elements they've been presented with. Imagine a character that uses taiko drums to emit sound waves that either launch allies forward or push enemies back. That would be a really cool way to expand on a tradition than... what the show has done...

It's actually Netflix's fault that they show is like this, they said they wanted their animated shows to be more like the boss baby spinoff series.

I'm going to be honest, I liked the series despite myself. At first when I heard about Usagi's descendant being the main character I dreaded it would be more related to Space Usagi (which I do NOT care for) but was pleasantly surprised. I'm a fan of the neon feudalism (is there a name for that trope?), Sungwon Cho's voice acting is freakin' amazing, and the Youkai are awesome. I'm hoping that a second season will elaborate more, and the first season was just setting the stage.

i'm guessing the problems come from " to many cooks " to many people with different ideas on how it should go and what it should do add a time crunch and that what you get

would Kogane work as a Magistrate rather than a Shogun? I am just asking not really expecting an indepth answer

TMNT (2012) was way better animated, I wish Netflix give more time to the people who work on Usagi. I hope the Rise Of The TMNT movie (that coming out this year) was given better time Anyway, thanks Goombah for giving a well balance view on Usagi. I getting a little sick of people just trashing shows, and act like their no good to them

I’m so glad you did a video on this show. There were a lot of areas in the show that caused me to either raise an eyebrow or wince. But I didn’t want to say anything until you commented on it because Japanese culture and history aren’t my field of expertise. But after watching the video I can say I had some of the exact same sentiments you did when I was watching it.

Though different, I'm happy Usagi got a series in general. It does show some aspect of classic Usagi to get those curious interested- but gives us longtime fans something to look forward too. I'm glad Usagi is just getting more exposure! Who knows! Maybe more will come of Yojimbo's classic tales in time!

a shows for children can be good and can be bad but saying "its for kids" is not a excuse for how bad is a show

Ive always said this: “if it’s exclusive to Netflix, it’s going to be trash”.

I’d like to see you cover how samurai the iterations of usagi yojimbo are outside of the Netflix series

About the animation, lots of CGI TV shows suffer from the same problems. Especially for TV shows that are based off of movies. The Kung Fu Panda TV series has the same kinds of mediocre animation, which just looks even worse when you compare it to the movies. Typically, yeah, they have much smaller budgets and much smaller animation teams than CGI movies.

9:15 I thought Mogura was a Monkey at first, but until this part of the video. He was a Mole.

I genuinely enjoyed the show! Stan Sakai himself was posting about the show in the Yōkai Attack Facebook group and he seemed to be posting positively. I absolutely adore the way they handled yōkai and the social commentary behind them. Great video!

When I was a kid/teen I loved watching Samurai X (Rurouni Kenshin), and despite having 0 knowledge on japanese history I really apreciated the realistic background of the show. As an adult I really appreciate getting to know what was the Meiji Era when I was a kid.

It's made for Netflix. Anything made for Netflix is a mess in one way or another.

I'm surprised you haven't done an analysis on Dislyte yet Gaijin, you're sure to have a field day with it!

the immense lore of taiko drumming is forever interesting

The only thing that kept me to keep watching ugh... show, was Tengu lady She's awesome and man has a cool design

Keep it up on your work and this video and channel

Are we just going to ignore the cool flashbacks of Usagi that were faithful to the style of the comics?

More Samurai? Awesome can’t wait to see more if it. Personally i want to see an episode on the samurai of Final fantasy like Cyan and Auron.

I love how i leave every video learning something new.

if i may say this in my eyes the animators are never at fault onnly the company behind it

That hat is absolutely Galactus

I watched the couple first episodes and the series just lost me. I love Usagi Yojimbo, it's one of my favorite comics of all time, but I just did not feel like seeing more Samurai Rabbit. Good to hear they got at least something right.

You weren't late to the party, you were EXACTLY on time! I finished watching the show yesterday :D

You know i want to say awesome work on something that isn't usually mentioned, you got good acting skills in your video and writing. Having you and goomba argue really makes just fall in and forget it's just one person for all of it

I get the feeling that there may be a Which Ninja that talks about why Chizu's pretty bad at it.

This show has a Gashadokuro called O-Dokuro?... They played Adventure Quest Worlds.

I work in localisation and have worked on subtitles for Netflix so I might be able to shed some light on the sound descriptor for this show. The script may of been provided to the subtitle team to help them create the subtitles but scripts still need a lot of work to convert into subtitles, even if it was supplied. The transcriber probably had to make a call on this section of dialogue to deside if it was song lyrics, onomatopoeia or foreign dialogue. Being an english speaking show (by the looks of it) the transcriber would of likley been english speaking as well and very unlikley to know Japanese or know the difference between dialogue and Kuchi-shouga. They may have checked the script if it was available or they might of made the descision based on the contect of the scene, but the audiance technically does not 'need' to know what the dialouge means as it does not impact the narrative. This would of lead to the generic [chanting in Japanese] sound descriptor, as it covers that the character is making noise (mouth moving) but theres no transferable information for the audiance. This covers the spec guide but obviously isn't as accurate as some would like, subtitles are much more accurate than they used to be but they still have a way to go. I'm sure the transcriber would of loved to of made this more accurate but probably didn't have the time or resources for it. I appreciate why this would be of perticular annoyance for you though. Even if I never get to watching the show I feel I've learnt something as always with your videos, so thanks for that. Enjoy!

they said they were giving us usagi yojimbo but all i got was *CHEAPY THE CHEAPSKATE*

Thanks you for your video and channel

Well I liked it I wasn’t expecting citizen cane or Casablanca level writing, nor studio ghibli level animation, but i agree with you on one thing this show did yokai good, and that’s the reason I like it, some of the characters were at least to me pretty good too, basically what I’m saying is no show or movie is perfect because perfection is subjective, and this show is flawed but I’ve seen worse. I personally can’t wait for season two

I binged both seasons. I have different opinions but that's okay. We're all allowed them. What really got me was this delivered something that few things do. Aside from Japan-made media. Ethnicized futurism. This is something so important to my messed up spectrum-y brain I had a dream about it that I remember with great detail. The future always seems bland, because it's uniformity via a kind of hyper-aggressive winnowing, streamline moderne meets Soviet constructivism and a pinch of Brutalism as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright sponsored by Glass LLC and SteelCom Inc. It has no ethnic or cultural identity. But Neo Edo has personality. It's traditional Japanese motifs translated into synthetics and concrete. I dreamed about similar techno-cultural things like a cyberpunk mead hall and some kind of decoratively traditional Indonesian building, with futuristic features but a culturally coherent look. As far as aesthetics, this was a dream come true. Literally. My only complaint was deeply selfish and personal. I wanted someone to get together with someone. Leaning to Usagi and Kitsune. Would have been fine with Chizu and Kitsune. I also wanted clarification about the shiba doctors. Are they crazy or not? They seem competent and their surgeries apparently work, but... I don't need sleep I need answers.

I can say I watched through this show and this show got me interested in the original stories.

Hopefully you are feeling better, dude. Great episode.

The Shogun thing can be explained as a modern take on an older concept. These things evolve over time to change with current needs, why do you think they'd stay the same for over 1,000 years of culture evolving around it? That doesn't explain everything else though... Plus, it'd be nice for the show to acknowledge this is this is what they were going for. I'm not going to add to the "bad for kids is no excuse" I see all over the place already, but I will give a counter example. Avatar: The Last Airbender. That is all.

4:16: The Grandma is a Samurai.

This show has promise. I just hope that they take more consideration on the blatant inaccuracies and develop the folklore and culture they're suppose to present.

Hey GG, what's the name of the music you use at 10:35? I've been wanting to actually listen listen to it lately. In fact... what are all the songs you typically use across your channel?

A lot of this show comes off like pokemons infamous jelly doughnut quote

Thank you for the video.

I'm only going by the thumbnail and I had no idea they were redoing this series but I need to say WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY BOY?!

My biggest pet peeve with this show is just the concept alone when they decided to make it an AU story instead of making an actual adaptation of the comics. It makes sense with properties like Batman when we have well-established franchises that are well-known in the mainstream. Usagi isn't really that, cause the most exposure he got was his guest appearances in TMNT cartoons, which make him seem like he's just a character from TMNT. And also the fact this Usagi VERY FIRST SHOW. Idk, I just don't understand the decision, even with the whole "to modernize it" argument cause we are talking about a story set in the Edo period.

Thanks for the video

14:47 does that mean that the toys from toy story are gonna be murderous yokai