This is one of the best anime I watched during childhood. Now that a new adaptation is in order this year 2025, how does this anime hold?
In my rewatch, this is still a delightful watch.
§ Overview
Kurogane Yaiba has always trained to become the best samurai in the world. One day, his father tells him to go to Japan. He quickly encounters Onimaru Takeshi, whom he defeats. Takeshi holds a grudge, so when he finds the Sword of the Devil Wind, he becomes evil and threatens to rule Japan and then the world. What would Yaiba do?
§ Notes
This is Aoyama Gōshō's underrated and largely forgotten anime and manga. It is still to be seen if newer anime watchers would love this because Yaiba is a product of its time.
Its power system is fairly basic. A legendary sphere powers your sword, and the only way to level up is, apart from physical training which hasn't been explained sufficiently, one must acquire either new spheres or a more powerful sword.
Its audience is children around 10 or people who are children at heart, especially like me who have seen this when I was young. Most anime fans who have seen the staple shounen like Hunter x Hunter or Full Metal Alchemist might not like it as this is not something that will make you think about life, but Yaiba really does it best for what it aims to do.
Since the target audience is grade schoolers, it uses immature and childish humour. It doesn't pretend to be something more serious the way the Elusive Samurai does. If you watch it as an adult, this may be your guilty pleasure because the slapstick humour is great. It still holds up.
It is mostly juvenile humour all throughout, but there is an arc where it gets serious for the show. Kids get to practise exercising their reasoning on a moral dilemma. It's not too deep but way serious for its intended audience.
We also meet different personages of Japanese history such as Miyamoto Musashi, Sasaki Kojirou, etc. They are a parody of these characters. Despite the power system being basic, it has some depth because it is grounded in Japanese lore and history.
I suspect one of the goals of Aoyama-sensei in creating this anime/manga is for young kids to be entertained while at the same time learn a small bit of history by contrasting the real-life persons they are learning in history class to the parodies in his anime.
There are some life lessons you can somehow gain from this childish anime, though the lesson in the final episode
Spoiler, click to view
may seem too tacky for my taste.I was surprised on my rewatch that it has a lot of word plays. Maybe not to the level of NISIOISIN in Monogatari, but they're there.
If this were to happen, then there's still room for any fan or would-be fan of Yaiba to watch this classic adaptation. I'm not sure if this even deserves the sakuga polish of the new adaptation.
The OP and ED are a banger.
§ Conclusion
This anime is a forgotten classic and I hope the interest in it will be revived once we get the new adaptation. But as it stands, the classic version of Yaiba is an entertaining watch. I highly recommend it.
Thoughts on the New Remake
All the excitement I had for the remake was obliterated once Episode 1 dropped. It has removed all the humour that made the original, which I call Yaiba Classic, so much fun to watch. If Ranma 1/2 is funny, its humour is on another level.
This new adaptation tries to make the story a bit serious, targeting the older segment of the shounen demographic. The problem is that by presenting this as a serious story, it is not seen for what it is: a parody. It doesn't compare favourably to many of the staple shounen, and it is easy to dismiss this as something 'carried only by animation.' In fairness to it, it is one of the best animated shows today.
The remake's OP and ED are okay. They don't hold a candle to the OP and ED of Yaiba Classic, but they are fine on their own.
As far as background musick is concerned, the OST of Yaiba Classic is better. It reminds me of this video from Every Frame is a Painting:
Basically, it's saying that the Marvel Movies use 'temp musick' to the point that it's forgettable.
I'm not sure if the new adaptation of Yaiba uses temp musick, but the background score is definitely forgettable.
If I scored the original an 8 out of 10, I'm inclined to give the remake only a 6 out of 10. It should have been lower, but there are other considerations.
The new remake is reportedly more faithful to the manga, with some scenes that did not appear in Yaiba Classic. Wit Studio is planning to adapt the entire manga, which is my motivation for watching it, to know the arcs beyond the Kaguya Arc.
If the new adaptation only gives the equivalent of what was covered in the original, I would have advised people to skip this and watch the original instead. But because it's going to cover even more material, I won't advise people against it. It's just that I am disappointed.
The remakes for Ranma 1/2 and Spice & Wolf do make a case for supplanting the original adaptation. This new adaptation doesn't, which is why if people like the new adaptation, I do recommend that they check out the original.