Seriously, it should be more popular.
Summary:
- Sengoku Youko is one of the most underrated anime this season.
- It’s a faithful adaptation that fans wanted.
- Perhaps the reason it isn’t more popular is the fact that it will be 37 episodes long.
The Winter 2024 anime is coming to an end, and some fans feel it has been somewhat underwhelming. While there have been many good anime, not many are actually going to stay relevant.
Moreover, out of the three most popular anime this season — Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Sousou no Frieren), The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto), and Solo Leveling (Ore dake Level Up na Ken), only the last one actually started airing this season.
That said, this season has a lot of underrated anime. One of them is Sengoku Youko, which doesn’t get enough attention — but it really should.
Adapted from a manga by a famous mangaka
Sengoku Youko is an adaptation of a shounen manga by Satoshi Mizukami, following a group of protagonists who travel through a world where humans have to fight monsters called katawara. The different perspectives of the protagonists provide interesting thoughts on what it means to be human in the first place.
Satoshi Mizukami is a mangaka that has a cult following. His manga are noted for starting out relatively uneventful and becoming crazier and crazier over time.
This isn’t his first anime: he created the original story for Planet With, and one of his other manga, Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer (Hoshi no Samidare), was adapted into an anime. The latter was so disappointing that both Mizukami and his fans expressed their dislike for the adaptation.
It’s the adaptation fans wanted
However, Sengoku Youko is a very good adaptation. The reason for that is that the staff members are actually fans of the manga, and pushed for the adaptation to be 37 episodes long — which means it will be adapted faithfully and at a proper pace.
The anime is being made by studio White Fox — famous for making anime like Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu) and Steins;Gate. While they aren’t the most famous studio out there, the production is still very solid — and it seems like it will stay consistent for all 3 cours.
The anime should be more popular
The action in Sengoku Youko is good, and the series has multiple plot twists and unexpected moments that catch people off guard. The anime belongs to the battle shounen genre (although it’s a more old-school take on it, considering the manga started in 2007).
It’s streaming on Crunchyroll, and there’s no reason for it not to be more popular. Yes, 3 cours might feel like a huge commitment, but the anime is good either way