Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi

Tokiyuki Houjou, a carefree eight-year-old noble, is content with the serene life in Kamakura and shows little regard for the serious responsibilities that come with his eventually succeeding his father as the next shogun. Instead of dedicating himself to rigorous training in swordsmanship or archery, Tokiyuki excels in the art of evasion, skillfully dodging his advisors and discovering perfect hiding spots. However, his peaceful existence is shattered when a sudden coup brutally wipes out his clan.

Overwhelmed with guilt for being the sole survivor, Tokiyuki contemplates joining his family in death. However, his fate takes an abrupt turn when the enigmatic priest Yorishige Suwa suddenly shoves him onto a battlefield. Yorishige, who prophesies that Tokiyuki will one day become a great hero, leaves the boy with no choice but to navigate his way free of enemy soldiers. As Tokiyuki struggles to survive against these foes, he finds a new thrill in raising the stakes of his usual hide-and-seek games.

With a renewed sense of purpose and the promise of powerful allies from Yorishige, Tokiyuki vows to avenge his family—not through his capability to fight, but through his extraordinary talent for running away.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Houjou, Tokiyuki Main

Yuikawa, Asaki Japanese

Suwa, Yorishige Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Fubuki Supporting

Toya, Kikunosuke Japanese

Shizuku Supporting

Yano, Hinaki Japanese

Mochizuki, Ayako Supporting

Suzushiro, Sayumi Japanese

Nezu, Kojirou Supporting

Hino, Mari Japanese

Kazama, Genba Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Ogasawara, Sadamune Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Ashikaga, Takauji Supporting

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Houjou, Takatoki Supporting

Tadokoro, Hinata Japanese

Umehara, Shouta Producer

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Fukushima, Yuuichi Producer

Matsumoto, Miho Producer

Reviews

Mar 26, 2025

Cynthesia

Recommended

Don't be fooled by its whimsy, NigeWaka may turn war into child's play but it does so with a mature brutality which perfectly captures the tone of the times. The samurai had an obsession with death, to a point where they will reject life in order to die. For them, your life might as well be defined entirely by how you die and there is no greater honor than to die honorably in battle. NigeWaka takes this notion and spits on it, choosing to follow the story of a boy who is a master of evading death and how it's life, not death, that makes ... for greatness.

Tokiyuki could have easily become another samurai. A boy whose life is surrounded by and defined by death and without much to live for, it's only through his mastery of evasion that he is able to live. Through his journey we watch his worldview change. Initially believing that his purpose is to die with his clan, when push comes to shove he chooses to discard his pride and live instead. While this is partially due to his childish nature and how he enjoys the "game" of evasion, it comes in tandem with the maturity of a true lord that understands that there is no real honor to be found in death. Tokiyuki is a fantastic eye into the world of historical Japan as he begins to usher in updated values to those he leads. He is no great warrior on paper, lacking great swordsmanship or physical prowess (he's 9), but because he places life on the highest echelon he is able to overcome far greater opponents due to this fundamental difference in values.

Just like Tokiyuki this is an anime defined by death. War is a constant and corruption rears it's ugly head at the highest level of power. Beyond it's typically bright colorful aesthetic is a show that isn't afraid to broadcast the brutality of war. Villages are raided, innocent civilians massacred and beheaded. Death doesn't lie around the corner but rather shows itself outright. It isn't necessarily a juxtaposition for it to be broadcast within such normal looking environments because this way of life is what was normal for the time.

The presentation as a whole are this anime's strongest quality. Most clearly this is an extremely beautiful show. Everything is full of color and life, landscapes are well crafted and clearly aim to impress. Action sequences are extremely fluid and equally full of life. Actions are performed with utmost creativity, the way each character moves contains a piece of their identity. Tokiyuki and Genba have this kind of playful energy to their agility as they almost dance their way through the battlefield and evade the clutches of death. Gods of war such as Takauji seem to embody death itself, performing executions as naturally as they breathe. Specialists such as Sadamune have their greatest features (in this case his eyes) exaggerated to the utmost degree to make it seem as though he's channeling the supernatural within this one focal point.

But more so than mere artistic style is the camerawork. The way scenes are composed and operate seem like an accelerated version of real life film. The camera is almost alive, constantly moving about and manipulated by the actions of it's surroundings. Quick cuts and parallelism are used abundantly, a ball falling to the ground is intertwined with a severed head meeting the floor, an action will begin in one location and finish in another. This creates a far more satisfying "live" experience as scenes become more fluid and clever. Paired with the absolutely beautiful presentation and this creates an extremely pleasant and unique viewing experience.

Unfortunately not everything gets to enjoy this same level of polish, most evidently in terms of the characters. Tokiyuki and Takauji work extremely well but the remainder of the cast, both friend and foe, end up suffering. While it makes sense in the grand scheme of things for Tokiyuki's retainers to fundamentally have a kind of master-follower relationship, this does not fall in line with Tokiyuki's character, who is a hyperactive friendly extraverted child. The elusive warriors do have the airs of being friends in arms but because there isn't sufficient time dedicated to developing their relationship this ends up falling short in the back half, especially as the group continues to grow in size. This isn't to say they have poor chemistry or anything, but the characters themselves are lacking. Dedicating some time to Tokiyuki's training would have aided this immensely but that aspect ends up being shelved in favor of missions.

The antagonists are where the show really falls apart, especially when the first impression is Takauji who exerts this commanding aura over all who cross him. In contrast, what we get for recurring villains end up being cartoonish evil, leaning heavily on the cartoonish end, and obnoxious. Sadamune does well in comparison but each consecutive antagonist ends up being less serious than the last which creates a severe case of tonal whiplash, which is another one of this series' glaring issues.

There's a time and place for everything and this NigeWaka generally manages to balance its execution well. However in the final quarter especially the show ends up losing sight of how to properly distinguish between silly moments and brutal combat. One liners and cutaways end up becoming increasingly frequent as you near the end which when paired with the incredibly difficult to take seriously antagonists makes for a very jarring experience when it leads into countless casualties and on screen executions. It's a real shame because they demonstrate that they know how to do this extremely well with Tokiyuki, who finds joy in evading the clutches of death, but ends up dropping the ball with everyone else.

NigeWaka is a supremely entertaining thrill ride featuring masterful visuals and an entertaining cast of characters navigating a world which isn't afraid to kill them at any moment. While it stumbles a little near the end, for the most part it balances the carefree wonder of a child with the mature brutality of war perfectly. A real technical marvel that easily manages to place itself ahead of the pack on all fronts, a truly whimsical experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Feb 11, 2025

MrSlamboni

Mixed Feelings

The Elusive Samurai seems to be a show that targets a young demographic (child to teenager). I would say that for adults and adolescents, this isn't enjoyable. For a young demographic this is maybe a 7. For older demographics this is a 5 or even lower. This makes it hard to judge the show because do I judge it for adults or do I take into account that it's obviously for children? In this review, I try to do both but keep in mind I am an adult.

The main characters are easy to understand; they are all young teenagers with "easily digestible" personalities and slapstick ... humor (which isn't funny). By easily digestible personalities, I mean that they don't really have any complex emotions or interactions between each other. The story arcs themselves also feel very simplistic, sometimes to the point of not being realistic or believable.

The characters, their age, their shallow personalities and the simplistic plot lead me to believe that this is a show for younger audiences. In fact, I am sure of this since I cannot see how anyone would like such shallow characters (but then again, anime characters are just mostly dogshit). However, there are some parts that make me doubt this assumption. First is the setting and the way the main story is framed. The setting is historical. The main plot is basically about gathering allies to retake the throne, which seems like a story for adults. Second, this anime doesn't shy away from showing blood. They regularly show decapitations and blood splattering everywhere. Third, the main villain seems to have a slight tinge of horror to him.

This is not to say that if a show has these contradictions, it is bad. For example, Happy Tree Friends uses very cartoony characters to make its violent gore even more jarring. In fact, I think the way The Elusive Samurai shows blood and violence in very colorful animation is a good thing. I loved the scenes where the main villain is portrayed as a terrifying monster who enjoys carnage. However, when you take that task you have to own up to it. You can't pretend that you are willing to mix in adult themes into your show and then give me shallow, boring characters with unfunny humor and a super simplistic story where every arc gets solved by the power of friendship.

Also, I'm not sure how much you can get away with saying that a show is meant for kids. For example, I could point to Over The Garden Wall and say that even though the characters portrayed are children, they did an amazing job of mixing in horror elements and accurately portraying how real children would behave. Alternatively, I could also point to an acclaimed Ghibli movie which are also suitable for children, yet I wholeheartedly enjoyed the characters that they crafted. So I don't even know if it's fair to say "it's a kids show, it's okay for them to have bad characters."

The animation is amazing a lot of the time. The first few episodes especially were very pleasant to look at. However, it's not consistently good either. The more episodes you watch, the worse the animation gets. There are a lot of points where CGI gets used. The horses in The Elusive Samurai are cursed; whenever a character rides a horse, they become a PS2 3D model of their own character.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 1, 2024

Supersonic_Pain

Not Recommended

I wasn't looking forward to this tbh but I do like to watch all the WSJ adaptations when they come out so I kinda owed it to EluSam to check it out.

I read most of this (I think up to E10) in the manga before the anime came out and found it boring and dry and... that did not change.

It's kind of a boring, dry anime that gives "history textbook" vibes. I genuinely could not tell you what a couple of Tokiyuki's retainers' characters are supposed to be. Not to mention the antagonists are comically evil. If this wasn't a shonen anime, I wouldn't doubt ... for a second they'd all be rapists. It's so overdone that I was shocked when an antagonist did something that wasn't "nyeh, I'm gonna rip children's tongues out and make them slaves and I'm gonna build a harem of women after killing their husbands!"

Not to mention how UGLY they are. One has buckteeth and can speak with his ears, one has big-ass bug eyes, one has creepy eyes and a painted face, one has ants crawling all over his body at all times, it's just an unpleasant show to watch.

For what it's worth, CloverWorks did put a lot into this anime. There are points in this anime where it's very well animated and they have a lot of fun (I'd hope, at least) doing cool things that you wouldn't normally see in a middling WSJ adaptation. Maybe it's because the director has a sense of style (I don't know who directed this, admittedly, but, I mean, just look at it) and knows that, frankly, this series needs all the help it can get, but it was cool.

That being said, and this is kind of unavoidable given how often they're on horseback (which makes my faith in a Steel Ball Run anime just sooooo high), but it'll switch between CGI and not for when they're on horses and it's not, like, awful, but it was noticeable, at least for me.

I did like a couple of the characters. The Emperor's son was cool for the all of one scene he appeared in. Tokiyuki himself is okay. I like the main antagonist, I guess?

Another thing is that the main cast (Yorishige aside) are all little kids? Like, Tokiyuki is NINE (apparently not young enough to avoid a BDSM joke according to this show but that's neither here nor there). I'm no historian so I can't speak to the historical accuracy of the show but idk, it's kind of weird to watch this show and then remember "oh, they're all elementary schoolers". I get that a lot of anime involve high schoolers saving the world against eldritch gods and 1000-year-old vampires and shit but a 16-year-old and a nine-year-old are very far apart, it was kind of weird to me.

Like, it wasn't the worst thing you could watch. I got through it, I guess. I wasn't really actively offended by anything, it's just... not an entertaining show?

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 28, 2024	86 replies	by wildhood »» Mar 10, 8:01 AM
	Poll: Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Aug 31, 2024	79 replies	by logic340 »» Mar 4, 8:59 PM
	Poll: Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Aug 24, 2024	55 replies	by logic340 »» Mar 4, 8:39 PM
	Poll: Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 21, 2024	51 replies	by Naruwitch »» Feb 24, 5:14 PM
	Opinions on Yorishige? VanVeleca - Jul 21, 2024	14 replies	by LeonhartAugust »» Feb 23, 10:30 PM