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 Gshs 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 hasnt 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 doesnt 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. Its 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 Aoyamasensei 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 reallife 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 I was surprised on my rewatch that it has a lot of word plays. Maybe not to the level of NISIOISIN in Monogatari but theyre there. 220https://i.ur.com/1CKWOpb.png Whilst I enjoyed all 52 episodes its only halfway through the manga. Wit Studios new adaptation aims to cover all chapters of the manga but theyll execute things differently and perhaps make things a little less childish. If this were to happen then theres still room for any fan or wouldbe fan of Yaiba to watch this classic adaptation. Im 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 doesnt 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 remakes OP and ED are okay. They dont 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: https://www..com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs Basically its saying that the Marvel Movies use temp musick to the point that its forgettable. Im 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 Im 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 its going to cover even more material I wont advise people against it. Its 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 doesnt which is why if people like the new adaptation I do recommend that they check out the original.