Definitely Not An 8 Out Of 10

Let me be right up front with you: I did not care for Naruto, nor Boruto.  I mean, everything was fine at the beginning (and who doesn’t love the Sexy Jutsu?), but then it became all political and introduced too many intricate rules for the ninja jutsus and I just couldn’t any more.  If memory serves, I didn’t get much farther than the exam arc before I called it quits.

And Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru wasn’t exactly an easier read.  Concepts are introduced well before (by which I mean “long before”) any sort of explanation of them, so I had to stop with every other sentence to try and remind myself what a “key” was or what a “samurai soul” was.

In a bizarre blending of two completely different genres, we are introduced to the legend of the warrior god Fudo Myo-o, some kind of space samurai who “saved the stars” a long, long time ago?

Some peas should not be mixed with some porridges.  At least, not unless you can seamlessly blend them together well.  And, well, Samurai 8 was just weird in both ways.

We enter on the sick and weak boy Hachimaru, who was apparently playing the online video game that the whole introduction took place in (which should be kind of a red flag right there).  He lives with his father in the small house that is all he’s ever known because of all his physical deficiencies.

And there’s also this robot dog called a “holder” that he built named Hayataro who meows instead of barks for, frankly, some of the only comic relief to be found in this slog of words.

Anyway, while his protective doctor father is off collecting parts for his intensive care machine, Hachimaru plays a standard game of fetch with Hayataro.  But, this time, Hayataro bring back a much larger ball: a daruma doll.  When Hachimaru tries to make a wish on it, the ball opens to reveal a small, cat-like creature that calls itself Daruma.

It also claims to be a samurai.

It turns out that Daruma was once a proud and honored space-samurai who was placed in the body of a cat robot.  And he was the one who created the game Hachimaru was playing earlier and distributed it in the hopes of finding a worthy samurai to aid him in his journeys.

One thing leads to another and we follow the journey of Hachimaru as he is implanted with some kind of cyborg spine called a “key” that somehow turns his body into a cyborg and turns him into the real samurai he’s always wanted to be.

This series, suffice it to say, has some problems.  There was the aforementioned “too much show long before telling” problem, plus we don’t have much idea at this moment where exactly the story is going.  The dialogue and storytelling is too wordy, plus the action scenes are too hard to keep track of who exactly has done what and how.

The one good part about Samurai 8 was the character work.  Daruma makes for a good, enigmatic master for Hachimaru, albeit one who occasionally slips in weird references to underwear in his lessons.  Hachimaru himself is understandable as a boy who has always wanted to see the world but can’t (which I myself can relate to for reasons I won’t discuss here), and his father is realistic and believable as the caring parent with a mysterious past who doesn’t want his son to get hurt out there.

I myself argue with my father and brother a lot, so I can see myself in the way Hachimaru yells at his father, but also in how he always feels bad later on and considers to himself about apologizing.

And Hayataro is the standard loving dog with few comic or unbelievable eccentricities other than the meowing.  Even if he can somehow turn himself into a giant dog-horse cyborg steed thing that shoots lasers out of his mouth.

Well, I guess Masashi Kishimoto’s talents had to be put to good (?) use somewhere ever since Naruto ended.  Just don’t expect me to be spending any money on it.