Gosho Aoyama’s 1988 manga Yaiba has been a favorite of old school anime and manga fans for decades, originally being released in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Sunday before being collected into 24 collected volumes. The original anime adaptation, which was produced by Pastel in 1993, ran for 52-episodes, but in 2025, the series will be making a massive comeback with a reboot, Yaiba: Samurai Legend, set to be produced by Wit Studio, best known for their work on Attack on Titan, Spy x Family, and Vinland Saga.
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With the April 2025 release date for Yaiba‘s reboot fast approaching, Wit Studio just dropped a brand-new trailer showing off how the show is looking.
While many modern reboots will often make changes to the original art style of a property, Wit Studio has done an excellent job at keep all of Yaiba‘s retro charm in tact. The new trailer also expands on the series’ voice cast, confirming that Musashi Miyamoto will be voiced by Junichi Suwabe, known for his work as Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen and Kenjuro Kurogane will be voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi, who’s most recently been seen in The Elusive Samurai as Ashikaga Takauji.
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Wit Studio’s Yaiba Reboot Has the Potential To Outshine Every Other Show Like It
Yaiba, and its upcoming reboot, Yaiba: Samurai Legend, are joining the ranks of other classic anime that have been getting the remake treatment; with Ranma 1/2, Trigun, and even Devilman all getting pristine reboots, retro is steadily making a comeback to reintorduce these stories to a new generation of anime fans. While some of these series aren’t 1:1 recreations, instead taking a far more open-ended approach to its storytelling, like Devilman and Trigun, which took the original story and characters and put them in brand-new scenarios to shock even the most dedicated fans, but shows like Ranma 1/2 and the upcoming Yaiba reboot has decided to take a much more straightforward direction. Which, in many ways, is a good thing. While it can be boring to see the same story told over and over again, modern shonen has changed so much that it’s actually refreshing to see classic tropes coming back.
Yaiba in particular embodies every foundational trope that’s made shonen what it is. From the same creator as Case Closed, another foundational shonen manga, Yaiba follows the titular Yaiba Kurogane, a young boy who has a passion to become a samurai and doesn’t really know how to do anything else. One day, Yaiba is transported to a city where he’s pushed to become a legendary warrior and face off against a fiendish looking high schooler named Takeshi Onimaru. On his journey through the city, the young Yaiba meets plenty of friends and mentors that help push him to become the best samurai he can possibly be. In true action shonen fashion, he uses his heart of gold and the power of friendship to embolden him on his quest to take down the sinister high schooler and other rivals. Compared to modern shonen franchises, Yaiba is simple, full of heart, and gets straight to the point. Which, for many anime fans, is the perfect palate cleanser after experiencing a decade of anime trying to dive into more serious storytelling.
Yaiba: Samurai Legend is set for release in April 2025.
