Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles Ep 1 Review

Teenager Yuichi, a teen rabbit who happens to be the descendant of a great warrior called Miyamoto Usagi, vows to become one of the greatest Samurai of his time. The first few minutes of this 2022 Netflix animated series just felt disappointingly underwhelming.

Created by Stan Sakai, episode 1 is all about establishing Yuichi as a spunky teen hero, who lives in a quaint village with his grandmother and decides to move to the big city to fulfill his dreams. The animation has more of a gaming interface look, with the scenes at a pace that appear like your internet is buffering. Yuichi reminds you of Lola Bunny (from Loony Toons and Space Jam) and for some weird reason has a giant lizard for a pet, that looks more like a baby dragon. The texture of the lizard is markedly different from rest of the characters in the series, as if it was a strange anomaly, which might have been intentional, but just looks silly onscreen.

The show however has some fantastic comic-book style transitions in between, that are visually a lot more appealing than the rest of the animation style. Like the still pictured below.

With a 7+ rating, this show is cute enough for pre-teen kids, but not so much for adult viewers. It made me nostalgic about Kung Fu Panda, but in a ‘I would rather watch Kung Fu Panda movies again’ way. The background music is pretty forgettable and the color palette gets very repetitive towards the end of the episode.

There’s a little twist towards the end in an effort to keep viewers invested in the show. Hopefully it might get better.

It’s a 6/10 from me.