I last reviewed season 1 of Jubei-Chan way back in 2013, one of my better written reviews and I dropped a hint that I would one day review season 2, it only took 7 years.
Taking place one year after season 1, the story focusses on the untold history of the Siberia Yagyu clan and the true daughter of Jubei, Freesia, who by circumstances did a Captain America and was frozen for 300 years. Upon thawing out and hearing of a successor to the lovely eyepatch, Freesia sets off to find and destroy current eyepatch holder Jiyu; adding to the conflict are surviving Siberia Yagyu members hoping to take out Jiyu for their own revenge. As for Jiyu, she hasn't changed, still reluctant to use the powers given but nonetheless fights all who come her way.
Comparing the two seasons is like comparing oranges and apples; season 1 was more comedic with way too many groaner scenes and poor dubbing but good fight scenes.
Season 2 ramps up the action to 11 with some of the best sword play I've ever seen in anime; comedy is far less frequent and the story is better structured as a proper samurai tale all underscored by Toshiro Masuda's soundtrack in his pre Naruto days.
Sadly underrated thanks to it's largely phantom release in America. It did manage a dub using more or less the same returning cast to much better performances.
Final Verdict: An underrated gem that never really got the recognition it deserves and I still think the battles far exceed a number of today's best anime battles.
Back a bit earlier than anticipated mainly because this review was done quicker than expected. Enjoy the Jubei-Chan review.
300 years ago Yagyu Jubei defeated his rival Taiko Dayu and become the best swordsman in the land, on his deathbed Jubei gives his servant Koinosuke a heart shaped “lovely” eyepatch to give to a successor, his last few words were something in the line of Bonnie Boom Boom. 300 years later we meet Jiyu a normal girl who lives with her father Sai who is starting at a new school which apparently has a convenient bamboo forest on the route where characters frequently get lost. Jiyu meets Shiro, another attendee of the school and quite proud of his Kendo achievements, we also meet a trio of delinquents who refer to themselves as the unrefined; they are Bantarou and his monkey like sidekicks Oozaru & Kozaru who sprout nothing but exposition throughout the series.
Koinosuke finds Jiyu and thinks she is the successor to Yagyu Jubei, thinking that the last words of his master referred to a large breasted girl, in fact Jiyu’s breasts seem to attract everyone in this series but by anime standards they are normal size.
Understandably Jiyu refuses and spends over half the series getting rid of the eyepatch until an assassin from a clan called the Ryuujouji attacks everyone forcing Jiyu to become Yagyu Jubei II, or as I call her, Jiyu’s scary samurai form, where she receives all of Jubei’s skills and swordplay in some of the most impressive sword battles I’ve seen for a long time, remember this predates Bleach by a long time. The formula stays the same for ten episodes until the climax in the last three episodes, but I won’t spoil anything today.
It promotes itself as an action comedy but the comedy falls flat quite frequently, with poor comic timing and serious scenes where there really doesn’t need someone making a joke at the moment. Another gag is the constant shifts in art styles to emphasize how important or how unimportant certain characters are which really isn’t needed.
My other issue with the series is the dubbing, the English dub is emotionless and lousy, out of the whole cast only four & a half actors actually tried, the unrefined trio, Ninja lady Mikage and Scary Samurai Jiyu actually put any effort in, I say half because Scary Jiyu & normal Jiyu are the same actress, it’s like when she transforms, the actor suddenly gets better as well which isn’t exactly professional is it? The script isn’t exactly stellar either as the dub cast constantly exhaust their vocal cords saying “lovely eyepatch” & “Ryuujouji” about five times an episode.
The action does redeem some of the bad qualities and the actual story is pretty good but so many things let it down that it’s a shame, there’s even a satisfying conclusion as well, or it would be if not for the Second Season release.
But there is one element of this series, where it cannot be easily beaten and that’s music; if you think it sounds like Naruto then you’d be right as composer Toshio Masuda was the composer for the first part of Naruto and Jubei-Chan was one of his first works.
Final Verdict: It’s a decent action series, with great music & story but is let down by poor comedy and emotionless dub acting. It’s worth brushing over if only to prepare yourself for the serious quality upgrade of season 2, and if you enjoy Shonen Jump battles, then you haven’t seen anything until you witness some of the battles in Jubei-Chan 2.
