21 likesThe Elusive Samurai Season 2 Episode 1: Live-Action Takauji Scene Splits Fans
On July 17, The Elusive Samurai (逃げ上手の若君) opened its second season, and the Japanese reaction video covering the premiere drew 38 comments — and the top comment, 21 likes, wasn't even about the episode's biggest talking point. That honor went to the anime's choice to cut to live-action footage twice in a single episode: once for an opening narrator, once for Ashikaga Takauji himself. The comment section split down the middle over it. Some viewers called the live-action inserts an obvious way to cut animation costs, pointing to a spike in still frames as proof; others argued the effect was doing exactly what it should — marking Takauji as something that doesn't belong in the same reality as everyone else. Once that argument cooled off, the thread turned warm fast: fans got emotional over a manga-faithful flashback of Tokiyuki's brother sharing his own sashimi, cracked jokes about a new character's uncanny resemblance to the manga's own author, and traded regional trivia about why the story's setting is packed with sushi restaurants. Underneath the jokes, a couple of commenters admitted they're already a little nervous — not about anything that happened on screen, but about whether the show's broadcast slot can be trusted to see the story all the way through.