Yamato Gensouki: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes

Intro

• David: Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop, where we talk about manga in Shonen Jump that didn’t make it big

• David: I’m David

• Jordan: I’m Jordan

• David: Next week we’ll be covering Wizards Soul If you’d like to read along with us. Be sure to join the discussion in our Discord and submit your six-word summary. You can find a link to the Discord in our episode description and on our website shonenflop.com

• But this week we’re talking about Yamato Gensouki and we’re joined by our guest Taryn aka Manga Lela

• Thanks to Brad aka Isekai Sensei for recommending you as a guest!

• Guest: 30-second intro

Manga Details

• Tucker on the title

  • Yamato is the family name of the emperors of Japan (the same family has ruled longer than any other dynasty in recorded human history). The Yamato Era was the first era where the Yamato emperors came to power in Japan. Yamato is also used to refer to Japanese people and their culture in general (the “Yamato-damashii,” Japanese spirit/soul). The term Yamato in the title is alluding to all three of these meanings.

  • Gensou is fantasy. 

  • The “ki” at the end isn’t a word on its own, but a particle that can be slapped to the end of a noun to mean something like “record/chronicle of ___.” 

  • If I had to give this an English title, I would have chosen something like “Yamato Fantasy Chronicles”

• Kentaro Yabuki

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Takeshi Obata

  • Notable people they had as assistants

    • Shiho Kashiwagi

  • Other works

    • Black Cat (2000-2004, 20 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)

    • To Love Ru (2006-2009, 18 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) written by Saki Hasemi

    • Mayoi Neko Overrun! (2010, 2 vols, Jump Square/Jump SQ.19) based on the light novel by Tomohiro Matsu

      • An incomplete adaptation of the original light novel series that Yabuki worked on until he was ready to return to To Love Ru. Centres around a sweet shop called Stray Cats. Shonen Flop eligible, actually. 

    • To Love Ru Darkness (2010-2017, 18 vols, Jump Square)

    • Darling in the Franxx (2018-2020, 8 vols, Shonen Jump Plus) based on the work of Code:000

      • Who do you turn to for the official manga adaptation of your horny doggy-style “please breed” propaganda mecha anime? The newly freed-up master of horny shonen manga! Horned girl meets boy, robots are piloted. 

    • Ayakashi Triangle (2020-2023, 16 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump/Shonen Jump Plus)

      • Matsuri is an exorcist ninja protecting his ayakashi medium friend, Suzu. His life gets upended when a battle with Shirogane, the king of ayakashi, ends with Shirogane turned into a fat little cat and Matsuri cursed to be a G-G-G-GIIIRL?! An action-romance that balances lewdness with action and the occasional dash of gender stuff. Had an anime.

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • February 15th, 1999 to June 14th, 1999

  • Series it replaced

• Hareluya II BØY by Haruto Umezawa (33 vols, hit with an anime)

• Series that replaced it

  • Survibee by Tsunomaru (3 vols, flop)

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • Field no Okami: FW Jin! Shukyuden by Yoichi Takahashi (2 vols, flop)

  • Daisuou ~Dice King~ by Munenori Michimoto (2 vols, flop)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 18 chapters/2 volumes (1 volume on rerelease)

About the Manga

• Plot

  • Its warring-states era Japan and Shion is a teenage assassin working for a group known as the Onmyou Union. His job is to kill the heads of state and watch the whole nation crumble. He does this because, no joke, he thinks that destroying every nation will result in no more war. Shion is sent to the Yama nation where he defeats the young empress Iyo in a duel with his super cool assassin magic and becomes her bodyguard. He goes to kill her but she reveals that she knew he was an assassin because he used assassin magic which is something only assassins do. She tells him she wants to unify Japan and end wars that way, and that she’ll conquer the holy city of Takama to do so cuz it’s the center of Japan or something. Then Shion’s buddy shows up and takes her hostage, telling him to kill her because destroying all nations is how you end wars. Iyo is like “that’s fucking stupid where will all the people go?” And Shion is like “oh shit I never considered this very obvious consequence of my actions!” Shion jumps in to defend her, betraying his old allegiance to stop the other assassin. His determination makes his sword turn into a “shingu” a “magic sword” named Tsukiyomi and he kills the bad guy and resolves to protect Iyo. 

  • The captain of the guard doesn’t trust Shion but then Iyo thwarts an assassination attempt and he likes Shion. Then he asks Shion to teach them magic and he doesn’t wanna so the captain doesn’t trust Shion and then they fight a little, Shion says he’ll teach them, and he likes Shion again. It turns out that every nation with info on Takama is getting wrecked by the Onmyou Union so they go to a nation with info on Takama and see it getting wrecked by Shurq, a guy from the Onmyou Union. He has a cool Shingu and reveals that Shion was the heir to the Tsukuya royal family which was wiped out by Onmyou. Shion gets mad and fights back, sending him running. Then we find out that there’s a descendant of a Takama citizen living in the “forest of no return,” so they decide to go there. To do so Iyo enlists the help of Retsu, a kid who gets a crush on Iyo, gets jealous of Shion being near her, and just all around fucking sucks. He can talk to plants tho so he’s useful for navigating the forest. 

  • They go to a town in front of the forest or no return where a guy tries to turn ropes into snakes to stop them from going and he’s like “dang you can tell from Iyo’s eyes that she’s seen hell.” And tells a guy about how Iyo actually was adopted by the previous queen. They enter the forest and are stopped by guardians controlled by Haru, the descendant they were looking for and she brings them to her home. She thinks to herself “dang you can tell by Iyo’s eyes that she’s seen hell.” Haru sends Iyo into a cave to prove she’s not evil where she encounters a mirror that digs up her trauma. Meanwhile a bad guy from Onmyou named Kouma shows up to fight Shion. They trained together and Kouma has a big chip on his shoulder about Shion being better so he shows Shion his new Shingu which looks like an evil version of his. They fight and Kouma wins at first but when Shion is unconscious he meets his dad who slaps him and tells him to wake up. Shion wakes up and wins. That’s kinda it bye!

• Characters

  •  Shion 

    • Does his own thing

    • Edgy protagonist 

    • Just so mopey

    • Dad was important? Survivor of the Tsukuyo royal family

    • Tsundere

  • Iyo 

    • Little cinnamon roll who wants to be strong

    • She reminds me of the emperor lady from Red Sprite

    • Author like 10 chapters in is like oh right she can fight I forgot

    • Does her boob size keep changing? 

  • Renza

    • Power of love

    • Forest powers

    • Abandoned as a kid

  • Shura

    • Big bad

    • Just kinda sits and does nothing he honestly feels like a parody

Why it Failed - Taryn

• The plot just seems so disorganized like I don't believe he still wants to kill her for a second

• It also feels slow like a lot of talking and some forced action, so much dialogue. Why was the snake rope test an entire chapter that should have been like 5 pages

• The dialogue is also super vague so everything feels really unfulfilled “the god oh I’ve said too much” very much OP style “is it time for it” kind of BS

• The magic system is such a big deal but they don’t really go into detail

• Everything is reactive, they keep reacting to the news, people showing up, no agency

• The magic feels kind of boring and feels like it just masks how the author isn’t doing anything interesting

• They don’t really establish what Japan is like at the time so I don’t understand the impact of what they’re trying to do

• I get the theme of trying to make it seem like everyone can work together but don’t make Iyo the first one to need to be bailed out

• I hate hate hate this toying around BS, be like Kaido and just try and kill the MC if he’s weak

What it Did Well - Jordan

• I like the idea of betraying your original culture but it's a little forced 

• I enjoy the princess wants to be more helpful

• It’s fun seeing the NPCs try and learn magic

• The art is nice, characters well drawn and backgrounds detailed when the author needs it to be. I like the creature designs

• It kinda comes together in the last bit where there’s less dialogue and more action, even if it’s kinda forced

Where it Could Have Gone - Taryn

• I was hoping the empress was also ruthless, maybe they learn together violence isn't always the answer nut sometimes it is. Iyo  really could have been an interesting character

• Have a stronger sense of base building like make it feel they're building up something and you see them shift from reactive to proactive more and more. The training stuff would have been much more interesting once they had been established

• What if the MC was banned from using his magic and instead had to devise strategies to overcome stranger magical opponents

• Bring back Iyo’s interesting tomboy character traits she’s so boring

Misc Thoughts

• A teaching arc?

• This reminds me of the boring parts of slime reincarnation

• Was the magic even necessary?

• Imagine the MC was like bruh your cooking is ass 

• That last dude has soul edge 

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • Iyo’s design was reworked for Kyoko Kirisaki in Black Cat, who in turn was reused in To Love Ru. This sort of recycling and reuse of characters is a bit of a staple of Yabuki’s work.

  • In the decades since this flopped it has become quite relevant again, serving as a canonical prequel to Yabuki’s 2020 series Ayakashi Triangle where [SPOILERS] it turns out that main duo Matsuri and Suzu are the latest incarnations of Shion and Iyo respectively, the latter being retconned to be the Ayakashi Maiden, just like Suzu. 

  • Some bonus author trivia:

    • Yabuki is a big fan of Dragon Ball, and once won a contest for suggesting a fusion between Gohan and Trunks. 

    • Yabuki is brothers-in-law with Witch Watch creator Kenta Shinohara, which is to say that their current wives are sisters. 

    • Early in his career Osamu Akimoto of Kochikame fame praised how he drew girls, encouraging him to keep working on them to the point that, decades later, it’s literally what he’s known for. 

  • Volume extras (1 volume version) include:

    • Full-page sketches of major characters, made years later during Yabuki’s time on To Love Ru.

    • An afterword

    • That’s it

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Tucker: Fuck this, just read Japanese history

    • Maxybee: Ancient history quickly becomes ancient history

    • dackerson: Yadda yadda yadda… Japan was unified

    • Diego The Phantom Seer: Expecting more ecchi from the author | Reject story focus. Return to horny

    • duderocks the earthchild stan: Yabuki: “manga flopped? back to horny”

    • Glornak Ironspawn: Political drama, but even more boring.

    • GreyPotter 👑 King of Questions: Empress couldn’t even unify a fanbase

    • Kpt.Kluless: Story ended with, To be Unified…

    • LordAnubis, #1RedHoodFan/Mourner: The Black Cat crossed Yamato's path

    • Portal man: Shogun games went downhill after this

    • Sbubby: A Yabuki series? Where’s the nudity!?

    • Spike: Trial of AyaTri tries and AyaFails

  • David: please please please just stop talking | my plot’s boring on purpose, baka! | wanted historical fiction, not historical fantasy

  • Jordan: can’t fight wars if they’re dead