“There is a serendipitous nature about this project, how an African-American man goes to Japan to live and work amongst the very best in Japanese anime to create an anime about an African who goes to Japan to live amongst the Japanese elite and become a warrior,” Thomas said in a press release last month. Flying Lotus, who joins our Zoom interview from Los Angeles, where he is based, also saw a parallel between Yasuke’s story and his own experience working on the series. “My involvement with the music part too is, again, another kind of outsider trying to work in the system—the Japanese anime system—which is totally different to how we do things here,” Flying Lotus said.
“It’s the kind of thing where hopefully the right kids see it,” Flying Lotus said of Yasuke. “I just hope that some seeds are being planted, and this is just the beginning of the onslaught of Black animation.”
For both Thomas and Flying Lotus, the significance of their creative direction—and Stanfield’s—in Yasuke can’t be understated. “Who knows about where LeSean, me and LaKeith will go after this,” Flying Lotus said. “I just hope that this project shows the world that there are so many Black anime fans.”
Thomas said that as a 16-year-old Black kid, he would have been deeply impacted by a group of Black men, each respected in his field, coming together to create a Japanese anime about a Black hero. “As a Black man seeing a dude from New York City doing this sh-t I would have lost my mind,” he said, referencing his South Bronx roots. Thomas said a project like Yasuke would have propelled him to do something similar. “I didn’t have that. So, for me, at the age that I’m at now, I’m just trying to be who I needed at 16 as a Black kid.”
And watch the official trailer below.
