Taisou Zamurai

At the pinnacle of his gymnastics career, Joutarou Aragaki—nicknamed Samurai for his signature hairstyle—suffers a shoulder injury following his wife's death. Five years later, he continues to push the limits of his body as a member of the Japanese gymnastics team. However, Joutarou's strenuous training fails to show any progress. His coach, Noriyuki Amakusa, advises that he retires.

Together with his exuberant and supportive nine-year-old daughter, Rei, Joutarou takes a trip to Ego Wonderland to break the bitter news to her. However, their excursion ends in an odd encounter with a peculiar self-proclaimed ninja named Leonardo. He follows them home and interrupts Joutarou's every attempt at telling his daughter.

Upon learning that Leonardo hopes to witness his gymnastics again, Joutarou astounds Japan with his announcement that he is not retiring. Joutarou dedicates himself to the biggest challenge of his career to prove that the gymnastics world is right where he belongs.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sturges, Leonardo Main

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Aragaki, Rei Main

Honizumi, Rina Japanese

Aragaki, Joutarou Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Aragaki, Bigbird Supporting

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Minamino, Tetsuo Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Ayu Supporting

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Nakanomori, Masahiko Supporting

Hirakawa, Daisuke Japanese

Takizawa, Tomoki Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Amakusa, Noriyuki Supporting

Horiuchi, Kenyuu Japanese

Liu, Ryuushou Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Kimura, Makoto Producer

Ootsuka, Manabu Producer, Planning, Chief Producer

Odagiri, Narumi Producer

Reviews

Apr 13, 2025

underyourcouch

Recommended

Taisou Zamurai is a real hidden gem! This anime tells a heartwarming story of (found) family, success, and loss—not just in terms of career but also self-worth in a highly competitive environment—and it does all of this in just 11 episodes.

At first, I was sceptical because one of the main characters is a kid, but that turned out to be no problem at all. The likable characters and the cute comedy work well together, and combined with the art style, they make this show a great experience. Everything looks beautiful, and I love the color palette. There is some CGI used in certain ... scenes, which I generally don’t like, but the CG scenes are mixed with 2D shots, so it’s bearable.

The OP and ED are amazing—both the music and the animation. I never skipped them.

Everything is crafted with care, and the show never felt rushed, allowing enough time for serious moments and reflection for both the characters and the audience. There was one plot point I didn’t like, but it was resolved quickly, leading the series to a satisfying ending.

I highly recommend this anime to anyone—not just sports enthusiasts, but also those who enjoy a cute comedy with a strong family theme.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 14, 2021

maxiburger

Mixed Feelings

This show does a lot of things - and I'm not even going to say it's doing them badly - but it's doing TOO MANY without committing to ONE thing to a satisfying degree. There's the kind of sports drama in an unusual sports discipline like Yuri on Ice where a previously failed champion has to fight his way back to the top. There's the father-daughter family drama like in Himegoto where a widower is torn between working on his career and spending precious time with his young daughter. If we could ignore the sports aspect, I would also compare the overall tone to Space ... Brothers where a late-starter is trying to get into a highly competitive field with a big cast of colorful and quirky characters. But then there's the wacky hijinks featuring characters that would feel more at home in Arakawa under the Bridge, or Pyu to fuku Jaguar, including the whole sub-plot about the foreigner Leonardo who just gets dropped into the story without anybody bothering to ask what his deal is... and it's a huge deal! It would've been okay to have him avoid the topic to create more intrigue about the big mystery, but it really bugs me that nobody even TRIES to get an answer!
So even though I was really interested in Leonardo's backstory (which only gets explored in the last quarter of the series), I think the show would've actually benefitted from him not showing up at all. He admittedly hogs a lot of screentime without contributing much to the plot progression besides creating convenient contrivances, because he's just soooo quirky; Whenever an issue would get resolved naturally but the plot demands for it to be dragged out a little more, let's just have Leo barge in and interrupt the scene so it can conclude at a more dramatic point in time. Even the drama about the big finale ended up being kind of a non-issue: Leo had already found his resolve to face his demons in the previous episode and he correctly trusted in Jotaro to perform well without him, because Jotaro's performance never relied on him in the first place.
Without Leo in the picture, there would've been more screentime to focus on Jotaro's actual rival Minamino, or to give Jotaro more moments with his daughter, or to explore his daughter's resolution to become an actress, or to show more flashbacks with his deceased wife. Because all of those plotpoints get neglected way too much.

Alternatively, I don't see the point in creating a sports drama about gymnastics - a discipline that very few people care about - if you spend less than half of the time on depicting that sport itself (I'm gauging it's only around 35~40% of the screentime). So a show about Jotaro actually retiring and then focusing on his post-athlete life with his daughter and his weird freeloader ninja twink would have worked out too in my opinion.
On that note, it bothers me that the family owns a self-conscious cartoon bird that can talk, even though a dog would've filled that role just fine without damaging my suspension of disbelief. Penpen from Evangelion should be the benchmark for how far you could push unrealistic mascots outside of gag shows, and Bigbird is about 10 steps beyond that feathered biped.

If only one or two of the things I complained about got omitted, Taisou Zamurai could've had enough breathing room to focus on less things. Maybe then it could've reached a level of excellence that I've been spoiled with by 3-gatsu no Lion.

tl;dr I am a little disappointed.

Final thoughts: The OP is staying true to the established formula of being quirky and misleading about what the tone of the show would actually be like. At least the ED is making up for that a little bit.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 26, 2022

ccalyyuu

Not Recommended

Preliminary (3/11 eps)

Gave this a try because I'm always on the look out for non-ball game sports anime and gymnastics seems ripe for storytelling— we all know about the drama, the skill and the high that the sport can get, especially after the US Women's team performance at Tokyo.

But this is ridiculous. Dropped it after 2.5 episodes. I've seen other reviews that gush about this, and maybe there's something to it, but I cannot get past the annoying start. They inserted ridiculousness seemingly just for the sake of being wacky, zany, or idk ~original~ but they break immersion instead.

There's the big bird that talks which ... is stupid. Leon, this foreigner that I assume is a fan, pretending to be a ninja and being chased by agents?? The acupuncturist is fem and wears makeup which is good, but he also touched Leo's "leg" (butt really) within 3 seconds so that's just a gag character in my opinion.

I already know there's gonna be stuff about believing in your passion, determination, not giving uo even if you're an older athlete with a busted shoulder, asking for and accepting help, etc. Sports anime can only go so many ways. I'm not looking for originality. But I do want it to come in an earnest way, not some wacky shenanigans which only annoy insteas of intrigue me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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