YASUKE
🎴 YASUKE: Guardian of the Village
A Samurai Western Set in the Heart of Feudal Japan
📜 LOGLINE
An African warrior turned samurai defends a fractured village in feudal Japan—caught between local corruption, spiritual conflict, and foreign incursion—as he battles to reclaim peace, purpose, and his own humanity.
🎥 SERIES OVERVIEW
Genre: Historical Drama, Samurai Western, Philosophical Action
Format: 10 x 60-minute episodes (Serialized/Episodic hybrid)
Tone: Gritty realism with poetic stillness—Gunsmoke meets The Mandalorian by way of Kurosawa
🎯 SERIES CONCEPT
Yasuke: Guardian of the Village follows the actual historical figure Yasuke, the first Black samurai, in the aftermath of Oda Nobunaga’s death. As a ronin, he seeks neither power nor position but reluctantly becomes the spiritual and physical protector of a rural Japanese village on the edge of ruin.
This is a world of warlords, missionaries, opium peddlers, Zen monks, and corruption. Yasuke must walk a tightrope of loyalty, justice, and healing from the trauma of endless war. Each episode confronts a moral dilemma, local threat, or cultural collision—testing his resolve and drawing the village into deeper philosophical, political, and emotional entanglements.
🧭 THEMATIC PILLARS
Identity & Belonging: Yasuke is foreign and fundamentally “other.” What does it mean to belong?
Spiritual vs. Temporal Power: Takuan the monk and Father António reflect competing truths.
Honor & Corruption: Can a code survive in a world built on compromise?
The Cost of Peace: Every blade drawn brings echoes of a past Yasuke is trying to outrun.
🥋 THE HERO: YASUKE
A former African slave turned samurai under Oda Nobunaga
Now a ronin, haunted by war and viewed with suspicion
He seeks no master—but becomes one: master of his moral compass, and guardian to those who can’t protect themselves
His inner war: Between being a weapon and being a man
🧩 CORE CHARACTERS
Hana – Innkeeper and quiet confidant. Gentle but iron-willed.
Takuan – Maverick Zen monk. Combines Zen, early Buddhist texts, and Mozi’s logic. Yasuke’s spiritual mirror.
Kenji – Corrupt village headman. Uses Yasuke for power until politics forces a reckoning.
Father António – Portuguese Jesuit torn between faith and politics.
Taro – Samurai enforcer. Ambitious and threatened by Yasuke’s presence.
Sayuri – Merchant’s daughter. Represents change, romance, and class tension.
Gozan – Traveling merchant with a sinister opium operation. Charismatic and dangerous.
🌏 THE WORLD
A meticulously crafted 16th-century Japan that captures the political fragmentation of the Sengoku period.
The Village is a crucible of:
Zen temples & hidden churches
A crooked headman & foreign trade tensions
Opium undercurrents & philosophical debates
Tea houses, geishas, and wandering warriors
Visual and thematic parallels to The Last Samurai, Shogun, and Game of Thrones’s Essos.
🧠 PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOLOGY
This is more than a samurai story.
It's an existential meditation on redemption, with dialogues reminiscent of The Leftovers or The Mandalorian’s contemplative silences.
Every swordfight is a conversation about justice, pain, and the cost of violence.
Every character has a moral compass tested—often against Yasuke’s quiet, deadly integrity.
Takuan offers Socratic and Zen dialogues as Yasuke contemplates a world not built for him.
🧨 PILOT SNAPSHOT (EPISODE 1)
Yasuke enters a suspicious village, rescues it from bandits, and becomes its reluctant protector.
The episode ends with him riding away—only to be pulled back into a deeper conspiracy involving Gozan’s opium ring and moral rot from within.
🧭 EPISODIC STRUCTURE
Each episode contains:
A central mystery or conflict
Philosophical tension (Zen vs Christianity, Loyalty vs Autonomy)
Swordplay with emotional consequence
Village politics unraveling
And Yasuke’s past trauma shapes each decision
🎬 VISUAL STYLE
Influences: 13 Assassins, Yojimbo, The Mandalorian, Shogun (FX)
Earth-toned minimalism with stylized swordplay
Long silences, sparse music, symbolic lighting
Juxtaposition of serenity (temple gardens) and chaos (battlefields)
📈 MARKET POSITIONING
For audiences of:
The Last Kingdom
Shōgun (FX)
Peaky Blinders
The Mandalorian
A high-concept drama with real historical inspiration, diverse representation, and grounded spirituality.
🎯 WHY THIS SHOW? WHY NOW?
Tells a true untold story—Yasuke has never been dramatized with this depth or seriousness
Diverse storytelling from a global lens (Africa x Japan x Europe)
Offers a morally complex hero in a media world hungry for nuance
Has franchise potential: spin-offs around Takuan, Christian samurai, or other villages
📣 CALL TO ACTION
We are seeking:
Production partnerships
Distribution via streaming or prestige cable
Co-development with Japanese and global creators
Executive producers aligned with character-first, philosophy-rich storytelling
Sample Script: Ten Pages.
