TV Series Yuusha Yoshihiko: A No Budget Japanese Action Adventure Comedy

[Graw]

Has anyone here ever watched Yuusha Yoshihiko?

It's a Japanese comedy drama that parodies Dragon Quest and other jrpg games.

From wiki:

a 2011 Japanese television parody comedy about Yoshihiko, an inept hero who sets out to find the cure to a plague, but ends up fighting a larger evil. Yoshihiko is guided by a comedic Buddha, and accompanied by an incompetent wizard, a woman who wants to kill Yoshihiko because she thinks he killed her father, and a warrior who will kill Yoshihiko as soon as the warrior finishes telling Yoshihiko his stories. Yūsha Yoshihiko is heavily influenced by the RPG game series Dragon Quest, with Yoshihiko's outfit and most of the monsters being directly lifted from the series. It also contains references to other fantasy series and comedies, such as Monty Python.

It's probably one of the funniest shows I've watched in a long time. It's like a Japanese take on British humour and it works surprisingly well. If you're a Dragon Quest fan or just a jrpg fan in general you'll probably enjoy it.

There's no English dub but the first two seasons are subbed on Vimeo and the third season is available subbed online as well. I ended up binge watching the whole series in a couple of days after I found it and generally I don't really watch tv shows much any more.

Here's the first episode in case anyone's interested in checking it out.

 

[Tonberry]

I've only ever seen snippets, but I've always been curious to check it out.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[DunkeyKong]

I love me some parodies, thanks for sharing with us

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

Looks interesting.
I'll check it out later!
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Samatonic]

Will look into it. Thank you for sharing.

Post automatically merged: Mar 1, 2025

Just from the starting images I see, Final Fantasy, One Piece, Dragon Warrior and more. Looks intriguing.

 

[UsagiYumemi]

I'm going through the show with a friend. It's been hilarious so far.

 

[Graw]

Will look into it. Thank you for sharing.

Post automatically merged: Mar 1, 2025

Just from the starting images I see, Final Fantasy, One Piece, Dragon Warrior and more. Looks intriguing.

Yeah they parody a ton of different things. They even go after Disney movies in one episode. There's all kinds of references all throughout to all kinds of media you wouldn't expect.

 

[naizou's iconnaizou]

Yuusha Yoshihiko!
Japanese dramas often have poor scripts, so I don’t usually watch them, but I looked forward to Yoshihiko every week!
I think a lot of the humor comes from parodies of other Japanese shows, which might make some parts hard to understand.
But knowing that people outside of Japan also find it funny makes me really happy!
It’s an absolutely ridiculous yet incredibly hilarious masterpiece.

 

[Graw]

Yuusha Yoshihiko!
Japanese dramas often have poor scripts, so I don’t usually watch them, but I looked forward to Yoshihiko every week!
I think a lot of the humor comes from parodies of other Japanese shows, which might make some parts hard to understand.
But knowing that people outside of Japan also find it funny makes me really happy!
It’s an absolutely ridiculous yet incredibly hilarious masterpiece.

I will say there were a couple of episodes I just didn't get. The one that parodies Japanese tv networks sort of went over my head, but I could get the idea behind it even if I didn't understand exactly what they were parodying. There was a few others as well and I probably missed cameos and other things. From what I understand the bandit skits were usually done with guest cameos and things like that. Some of Hotoke's impersonations and stuff went over my head as well.

The subs I watched did explain some of the context behind some of the more culturally specific stuff which did help. There was still a lot to enjoy in there even if I didn't quite get everything all the time and the humour itself was funny enough that it didn't necessarily matter if I wasn't sure exactly what was being parodied. I could usually still tell they were parodying something even if I wasn't entirely sure what it was.

 

[naizou's iconnaizou]

I will say there were a couple of episodes I just didn't get. The one that parodies Japanese tv networks sort of went over my head, but I could get the idea behind it even if I didn't understand exactly what they were parodying. There was a few others as well and I probably missed cameos and other things. From what I understand the bandit skits were usually done with guest cameos and things like that. Some of Hotoke's impersonations and stuff went over my head as well.

The subs I watched did explain some of the context behind some of the more culturally specific stuff which did help. There was still a lot to enjoy in there even if I didn't quite get everything all the time and the humour itself was funny enough that it didn't necessarily matter if I wasn't sure exactly what was being parodied. I could usually still tell they were parodying something even if I wasn't entirely sure what it was.

It's wonderful that there are subtitles explaining!
Takayuki Yamada, who plays Yoshihiko, is a very famous and popular actor in Japan.
I remember there were a lot of parodies of his past roles as well, mainly from Crows ZERO.
I think watching those films would make Yoshihiko even more enjoyable!

I’d love to find more shows like this, but I rarely come across them.
Do you have any recommendations?

 

[Graw]

It's wonderful that there are subtitles explaining!

I always appreciate when subbers add things like that. I wish more localizers would take that approach as opposed to just trying to totally scrub out things like that.

Takayuki Yamada, who plays Yoshihiko, is a very famous and popular actor in Japan.
I remember there were a lot of parodies of his past roles as well, mainly from Crows ZERO

I think either one of the subtitles mentioned that or it's something I ended up looking up myself because I did search up a few things to try and get some of the references. I didn't realize he was super famous and popular though.

I’d love to find more shows like this, but I rarely come across them.
Do you have any recommendations?

Honestly, it reminded me the most of old British comedy shows like Red Dwarf and Monty Python and stuff like that. They tend to have the same kind of absurdist humour where ridiculous situations are played off straight. I think the bandit skits were just lifted wholesale from The Princess Bride. Otherwise I haven't really seen anything that combines videogames, anime and Japanese culture with that kind of humour. It's pretty unique as far as shows I've seen before anyway.

 

[Prism_Red]

I love this show, me and friends always watch this weekly all the way to final season.
So when is the movie coming up?

Honestly, it reminded me the most of old British comedy shows like Red Dwarf and Monty Python and stuff like that. They tend to have the same kind of absurdist humour where ridiculous situations are played off straight. I think the bandit skits were just lifted wholesale from The Princess Bride. Otherwise I haven't really seen anything that combines videogames, anime and Japanese culture with that kind of humour. It's pretty unique as far as shows I've seen before anyway.

There are lots, I mean lots of Monty Python references, especially from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I remember some translator groups also put out separate notes in their site for other Japanese media references if it's too long or need some elaborate explanation, it makes for a good read.