Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Part 2): "I, Cao Cao, and You, Liu Bei, Are the Only Two Worthy Heroes in the World"

Previously in the Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms review:

"So far, the first 22 episodes of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms are an extremely solid way to experience the early days of the eventual fall of the Han dynasty, as while this is no doubt Liu Bei's story from an overall perspective it still has no problem moving away from him when necessary in order to tell another side of the story that's essential... and I am curious about seeing how this anime continues on from here, post-Lü Bu."

As I mentioned in Part 1, the production of the TV anime adaptation of Yokoyama Sangokushi was a bit of an odd one due to the companies involved. Animation was done by AZ, a no-name studio that you seriously can't find any info on, had previously only worked on most of the Raven Tengu Kabuto TV anime, and seemingly would disappear after this show, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, though Kenji Yoshida's short-lived Yu Entertainment was co-producing this show, which is likely how it managed to get such a talented staff working on it, the primary production company behind it was Dai Nippon Printing, and while DNP has had involvement with anime production beyond Yokoyama Sangokushi, those all seem to be much smaller investments than this was. However, this means that DNP is the primary company that would handle something like licensing... but DNP isn't really equipped to handle things like licensing an anime out, especially internationally. Therefore, another company was brought on to assist with that stuff, so much so that they're even included in the credits of the show itself under "Production Cooperation", as seen in the two ED sequences: Enoki Films.

Yep, if you go to Enoki Films' website you can find Yokoyama Sangokushi there under the title "Quest of Three Kingdoms"; coincidentally enough, Enoki also handles licensing for Shinano Kikaku's Sangokushi film trilogy. Oddly, though, d-rights (now ADK Emotions) also seemingly handled international licensing for Yokoyama Sangokushi in 2016 & 2017, so who knows what the licensing situation is like for this show!

Anyway, aside from the fact that Lü Bu's involvement in the story ended with Episode 22, it was also a good idea for me to stop there for Part 1 of my review of Yokoyama Sangokushi for another reason: Episodes 23 & 24 actually originally aired in Japan as a one-hour special on April 10, 1992. Now, to be fair, this might actually be due more to the fact that the day that originally would have aired Episode 23, April 3, was actually skipped over back during the show's original airing, maybe(?) due to Prince (pre-TAFKAP) performing a concert in the Tokyo Dome that day, which marked the start of his Diamonds and Pearls Tour; it's entirely possible that TV Tokyo aired a live-telecast of that performance, or something. Regardless, these remaining 25 episodes mark a notable shift in the story of Romance, as now that the likes of Dong Zhuo & Lü Bu are gone it results in the rise of the likes of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, & even the Sun Family, eventually led by Sun Jian's second son Sun Quan after the death of his older brother Sun Ce a little over a year after Lü Bu's death. While the Yokoyama Sangokushi anime never truly makes it to the formal foundation of the titular Three Kingdoms (the anime only covers up to 209 AD/CE, while the kingdoms themselves would be officially established between 220 & 222), it really feels as though this second half will act as the "true" set up to that iconic era. Therefore, time to finish up this anime & see if it can follow through on what was established beforehand.

Lü Bu has been defeated & killed following the Battle of Xiapi by the combined forces of Liu Bei & Cao Cao. Seeing the continued value in the existence of the Han dynasty, Cao Cao works as its Prime Minister & lead general in an effort to reunite all of China as it once was, but it's easy to see that there are greater ambitions behind his actions. Meanwhile, the three blood oath brothers of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, & Zhang Fei know too well how dangerous Cao Cao can be & start to look for a way to work against him. However, they need a brilliant strategist to help them in this battle, and eventually find one in the form of the "Sleeping Dragon" Zhuge Liang, who has a grand plan of splitting China between three competing sides. As Cao Cao slowly increases the size of his army to a degree where he looks unstoppable Liu Bei & his allies realize that they need to deal a strong blow to Cao Cao in order to keep his ambitions at bay, and likely need the assistance of the forces of Sun Quan, who rules over the Jiangdong & Wu regions in the South & East, in order to do so.

As before, it's probably best to first explain how the second half of Yokoyama Sangokushi handles the continued story of Romance by splitting up which stretch of episodes cover what overall portions. Episodes 23-29 start this half off by fully establishing Cao Cao & Liu Bei as true rivals, including Emperor Xian discovering his relation to Liu Bei, the Emperor then making a secret decree to kill Cao Cao, which gets discovered & fails but allows Liu Bei to escape the capital & Cao Cao's control, as well as Guan Yu becoming a short-lived general of Cao Cao's after getting separated from his brothers during an assault. This stretch includes Episode 26, which introduces Zhuge Liang to the plot via a partial recap episode that explains his life growing up during the events of the first half. Episode 30 is notable on its own for detailing the Battle of Guandu, where Cao Cao manages to outwit Yuan Shao & utterly destroy his forces, establishing Cao Cao as the force of Northern China. The anime jumps ahead seven years after this, enforced by the fact that Liu Bei & Cao Cao now both have beards & mustaches. Episodes 31-38 detail Liu Bei's journey to discover of & recruit Zhuge Liang, climaxing with the Battle of Changban, the first major battle between Liu Bei & Cao Cao. Yokoyama Sangokushi then comes to an end with Episodes 39-47, which finally introduce Wu, now led by Sun Quan (Sun Ce died off screen, same as Sun Jian did), to the story proper & detail the build to the legendary Battle of Chibi, which acts as the finale of the entire anime. To be fair, the anime kind of just stops, obviously indicating that way more happens afterwards, but this is still a solid enough point to stop on.

Likewise, the length of the series continues to allow smaller details to be given attention that you'd likely not see in other adaptations of Romance. For example, while Liu Bei being a distant descendant of royalty is often brought up in most adaptations this anime actually shows Emperor Xian discover that Liu Bei is (in his on words) a "distant uncle" of his & is elated over that fact. This, in turn, helps deepen Cao Cao's hatred towards our de facto "hero", since he didn't know of this beforehand & now accidentally gave Liu Bei a political advantage over him by introducing Liu Bei to the Emperor after he helped defeat Lü Bu. There's also a nice usage of smaller name Romance characters to good effect in this second half, like showing the relevance of both Zhou Cang & Sun Qian in helping reunite Guan Yu with Liu Bei, or introducing Guan Ping & showing how he became Guan Yu's (adoptive) oldest son. The lead up to Zhuge Liang's relevance in the plot is also built up nicely, including the story of Xu Shu, which fans of some of the more recent Dynasty Warriors games really don't know the full (& tragic) story of. I also really liked Episode 35, which detailed the initial hesitation Liu Bei's long-term allies (Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Sun Qian, etc.) have in trusting Zhuge Liang as a strategist, mainly due to his age & inexperience in actual battles, as it's an aspect that's maybe only brought up in passing in most adaptations I've seen.

That being said, though, we do start to see some of the more loosely adapted elements of Romance rear their heads in this second half, as well as gaps that maybe should have been included. For example, Zhang Liao didn't appear a single time in the first half, despite him being a notable general of Lü Bu's who became a respected friend/rival of Guan Yu's during that time before siding with Cao Cao, yet he just appears from out of nowhere in Episode 25 to help peacefully negotiate Guan Yu's surrender to Cao Cao, with his past friendship just being acknowledged without any build up. There's also Xiang Lan, a woman who's actually first seen all the way back in Episode 1 as a child student of Liu Bei's, who winds up being adopted by Liu Bei's mother after the attack by the Yellow Turbans (i.e. she effectively becomes a little sister to Liu Bei, Guan Yu, & Zhang Fei), but returns from out of nowhere in this half as an adult who quickly becomes Liu Bei's wife. The anime actually has Zhang Fei acknowledge that his older brother had never married at this point, despite history & even Romance stating that Liu Bei already had at least one wife (Lady Mi) & a concubine (Lady Gan) by then, both of which were even captured by Lü Bu at one point. Now, to be fair, Liu Bei's early married life has seemingly always been rather loosely followed when it comes to adaptations of Romance, the NTV TV specials & Shinano Kikaku films each had their own takes that were different from both each other & even this anime, so it's not a major thing to focus on, but it's still worth bringing up, I feel.

As for who Yokoyama Sangokushi focuses in this half, it's absolutely on Liu Bei & his side this time around, while Cao Cao is fully established now as the main antagonist, though without turning him into a straight-up villain. When his generals suffer embarrassing losses when they had blatantly obvious superiority in numbers, and they ask to be killed as punishment, Cao Cao instead forgives them & hopes they do better next time. When he gets Xu Shu on his side, in order to screw over Liu Bei, he winds up reprimanding the officer who got it done because it was handled in a completely underhanded & dishonorable fashion, which in turn makes Cao Cao look even worse. Still, Cao Cao is a practical man, one who is willing to take advantage of a situation as long as it gives him an advantage, like when Liu Bei is unwilling to leave behind the commonfolk who have come to adore him, though this leaves him & his forces at the mercy of Cao Cao & his forces that are in pursuit. In comparison, Liu Bei's virtuous nature is very much shown in full force, though you can also argue that he's also stubborn as a mule by that same token, like when Liu Qiao outright offers to give Liu Bei governorship over Jingzhou, as he's on death's door, yet Liu Bei constantly refuses to accept as he feels he'd be taking the land away from Liu Qiao's sons, who are technically the rightful inheritors (though they're literal children). It creates a strong dynamic between the two primary characters that really showcases why Romance is such a good story, though (once again in my coverage of anime adaptations of this classic) the side of Sun Quan & Wu very much feels like an afterthought here. Aside from one focus episode in the first half about Sun Jian discovering the Imperial Seal, that side of the Three Kingdoms triumvirate is really only ever mentioned in passing throughout this anime all the way until Episode 40, when they suddenly become important due to their involvement in the Battle of Chibi. Even then, Sun Quan is really only seen for a couple of episodes, as the final stretch for the anime is more about Zhuge Liang constantly finding ways to avoid being covertly killed by Wu's Zhou Yu, all while getting prepared for the climactic battle against Cao Cao's navy.

"When stealing 100,000 arrows from the enemy
it's best to just get drunk" - Zhuge Liang (not really)

There are no changes when it comes to the staff for the second half of Yokoyama Sangokushi, so we still have Seiji Okuda directing & the late Jinzo Toriumi leading the writing staff, with the duo of Michi Himeno & the late Shingo Araki handling the character designs. Visually the anime remains more or less the same as before, which is to say nothing truly amazing & definitely still with its fair share of little visual tricks to make things look more spectacular at points, like a motion blur-esque effect on certain impactful shots & pans; animation studio AZ would seemingly go out of business after this show, never to be seen again. Still, I wouldn't necessarily say that the show looks terrible, and outside of maybe the rare shot of a character off to the side or in the background the characters themselves are always consistently on model. Toriumi & his staff of writers also continued to keep the plot moving forward in a good fashion, and the focus shifting almost exclusively towards Liu Bei & his allies honestly does result in the second half feeling more like a dramatic story with a proper lead character, where the first half did occasionally need to veer off & leave Liu Bei behind every once in a while. Of course, the absolutely massive cast of characters seen means that certain players only manage to get maybe a single episode to truly shine, but at least stuff like Zhao Yun rescuing Baby Adou during the Battle of Changban & Zhuge Liang getting 100,000 arrows for Zhou Yu is done really well; I also especially enjoyed Guan Yu's journey through the five passes to return to Liu Bei. There's even a slightly increased focus on some female characters in the second half, like giving Guan Ping a slightly romantic relationship with Xiang Lan's attendant or making Zhuge Liang's sister a consistent recon scout for her brother during his time in Wu. Admittedly, neither of them are given names, but at least they do contribute a little something extra at points, if small, & it's not a complete sausage-fest when it comes to notable characters now.

Then there's the music by Fence of Defence's Masatoshi Nishimura, which is easily one of the most interesting aspects of the entire show. Put simply, the entire score to Yokoyama Sangokushi feels almost like Nishimura was composing a Three Kingdoms-themed concept album first, rather than composing a score meant specifically for the anime itself. The songs themselves are all very good & feature a nice range of styles, all while feeling accurate to the general theme & mood of the Three Kingdoms era, in my opinion. However, while the songs are used in the perfect way for the anime I never really got a feeling that Yokoyama Sangokushi's musical score ever truly felt like it absolutely belonged, and the best way to describe that would be to say that Nishimura's songs feel very "extra", if you know what I mean. I think the best comparison to make would be to Yoko Kanno's score to Brain Powerd, as Kanno has admitted that director Yoshiyuki Tomino didn't really give her much detail as to what kind of score he wanted for the show, so the end result was a score that sometimes felt disconnected from the show itself, despite the music being generally praised. I can't say the same for the OP & ED themes, though, as while this first half does start with the same combo of "Toki no Kawa" by FOD & "Sora" by Mimori Yusa, they are both replaced for the last 15 episodes (33 to 47) by brand new FOD songs, and they're absolutely stellar. New OP "Don't Look Back" is arguably even better than the first OP theme & builds to an utterly amazing chorus that you can't help but sing along with; I called "Toki no Kawa" the most underrated FOD anime song in Part 1, but "Don't Look Back" takes that crown now. Meanwhile, new ED "Standing Alone" is a rock ballad that is both calming & reflective during the main verse, but super inspiring sounding for the chorus, and combined with the sequence showing moments & characters from throughout the entire show makes for an outstanding ED, leagues better than "Sora" was.

Since I covered the voice cast of our main three "brothers" last time, and they all continue to perform as well as before in this half, I'll start off this second overview of the voice cast with Yasunori Matsumoto (Gourry in Slayers), who plays Cao Cao. For some reason I keep thinking of Matsumoto first as a more comedic voice actor, so I'm constantly impressed when he plays more serious, or even villainous, roles & the same is true here, as Matsumoto does an excellent job with Cao Cao, keeping him an antagonist who you can still see the logic of his actions, which prevents him from coming off as a straight villain. The next major role for this second half would be Zhuge Liang, who's voiced here by Sho Hayami (Aizen in Bleach). Similar to Matsumoto I keep thinking of Hayami as a villain, yet here he is playing a character who may be conniving in many ways against his foes but is absolutely a good person, and he plays the role excellently. Coincidentally, most people familiar with Yokoyama's Zhuge Liang would be via the Giant Robo OVA, which had its first episode released as this anime was finishing up, where he would eventually be revealed as the main villain; he was voiced by Tadashi Nakamura in that series, though.

As for Zhou Yu we have the late Unsho Ishizuka ("Old" Joseph Joestar in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure TV), whose deep voice really contrasted with my general familiarity of the character (who's an absolute bishonen in Dynasty Warriors) but did quickly grow on me for this take on Wu's Grand Admiral. Another massive change for me from DW would be Zhao Yun, who's an absolute giant in this anime & voiced by Jurota Kosugi (Asuma in Naruto), but like Ishizuka the casting here works really well. Those are probably the most notable recurring characters of note for the second half, though the rest of the noteworthy cast include Nobuto Tobita (Sun Quan), Kikuko Inoue (Xiang Lan), Michiko Neya (her attendant), Yuichi Meguro (Xiahou Dun), Toshihiko Nakajima (Cao Ren), Koji Tsujitani (Guan Ping), Kazuo Oka (Sun Qian), Kazuhiko Kishino (Liu Biao), Aruno Tahara (Lu Su) &, of course, Shinji Ogawa continuing on as the narrator; Ogawa would actually also be the narrator for the Giant Robo OVA, the only "major" shared voice actor between the two.

It's a good thing that I did split up reviewing Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms as 22/25, because there definitely is a notable shift in focus between the two (not quite) halves. While the anime obviously has a massive cast it has to balance, the first 22 episodes had to balance a lot more of them, due to the various major players during those early days of the era, whereas the last 25 episodes were able to focus mainly on the conflict between Liu Bei & Cao Cao. This results in Yokoyama Sangokushi's second half feeling much more like Liu Bei's (& Zhuge Liang's) personal story, with Cao Cao definitely being portrayed more as the direct antagonist now. There's also a really cool sense of time having passed & things changing a whole lot over that time, despite the anime very rarely stating specific years during the narration, as by the time the Battle of Chibi happens at the end it's kind of amazing to consider that the rather humble beginnings of Episode 1 eventually led to this. On the whole this anime is a great way for one to introduce themselves to story of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, even if it does stop roughly 11 years before the literal Three Kingdoms era truly begins, and I would greatly recommend this over watching the Shinano Kikaku film trilogy (or at least the first two films, which cover up to roughly the same point as this anime). I do wish this show could be given an official English release... but, you know, Enoki Films & all.

That being said, though, there is one aspect of this era that is woefully ignored until the very last stretch of episodes, and the same is true for both the NTV movie duology & the Shinano film trilogy I covered previously: The story of the Sun Family & the origin of Eastern Wu. There's an entire side of the story that's pretty much treated as though it happened on another planet when it's come to these anime adaptations of Romance so far, and it sadly does make it seem as though Wu's importance to the story really only comes about via the Battle of Chibi & (later) Liu Bei's marriage to Sun Quan's sister. Luckily, while it'd take around 15 years to finally happen, the next "direct" anime adaptation of Romance would finally put a spotlight on the kingdom found in the South & East... even if it's easily the "direct" adaptation that took the most liberties. Still, it's a TV anime that dared to put the word "Sangokushi" in its title, so we'll return to the Three Kingdoms era in July when I cover 2007's Koutetsu Sangokushi!

Anime © Hikari Production/Dai Nippon Printing