LaKeith Stanfield has made quite the name for himself in Hollywood in a rather short amount of time. He made a big splash on the television show Atlanta as fan-favorite Darius and has appeared in highly successful films such as Get Out and Uncut Gems, winning multiple awards along the way. This time around however Stanfield appears to be taking his career in a different direction. The budding actor is teaming up with Netflix for his next project titled Yasuke, an anime series about an African-American samurai in Japan.
This isn’t the biggest shock for anyone familiar with Lakieth Stanfield. He has always been an individual who marches to the beat of his own drum, and this time he will be marching along as the voice of an African-American samurai. The streaming service Netflix will serve as the distributor of the new series, and that was clear in a blog post from the Netflix website: “There is a serendipitous nature about this project… Part of me deep down feels I was meant to create this adventure series with MAPPA, Flying Lotus, LaKeith and the rest of this talented team.” Strong words from the producer-director of the series LeSean Thomas, known for his work on other hit animated series such as The Legend of Korra and The Boondocks, in which he also highlights that musician Flying Lotus will also serve as an executive producer of the series.
Netflix clearly has high hopes for Yasuke. The aforementioned blog post was titled “Redefining What Anime Can Be With ‘Yasuke’”, which is a pretty substantial claim for an art form that originates in Asia. Thomas has done his homework however, spending a substantial portion of his adult life living in Asia and is currently based in Japan. He has also built a dynamic team around himself and will likely fair just fine as the popularity of anime in the United States has increased dramatically in recent years. Fans and potential viewers can look forward to the new series hitting Netflix on April 29th.
