Indigenous Futurism on Tap: ‘Iyanu’ Season 1 Review

Maaaannnnnn, Iyanu is cooking up something cool for Max.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6lN9DfQ3TY Check out the intro to Iyanu, just so you know what the vibe is. Video courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., Lion Forge Entertainment, and YouNeek Studios. After interviewing the creative team, I thought I was ready for whatever would be thrown my way. I viewed three episodes from different parts of the season, and I was blown away by the two things the team said they focused on. First, Iyanu is as authentic as it can be. Hearing an African voice cast in a Yoruba-based, fantastical setting set my imagination on fire. If you listen closely, you can pick up on some of the language nuances – there’s so much intention in the way the characters speak to one another! Second, Iyanu is bringing Nigerian culture to the global mainstream stage, leaning heavily into narrative inclusivity to bring audiences into the culture. 

A locale from the Iyanu Style Book. Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., Lion Forge Entertainment, and YouNeek Studios.

Iyanu walks the hero’s journey in the vein of some of our favorite animated series. It gets compared to Avatar: The Last Airbender a lot. Which makes perfect sense, seeing as the cultural competency level needed to pull Iyanu off is S-tier. The pacing of this origin story here is more akin to Spider-Man: Homecoming, skipping over a lot of the more obvious or typical tropes and jumping right into the world. What separates Iyanu from …