Netflix’s sci-fi anime, Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune follows the titular soldiers who serve an interstellar civilization’s military on missions where their purpose is to simply act as fodder.
The anime focuses on a group of human soldiers sent off to a planet to be part of an envoy for one of the foreign affairs clan’s authority figures, just for the purposes of a show of strength.
However, soon enough they’re met by a very real and very terrible form of resistance from the planet’s indigenous population and learn how they’re just expendable soldiers supposed to act as fodder for the Trade Military, learning the true meaning of the term they’re known by.
Expendable foot soldiers
Yakitori is a Japanese word for grilled chicken, and the rest of the members of Unit K321 are taken a bit aback when Akira Ihotsu reveals this tidbit of information to them.
It’s an apt term for the foot soldier infantry that’s exclusively comprised of humans, who the Trade Federation deems inferior beings only qualified for serving as sacrificial stock soldiers in wars and conflicts.
In the show, it’s Vasa Pupkin who tells Akira and the viewers about the Yakitori, as he recruits the young man.
Intentionally incompetent
The training programs for the Yakitori involve very by-the-boom regimens and tests where they ace all the tests after cramming in all the information.
At the time of war, they all follow the books and get slaughtered, obviously, since the realities entail a whole new chapter that eluded their curriculum.
This is the reason why their death rate is 70%, and even among the ones that survive, the injuries and trauma carried over are disturbing and plenty.
Turkeys for slaughter
There was another term that was used to refer to the Yakitori soldiers before they began being called that. It’s Vasa Pupkin who tells Akira why Yakitoris were initially called Turkeys.
He explains that it was because Americans used to be the majority of soldiers recruited as foot soldiers and the term to refer to them was inspired by Thanksgiving — a festival that’s celebrated in America where Turkeys are slaughtered.
On one of the missions, a group of human soldiers or Turkeys got burnt to a crisp while reentering the atmosphere, which gave rise to the word Yakitori, which was eventually incorporated into Sri Lankan — the official language of the Trade Federation.
Also Read: Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune summary & ending explained