Samurai Champloo

I'm surprised Samurai Champloo only got a "rent" review.

I LOVE SAMURAI CHAMPLOO!!!! My friends and i have seen this anime 6 or 7 times over the years and could never get sick of it.

it's a given, the art, animation, and character design is 2nd to none (btw i'm a graphic designer). They have the most crazy fighting scenes i've seen in an anime for a while. You could compare it to Samurai X but Samurai X only had a few fighting scenes. In Samurai Champloo, where there is a fight (almost every ep) you know it's going to be good!

On top of the beautiful art/ani/design, there is this fascinating/deep story line that slowly unfolds as the eps goes on. Each character has their own history and the director teases you with glimpses of their past till the very end.

Now you have to be warned this anime is very unorthodox. eg, they had rappers and graffiti artists in the samurai age lol! This is why i liked Samurai Champloo too. It's not "just another" everyday anime.

I'd like to share a scene that stuck in my memory. Jin's in a dark room with a few girls. all of a sudden a bunch of ninjas tries to attack him from mid air. Jin swiftly cuts them up with his lighting sword skills. By now, most animes will have close ups of their hero, wind blowing through their hair, and all sorts of questions will be running through their mind... What does Jin do? "Oh my back" and gets back to the girls. LOL

Samurai Champloo is funny, different and i think i've said enough about the graphics.

I may be stereotyping, but this is SUCH a guy anime. Heh.

If you wanna watch this for violence, it certainly won’t disappoint. Though mugen’s style of fighting is just…not samurai, well, I guess it’s AU anyway. There’s an undercurrent of humor, but maybe that’s just me, the art style itself is half humorous, half realistic. On the other hand, it can also be considered a dark and violent series. People are killed without repercussion, no remorse, no emotion, so easily. Nobody really has a problem killing anybody, and nothing ever really happens to punish them(unless they get killed). But again, maybe that's just me. The ost, much like the colors, is very lush.

I like the episodic nature of the series, it’s a nice break from the other anime I’ve been seeing, that is, stringing you along with bits of and hints at the bigger picture with hardly anything to relieve you from the tension and suspense. So while the search for the sunflower samurai isn’t the main focus, it still is there, and provides continuity for us. They bring it up nearly every episode anyway. Meanwhile we do get some info on our characters. A tiny bit of depth.

The marijuana episode? LOL. The beetle sumo and training? LOL. The “rapper”? and the beatboxing? Just…NO. Some episodes are really unnecessary. But heh.

The hunger thing was getting old by the tenth episode, but I guess it’s a tried and true method of getting characters motivated to do something.

Lol just watch episode 12 and you’ll know what went on in the first 11. Minus all the fighting of course. And although the voice overs were interesting, really, they really didn’t have to be included in that episode.

Anyway, TBC.

Combine modern Japanese hip-hop with the old Samurai history and you get the unique feel of this series. Samurai Champloo is mostly episodic in nature with Fuu-chan's quest to find the Samurai-san who smells of Sunflowers being the thread that ties it all together. The series doesn't do much to advance the main story, chosing rather to use it to move the characters from one adventure to another. Often, these adventures are twists on actual historical events but highly fictionalized, such as Americans coming to visit in the 1600's, the setting of the series, or having hip-hop artist in that time period.

On the surface, it seems like this wouldn't work, yet amazingly Watanabe-sensei pulls it off. Often, the modern hip-hop is used for comic relief, but at the same time, Mugen's break-dance fighting style comes off very nicely. The series doesn't just use hip-hop music, but when it did, I often found my head bobbing to the beat. I may actually have to buy the soundtrack.

While the comedy is humorous, episode 23 is a gut-buster despite being somewhat anti-American in nature. The Japanese actually hired a couple of English-speaking VA's to play a couple of the roles, which was a nice touch. I've written more about this in the episode review.

Around episode 24, the main story is dealt with until the conclusion at episode 26. Because the writers really didn't do much to advance the story along the way, the final three episodes don't have the impact they could have had. I think Watanabe-sensei wanted to avoid certain cliche's and I can appreciate that, but in the process, any real feel of destiny on the part of Jin or Mugen was lost. Fuu fared somewhat better but even then, the impact just wasn't there like it should have been.

One interesting thing I noticed was the look at Christianity in Japan. Samurai Champloo makes a point of noting how Christians in Japan were horribly persecuted and killed for their beliefs. While Christianity was certainly a foreign-introduced religion, I never got the impression that the series condemmnd it but rather seemed rather to condemn the Japanese who treated their fellow Japanese so horribly.

One should be warned that the series is VERY violent. There are a lot of bloody sword fights which are well done from an animation point of view. I didn't have a problem with this, but I thought I'd toss out the warning.

Bottom line: while very good and very enjoyable, the re-watch factor of the series isn't there for me, thus my giving this a Rent. I would recommend watching some Zatoichi movies to get a feel for the period and a greater understanding of some of the things that go on, especially with the yakuza.

Last updated Friday, February 17 2006.

This is border-line rent watch for me.

The animation is simply great with some great fight scenes. As soon as I saw it I thought this looks awesome- looks as good as Bebop- i was wrong about that.

Sadly not every thing is great here- the major downfall was the lack of story development- only a couple of episodes actually lead on to one another most episodes are self contained and not very enjoyable.

I really liked Jin; thought he was really cool but I found Mugen a bit annoying and arrogant.

The ending was good but the ending of the ending sucked. And I'm not sure how well the whole samurai hip-hop thing worked although it is original (the ending song was really bad though).

All in all a decent anime which has some great moments but not sure how much you could watch the entire series.

Drama : Med
Comedy : Low
Action : High
SciFi : None
Ecchi : Low

4 Episodes Watched I normally don't watch Samurai types (As they are usually majorly depressing) but so far it's been a good series. Because it isn't comedy heavy and I normally don't watch Samurai types I can't rate it a buy yet, but it's a good series.

This sorta reminds me of Cowboy Bebop in ancient Japan.

I really loved this series. It provides a nice lite, and often humorous, take on a normally serious subject in Japanese Animation.

The word Champloo in the title of this anime is actually a version of the Japanese word 'Champuru,' which means 'messed up.'