Aug 02 2009
~Samurai Champloo~
Samurai Champloo
Director: Shinichiro Watanabe
Production Group: Fuji TV
Total Episodes: 26
Vintage: 2004-05-19 to 2004-09-09
Summary: A young woman named Fuu is working as a waitress at a tea house when she is harassed by a band of ruffians. Another customer, Mugen, walks in and offers to take care of the ruffians in exchange for food, but ends up instigating a brawl, Jin a stoic young samurai enters the tea house, while the brawl is going on. Mugen attackes Jin after realizing that Jin was a worthy opposnent, and so Mugen and Jin starts clashing swords against one another. From the brawl there was a fire that started, but that didnt stop Jin and Mugen, until they both fainted fom smoke inhalation. After they woke up, they found themselves arrested for the murder of Shibui Tomonoshina, the Magistrates son, and they are sentenced to be executed. Fuu helps both Mugen and Jin escape in exchange for becoming her body guard and travel with her to look for “the samurai who smells of sunflowers”. They both agree to join her, Fuu also makes one condition for those two: they are not to duel one another until the journey is over. This modernized hip-hop tale breaks the barriers of the common, historical, samurai anime.
Samurai Champloo was a really great series, that involved a mixture of hiphop and samurai, the music and the beat was so interestingly made by Fat-Jon and crew, made the whole series a new art form. The characters in the story were so fun to watch as well, Mugen, the animal like warrior with unique fighting style that mixes break dancing and sword fighting. Helarious at times as he looks serious. Jin the opposite of Mugen, with the traditional sword fighting style and is very skilled. The two contrasting samurai warriors are far from friends, yet their separate paths seem to cross anyways.
Samurai Champloo is probably one of the first “violent” anime series i watch, that involved slicing off necks and fingers and all that stuff. Before that i couldnt even stand watching bloody anime, but after this series that all changed, i have no problems watching those kind(even worse) of bloody series. Although at some times this series yet serious, has alot of great humor. One episode in particular was the episode called “Baseball Blues” where the main characters play americans in a game of baseball, and they do the most funniest things in the episode. its really great.
The opening song “Battlecry” by Nujabes feat. SHINGO2 incorporates the hip hop beat that really is used alot througout the series, the use of vector style, the very hiphop and old style painting mix, just a beutifully directed opening. The ending song Shiki no Uta (Song of the Seasons) by Minmi is a great song as well, another type of hip hop/ rap kinda mix, the animation in the song is simple, but it really matches with the tunes.
Samurai Champloo is a great anime series for anime viewers, although violent at some times, still a great watch. They even show this on Adult swim with the dubbed version and this is like the only series that i dont mind watching in Dubbed because they do a really great job on the voice actors. If it was other anime series that were dubbed, i would not even come close to it. So for those who love hip hop samurai action, this is the one and only series out there that would really be fitting to you.
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Ratings:
Story: A-
Animation: A
Art: A
Music: A
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Youtube video of the OP/ED will be posted, so please go and watch them if you are interested.
Thanks again for reading and if there are any suggestion/comments/questions, please feel free to ask.
Jya~ne see ya later
~O-tak-U
