Samurai Champloo (2004)

25Jan07

Samurai Champloo: 7-Disc Series (2004)

Netflix Synopsis: Director Shinichiro Watanabe mixes a maturity rarely found in anime with a historical Japanese setting and a funky hip-hop soundtrack. Fuu is a spacey waitress at a teahouse where a sword fight breaks out between Mugen, a wild warrior, and Jin, a more composed ronin. In exchange for saving them from execution, Fuu demands that they accompany her on a journey to find “a samurai who smells of sunflowers.”

Review: At long last, I can finally review this one! This is a completely entertaining, modern, aesthetically and emotionally pleasing and kinetic anime. In essence, the 7-disc series finds Fuu, an opinionated, cutesy, attention-loving, always-hungry waitress paired with Mugen, a young, rebellious, arrogant yet humorous loner who can wield hell with his sword but whose fighting tactics are more reminiscent of the martial arts of Brazil’s capoeira or Israel’s Krav Maga than the classic samurai style, and Jin, a classic samurai trained in the classic samurai fighting styles and who adheres to the samurai code who is near unstoppable when his sword is unsheathed.

At the start of the series, Fuu trades her help when the both are captured in an unauspicious turn of events for them to accompany her on her journey to find “the samurai who smells of sunflowers.” It is later revealed that this samurai is her long-lost father. The series essentially details the adventures that this odd triplet have on their quest. Needless to say, the odd triplet and their adventures make for a lot of humor, entertainment and character development (the eating competition episode and the baseball scene episode against the westerners were two of my favorite and two of the funniest!). I felt like I really knew each of the main characters by the end of the series and loved their individual personalities – Fuu kooky and cute but insecure, Mugen emotional and wild, Jin tranquil and composed but passionate within – yet all have a sense of humor. Also, while the series itself takes place in 18th century Japan, the anime has a very modern sensibility to it reflected in the dialogue of the characters and various people they meet mixed in with a little hip-hop music and turntabled soundtrack (what? yes, you heard me – and oddly enough, it works).

The actual animation is stellar and is reflected not only in the expected fun fight scenes in different backdrops and using different fighting styles (and sometimes “style” is used rather loosely) against different enemies, but unexpectedly in the tranquil scenes as well – waterfalls, geisha houses, the countryside filled with sunflowers etc. The color palette hit everything in the spectrum and fit well with each particular scene. Finally, I really loved the end credit song for each episode.

Rating:

Submitted by: Audrey 1/25/07

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