Samurai Champloo

Continuing on with my anime reviews, next on the line we've had Shinichiro Watanabe's mature hip hop adventure drama Samurai Champloo. This series is about two misfit samurais who are hired by a girl to look for a certain man, spiced up with a modern record-scratching hip hop soundtrack. Story's backdrop is Japan's Edo period, although the disclaimer in the beginning clams that "This work of fiction is not an accurate historical portrayal. Like we care. Now shut up and enjoy the show." - and this pretty much characterizes the whole show as the emphasis is on cool characters and fights, and everything else is sacrificed for that.

First episode opens up with a teahouse where a girl named Fuu is serving the governor's son and his raunchy entourage. In comes an eccentric looking swordsman Mugen who offers to take care of the bunch for 50 dumplings - Fuu wavers but is forced to take the offer when things get heated up. What she doesn't expect though is the enthusiasm her hired help brings to the fight as he goes on a killing spree on everything in sight - he even engages the lonely samurai Jin who wonders in and claims just having killed governor's three top bodyguards. In the ensuing fire both samurai are knocked unconscious and captured by the governor, who as a revenge for his son's death wants to execute them - but Fuu has other ideas and helps the two escape in exchange for helping her to find "the samurai who smells of sunflowers".

Characters are in the heart of Samurai Champloo, and in fact you could go as far as saying nothing else than the characters really matter. Jin, the traditional cool-headed renegade ronin is the good and proper hero of the story. He's the submissive strong silent type and his fighting style is traditional dojo style with a katana. His opposite is the hot-headed Mugen dressed in red hip-hop style shirt and shorts who fights with a western-style sword and a very unusual kapoera/break-dance martial arts technique. Mugen is the bad cop of the scenario - his sole purpose in life is to eat, drink and fight, and if time permits from those two - fuck. He's rude, quick to anger and impulsive and especially in the beginning is lacking most redeeming features. Then there's Fuu who in name brings the two men together while trying to get them not to kill each other - they are very eager to find out which one is better - but the men have much more in common than it first seems. She's fragile in appearance but strong in character, and is the driving force behind the mission.

And that's pretty much it. The series - 26 episodes in total - is very episodic, and one could watch pretty much any episode (save last three where the bulk of the story happens) and get the feel for the series and the characters. Although it's a story about a journey, the story is not a journey itself - the characters all have backgrounds that we find out in the middle episodes, but they don't have a huge effect on the story or present obstacles or character growth opportunities. Although the past has made the characters what they are, they are pretty much in peace with their pasts - claim is that in the end they find what they are looking for, but it has no effect on their actions. At the same time they do develop a camaraderie - "when you go on a journey together it changes you, it makes you family" - I especially liked Jin's and Mugen's unspoken understanding, and Fuu's gentle acceptance that the she can't change the men from what they are.

And if you're ok with episodic TV, you'll love this series because it's coolness factor really is through the roof. Character design is totally funky - the characters are expressive and interesting, and animation is top notch. Jin is beautiful and noble with his white skin and glasses, Mugen is rugged and rough with his stubbled grin and his scrawny hairy legs and Fuu is cute and sensitive. Fights are short but flashy, coupled with hip hop which works wonderfully well (some days, some nights / some live, some die / in the way of the samurai / some fight, some bleed / sun up to sun down / the sons of a battle cry) - and that's where the series name comes from, Samurai Champloo could be loosely translated as Samurai Remix. And there's a lot of humour in the series - lot of it has to do with the fact that our misfits are constantly out of money and hungry, and like Mugen in the beginning they are ready to live from hand to mouth just to get by. I also really like the cultural aspect of the Edo period Japan - although I do take the disclaimer in heart that this is not meant to be an accurate description the times, there is a lot of really nice background and colour to the story.

So how would I rate this series then? I would say it's good, but just shy of very good. At this point episodic TV just doesn't do it for me anymore - Samurai Champloo is a lot of fun but it doesn't really leave me wanting more, nor do I feel the need to get the manga (unusually animation is the original one in this series). I loved the characters and the animation, but the character development was missing that one step that would make it really memorable and touching. I loved some of the individual episodes, but the lack of a strong story arc annoyed me - this series could have been so much more with very little effort. If only the sunflower samurai's story had been interlaced more with the episodes - and let's face it, with 26 episodes I think it's almost inexcusable to have empty filler episodes that don't do anything for either the story or the characters (and baseball of all things - please! that's not the kind of fan service I want).

Geneon has just released a box set of the seven DVDs which is a good deal (compared to individual DVDs) but still not cheap. DVDs are very pretty and in keeping with the series superb design, but a bit sparse on the extras. The subtitles are good work, and even the dubbing is decent. It's definitely worth a watch, but I'd wait for the prices to go down before shelling out for the box set.

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