Samurai 7

I think we’re quite lucky with Dragon that both of us like the similar style of storytelling: heroic men and women, friendship and sacrifice, tough choices in difficult times - these are the kind of themes we enjoy. So picking up Gonzo Digimation's anime Samurai 7, the sci-fi adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's classic film Seven Samurai was kind of a natural choice for us.

The plot follows fairly faithfully Akira Kurosawa's film (so much so the show is actually officially called Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7 even though of course he had nothing to do with it) – it's a story about a village that is ravaged by bandits who collectively decide to hire seven samurai to take care of the problem. The main characters are therefore the seven samurai: the leader, disgraced but noble former general Kambei, his former lieutenant Shichiroji, young and naïve Katsuhiro who wants to become a real samurai, the cunning and skilled Gorobei, the smart techie Heihachi, the fool Kikuchiyo and the cold and mysterious Kyuzo. There are also host of anime-only characters that give the story a slightly different flavor and towards the end a totally different storyline.

This is one of the most expensive anime series ever made, 26 episodes for around $300,000 (USD) each, so we expected something pretty spectacular, if for nothing else how it would look. Considering how much money has been spent, the series looks remarkably ordinary and at times downright shoddy - and I have two big issues with the animation. Firstly, the computer generated parts – especially the mountain-sized mechanical samurai, the nobuseri, but also explosions and smoke - stand up from the traditional animation like an eyesore. They look like they’ve been slapped on top of the drawn animation without any attempt to integrate the two - and while I understand that they want the nobuseri to look quite distinctive (and at times it works) most of the time it just bothered me. The second gripe I have is with the general art direction - the quality of the animation and consistency of the characters is extremely uneven. They would literally change the animation style for 10 minutes without any reason, and the come back to the original style in the middle of the scene. Especially the look and feel of Kambei changes quite a bit towards the end which really bothered me as he has a very distinguishing look, and is the most important character in the show. I don't really know where they managed to spend all that money, and I'm not even that picky when it comes to animation quality as for me the storyline is the most important part.

So, does the story rescue the series from the annoying animation inconsistencies? Well, at times. The series starts off quite slow with maidens Kirara and Komachi leaving the village to the city to look for samurai to hire, but once the first few are found the series picks up speed quite a lot. The best episodes are definitely in the middle where the samurai travel to the village, set up the village to protect itself and the first battle against the nobuseri. After the battle (where the movie ends) the series goes on for another 10 episodes or so with its original story which has some nice moments too. Overall though, the ending is kind of a disappointment - there is a nice build-up, but then the last three episodes are rushed, both with storytelling and shoddy animation (but then the last few minutes are excellent again).

It's worth nothing also that the character design in Samurai 7 is awesome. All the characters - especially the samurai - have a very distinctive looks that work very well. I really like the noble Kambei - he's got white robes, flowing long hair and solemn face, but my favourite is probably the young samurai Katsuhiro who wants Gambei has his teacher - he's got green hair and the really expressive beautiful face.

The whole 26 episodes is available on region 1 DVD from Funimation. I've been really impressed with Funimation's Fullmetal Alchemist DVD releases but Samurai 7 doesn't quite raise to that level. The dubbing is nothing special - and although we always choose the Japanese track I like to check out the dubbing as it's a different interpretation of the series. But the subtitles are not very good either - they are at times confusing and grammatically incorrect, and at those times the dubbing is even better for clarity's sake. The sleeves that come with the DVDs are first rate though (like they are with FMA), but there are literally no extras on the disks. If you loved Samurai Seven, you'll definitely appreciate the homage this series pays to it - it doesn't raise up to the movie in an epic scale (but hey, not that many works do anyway), but it's an entertaining series.

Screenshots from Samurai 7 screenshot gallery.

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