his work of fiction is not an accurate historical portrayal," a graffiti-styled placard warns at the beginning of the first episode of Samurai Champloo. "Like we care. Now shut up and enjoy the show."
It's a reasonable warning. Samurai Champloo is a period piece about samurai, ronin and yakuza, but attitudinal anachronisms abound, beginning with the show's leads. As the series begins, a rogue samurai named Jin and an apparently crazy vagrant named Mugen are about to be executed. Jin wears modern-looking narrow glasses, while Mugen wears baggy hip-hop clothes. The music follows a similar hip-hop theme, as does the style: To the sound of scratching, the storyline jerks back and forth in time to show how Jin and Mugen ended up in such a regrettable position.
As it turns out, both men interfered with local bullies affiliated with the regional governor—Jin out of a sense of righteousness and Mugen out of boredom and a fondness for fighting, as well as the hope of a payment of food. But when the two men meet, Mugen mistakes Jin for someone else and attacks him, and they launch into a kinetic sword battle that shows they're highly skilled equals. As the series progresses, they show more interest in killing each other to prove who's the better warrior than in pursuing any of the other plots that develop.
One such plot comes from Fuu, a young tea-shop waitress who helps Jin and Mugen escape execution, on the condition that they help her find "the samurai who smells of sunflowers." While both men show a very brief curiosity about her quest, they also have their own mutually exclusive tastes and agendas, and after getting into separate fights in Episode 2 when a mutilated victim from Episode 1 comes seeking revenge, they head their separate ways in Episodes 3 and 4. But a complicated local situation between a reigning clan and the yakuza who are taking over brings all three characters back together, at least temporarily. Along the way, many bystanders die—though at least none of them could be called innocent.
An appropriately named blend
Samurai Champloo ("champloo" is an Okinawan term for a stir-fry, or a mixed-up blend of disparate things) is the latest project of Cowboy Bebop creator and Animatrix contributor Shinichiro Watanabe. The new series' similarity to Bebop is instantly obvious, from the unlikable but appealingly cool and competent protagonists to the contemporary music to the emphasis on sleek, edgy, cutting-edge animation. Samurai Champloo even begins with a somewhat Bebop-like dynamic, with a rivalry/partnership between two men being disrupted by a woman butting in and making assumptions on their behalf, and tying them all together into a series of adventures, even though none of them seem to want to work with each other.
But Samurai Champloo has its unique aspects, too. The combination of a grim classical samurai-drama setting with staccato hip-hop and modern styles creates a sharp, disjointed tone that's very different from Bebop's upbeat, jazzy future-cool. Samurai Champloo has a darker visual tone as well, with an emphasis on silhouettes and shadows, muted colors, and hard edges. Most of the time, the dim palette and the emphasis on grayish reds, yellows, browns and blacks makes it look like everyone's standing in shadow, even when they're outside in the sun.
But while the series' strong musical influences most clearly show Watanabe's hand—Cowboy Bebop had an ongoing music-related theme, and Samurai Champloo is just as heavily music-based, though not as diverse—the animation is a close runner-up. The fight sequences in particular are spectacular blurs of choreographed motion. Of course, combat is the meat of any samurai or martial-arts drama, so it's no surprise that Watanabe would put so much focus on the fighting. But the battles are so breathtaking that fans may get impatient when the characters waste time arguing. So far, the series' plots haven't been terribly exciting—the earliest episodes just felt like setup, and the follow-ups are a bit dry—but the visual execution is terrific, and Bebop fans will certainly be hanging in there to see how the characters and the story develop over time.
Watching this makes me want to go re-watch all Watanabe's work while waiting for the next disc to come out.
— Tasha
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