Samurai Champloo: Kicking My Ass

Samurai Champloo is the greatly anticipated new series by the makers of Cowboy Bebop. The first episode came out last week and was subbed by kindly fansubbers over the weekend. I watched it just now, (despite my roommates hiding their computers from me and going to sleep at 10pm last night...yeesh... when did watching TV become a sport?), anyway, needless to say this show kicks ass. It's literally kicking my ass right now. Here are some screenshots:

There was a cute squirrel, but it wasn't about the squirrel.

The guy above is Jin, my new favorite character. The other fellow is Mugen, who's Adan's new favorite character.

Look at that sword flash! There's plenty of that going on.

I hit you with my +3 lightsaber katana.

Comments Individual Archive Index

May 26, 2004 09:49 PM, John said:

Is it possible to d/l this somehow?

May 27, 2004 11:19 AM, Erin said:

Ah... it turns out Samurai Champloo was liscensed by Pioneer in July of 2003. That's why its hard to find, even on fansub sites. I feel kinda bad knowing I'll be downloading the series totally illegally, but on the other hand, I'll probably end up buying it all, too...

...you know, unless the first episode was extrodinary and they farmed the rest out to an inferior animation house and blew their budget by episode 3.

Email me and I'll help you watch the show though, 'cause I know you're a huge Bebop fanboy.

May 31, 2004 12:05 PM, Kerry said:

The editing is horrible, bordering on unforgivable. Ditto for the hip-hop jive, piercings, dyed blond hair, eyeglasses that don't correct anyone's vision, and the five hundred other things the creator did to try and be cool. Cowboy Bebop was really good because of the characters. This show so far has zero character development, and a terribly generic plot. In fact, once more episodes are out I will be glad to hijack Erin's site and post a point by point comparison betwixt this and CB. I think I know which one will come out ahead.

May 31, 2004 05:09 PM, Erin said:

Don't listen to Kerry on this. There is character development in the first episode. The show is spectaculor in its animation and overall visual style. The only problem with Champloo is that it is trying a little too hard to be cool (flutter cuts, record scratches).

I enjoyed this show so much that I hadn't really considered the possibility that others might not like it.

Besides, its hardly fair to judge a series from the first episode alone; N. didn't believe Cowboy Bebop was a good show until he saw episode 4. I liked the first episode of Champloo a lot, and am looking forward to seeing what direction it will take as the series continues.

June 1, 2004 03:18 PM, Kerry said:

What character development? Guy A is a hothead who wants to fight and kill people. Guy B is soft spoken and wants to fight and kill people. Both are really nice guys who only kill bad people. They are totally badass, and can defeat most anyone. The characters in the first episode of that awful exploding breast battle thing Hal has get more development than that.

June 1, 2004 03:49 PM, N. said:

How was that, by the way?

June 1, 2004 08:26 PM, Erin said:

Is the title a mis-translation, as per Kerry's suggestion? I suggest Checking the official website.

There was character development in the first episode, but Kerry missed it.

(Spoilers Ahead...)

Guy A is Mugen, who is a hothead who wants to kill people in exchange for food. Guy B is Jin, who has textbook perfect fighting style and wants to kill people for money. The girl is Fuu, and she's spunky and has no family, and is probably looking for revenge on whoever killed her family (that's my guess, I think it was implied).

Kerry's suggestion that "Both are really nice guys who only kill bad people," is incorrect. In one scene, an old man is in trouble, and yelling at a city official that if he takes all his money (scattered on the ground in front of the old man) then his family (the old man's) will have to commit suicide. Jin kills the city guardsman in defense of the old man - but then he picks up the vast majority of the old man's money.

If Jin was a nice guy, he wouldn't have accepted any payment at all. If Jin was somewhat nice, he would have left a lot more of the money behind. If Jin was totally evil, he would've picked up all the money. I'd guess from Jin's action in the program that maybe he's chaotic neutral, or true neutral.

Mugen offers to trounce a bunch of thugs in a cafe in exchange for some food. If Mugen were a truly good guy, he would have trounced the guys for free. When the thugs pin down the waitress to cut off her finger, Mugen would have jumped up to help right away if he were a good guy. But he doesn't, he waits until the waitress offers him some food before coming to her rescue.

What are the ways we learn about a character in movies and television? Let's review: We can guess things about the character by the way they look, the way they act, what they say about themselves, and what others say about them.

Jin is wearing glasses to ephasize his intelligence and bookishness, and Megen has wild hair as a sign that he's crazy.

What does Jin say of Mugen? He says that Mugen is the first true psycho he's ever met.

As per some conversations with Evonne that I've had, characterization in many kung-fu movies is played out largely through fighting styles. To some extent this is true for the first episode of Champloo: Jin's fighting style is neat and clean and does not waste a single movement. Mugen's style is sloppy and crazy and unschooled. This tells us that the two men are the samurai version of the Odd Couple. From their fighting styles alone, we can learn that Jin is Bert and Mugen is Ernie. If Bert and Ernie were samurai, that is.

Having watched a lot of anime, I have noticed that most anime series don't bother giving a character's backstory until about episode 4. This rule of thumb is untrue for 2-episode OVA's, obviously, but it does hold true in most cases. In Cowboy Bebop, we don't learn Spike's backstory for quite some time. We get hints of it in episode 4, but it isn't truly revealed - that is to say - we don't learn about Julia, until much later.

A character's backstory provides a wealth of information about that character, but as per anime storytelling style, I don't expect to find out who these people are to the fullest extent for at least 5 episodes or more. When we do find out, there'll be a flashback.

In many anime series it is not traditional to introduce the entire cast in the first episode. Sailor Moon takes a dozen episodes before Sailor Venus joins the team. In Bebop we don't meet Ed until the 5th or 6th show; in Eva we don't meet Asuka until after the 4th episode or even later. Champloo seems to have introduced all of its major players in episode 1 - but that isn't to say there aren't other major characters in the show we have yet to meet.

I think comparing the first episode of Champloo to the entire series of Cowboy Bebop is an unfair comparison. If you compared only the first episode of each show, then you might be looking at a better playing field.

Usually it's not a good idea to judge a show by the first episode anyway. The first episode is more like a test to see if you'd want to watch the rest of the series. After one episode of Rizelmine I know I don't need to watch the rest - Rizelmine is a robot girlfriend show, as one can tell from the outset. But Champloo is a beautifully animated samurai epic (I use the word epic in a speculative sense here), and I know I'll be watching the rest of the series.

June 2, 2004 08:41 AM, Rick said:

Second, I haven't seen it, but I'm sure this show sucks. Cowboy Bebop wasn't that great, either. Even if this show does have some redeeming value, you have no excuse for watching it while there are still Leiji Matsumoto, Miyazaki, Takahata, and Tezuko movies and series out there that you haven't seen. You have no business watching anything made in the past decade.

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