Afro Samurai - Reviews

Afro Samurai is, in my opinion, wasted potential. That may seem unfairly harsh as an opening statement, but watching a show that had the potential to be great get ripped to shreds in the face of cliché bordering on generic action-hero dialogue from everyone but the show’s saving grace, Ninja Ninja, was painful. There is very little character development, and what there is seems incredibly forced, as if the characters are only grudgingly growing as people, and even then exerting the least energy possible—it would actually be ten times more interesting as an anime if it were actively acknowledging how two-dimensional all the characters were, but I digress. The show takes place in Japan, sometime in the past, but with clearly anachronistic technology, which would have been really interesting—had they given any time to explain it at all. They seemed to be trying to keep it purposely ambiguous, but with the lack of any sort of info about the setting, exposition based or otherwise, it made it difficult to get into the story. The animation overall was awesome, but became very difficult to follow during scenes of heavy action. Sound fell into a similar problem—the music and voice acting was lovely, but seemed to fall apart during heavier scenes, sabotaging basically any chance of becoming attached to any character or the story. Sadly, I can say with fair certainty that I would not recommend this anime to anyone I know, unless they were looking for something to be disappointed by.

One of the best animes for getting new people into anime. It's overly stylized visual aspect tends to capture the attention of people normally pushed away from anime, the Samul l Jackson english dub also gives newbies a familiar voice to grab onto and feel more comfortable, and finally the western influenced music (mostly rap, i think da rizza or however you spell that, did the soundtrack) connects everything while maintaining solid background noise.

The story is fairly weak, but the animation and sound/music are enough to make up for it. Characters aren't horrible and ninja ninja is memorable (great name). Overall, it is not something to pass up.

An extremely powerful samurai with an afro, hell bent on revenge, accompanied by a companion voiced by Samuel L Jackson himself, what's not to like. 

Story is a pretty straight forward revenge tale with some past mistakes and connections thrown in the mix. 

Great art style/graphics and often awesome gory/brutal action. Soundtrack is pretty good too, hip hop and whatnot, reminded me of Samurai Champloo.

Samuel L Jackson voice acting was the best, typical nigga style with lots of humor. 

   This movie is super cool.

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   Oh! You wanted me to say something else? well, honestly that's all I can think of to tell you about Afro Samurai. The movie is really, really cool. That's it. It has it's problems and stupid parts and it's about as shallow as a kiddy pool but when you're walking into Movie-stop and pick up a movie called Afro Samurai, what did you expect?

   Well, let me go a bit deeper since people seem to need that type of stuff for this. Set in Feudal japan ( citation needed, I really don't know.), it tells the story of a young man named Afro who's father was killed for his #1 headband and now goes upon a quest of revenge.

   That's pretty much the legist of it all. Sure there is a subplot of cybermen with cellphones and robotic ninjas (seriously, is this in feudal japan or not? I have no clue.) want the headbands for ultimate power, but that's about as thin as the basic plot line which isn't all that deep to begin with. Now logic keeps making my brain bang against the back of my skull to figure out the question: why the hell are the headbands so important? Of course it's nice to have one and Afros father had the #1 and his quest more for revenge then to get the headband but the question still remains; why are these things so important? Is there a #3? a #4? How come Afro didn't have to get the #3 to get the #2? Why didn't he have to get the #4 to get the #3? If he didn't have to get #4 or #3 to get #2, why did he need #2 to get to #1? It is roughly explained near the end in an extremely rushed sort of way which leaves more questions then answers but this is the movie with Cybernetic Ninjas and Hip-Hop in a time when Leonardo De Vinci was still kicking around worshiping pagan gods so I really shouldn't be complaining too much.

   But if you're watching a movie about a black samurai fighting a white gunslinger with another Samurai with a teddy bear head, you probably aren't looking for too much in the plot department. In it's other categories Afro Samurai really shines, Except with characters which, if the plot is a kiddy pool, this would be a rain puddle. Afro takes the overall role make famous by Clint Eastwood's Man with no name persona: basically he only has a personality by default, he's a being enveloped in the urge of revenge and to kill where any consequences he does to get to that goal are just viewed as inconveniences. The personality is filled in my Ninja-Ninja, the super ego of Afro made manifested by his loneliness, which represents all the things he feels and knows but won't actually say, probably because he's too hardcore to do girly things like emotions. he slaughters people without a blink of an eye, watches the woman he had just slept with slaughter viciously in front of him, and when met with something that would make normal men sit down and reevaluate their lives, he doesn't even blink, isn't even fazed, just keeps on going forward. I would say it's because he is more a manifestation of pure will and force, never backing down from the obstacles before him, but I'm just going to go and say it's probably because that's just how he rolls.

   What I dislike in both story and character at least is saved by a beautiful art-style, nice music and some wicked action. The animation is outright gorgeous even for a film that probably wasn't trying to invoke that feeling, the details are insane and the stylish nature the the film gives off a traditional Japanese painting come to life with rap music and gallons of blood pouring out everywhere.

   the music was composed by the RZA, one of the founding members of the Wu-tang Clan and an avid kung-fu/samurai film fan. this movie reinforces my opinion that RZA is by far better at composing beets then singing along to them. While this isn't nearly as strong as his earlier work in Kill Bill Vol.1, it's still pretty strong and nice to listen to.

   But, let's face facts here, you didn't by this movie for it's stunning visuals or creative soundtrack, you bought it for the action and it gives you that nicely. Throughout the film Afro is pulling out that damn-long katana of his and cutting up people left and right. the actions scenes are quite intense, though you know no matter what is thrown at him Afros just going to shrug it off and start laying the smack-down on everyone, still the fights are immensely intense and fun as hell to watch.

   I would almost go as far as to say that Afro samurai is the spiritual successor of Ninja Scroll, the cult classic that helped pave the way for anime here in the states but I would be lying almost. One flaw this film has that I just can't get around is: no matter what, I didn't feel like I was necessarily having fun watching it. It was a good watch and all but I didn't have that certain type of whimsy that watching Ninja scroll, Fist of the north star or even Wrath of the ninja would have given me. maybe it's the mean spirited of the main protagonist? Maybe it's the lack of a back story to Justice, the main villain and probably one of the more interesting characters? Maybe it's the strange pacing? maybe it's all of the above or none, something I have yet to notice or something intangible that's just at the corner of your eye but you never can see.

   Either way, Afro Samurai is a pretty good start on a franchise I hope continues on. It's not as fun as others in the genre and lack of a good story and cast is pretty detrimental but for it's stylishness and raw power, you could do a lot worse.

Whew boy is this long! well, either way that's all I'm saying. I know it's opinions and everyone has opinions, but I'm smart, smarter then you, so I'm right :-D

Afro Samurai is a good anime because it has Samuel Jackson dubbing it. No but seriously the story is ok nothing to special but it looks cool and ninja ninja is kind of funny. The animation is cool but the anime is just one big fight thankfully it is only a few episodes long. But if you got nothing else to do it should not take you more than 2 or 3 hours to complete.