dragonballk

STORY:

 I wanted to write a review about Samurai Champloo without comparing it to Cowboy Bebop, the earlier series created by the same people. Unfortunately Samurai made that completely impossible haha.

 Samurai Champloo is the story of a young girl named Fuu, who meets two swordsman, Mugen and Jin, and enlists them to help her find "The Samurai who smells like sunflower seeds".

 I did enjoy the story for samurai, when they stuck to it. One thing they did better then Bebop with the Samurai series, was to establish the point of the series off the bat, that being, that they are on a "Journey To The West" type of adventure in search for someone of importance. One thing that I felt really set them apart from Bebop, was at the end of the story, despite what any other synopsis tried to tell me, I really couldn't tell who the main character was supposed to be. In Bebop, despite how much effort is put into building up each of the main cast, it is always clear that Spike is the main guy. In Samurai however, I feel like their could be an argument made for both Mugen and Fuu as the main characters. 

 They took the same route as Bebop, Trigun,  and many, many other anime's, where they spend most of the series telling a single story per episode, with very few contributions to the over arching plot, until the last 7 episodes, where they then proceed to get to the point and reveal all the fun stuff and have their climax and finale. Unfortunately, I don't feel like they executed with their one off adventures throughout the first 18 episodes as well as Bebop did. They definitely had some great episodes, but in the end they lacked consistency. And at the end, even when they did start to get to the point, they still threw in a couple random episodes completely irrelevant to the plot. 

 In the end, the biggest memory of this anime for me, will be that it didn't set itself apart from Bebop enough. You got a group of misfits, embarking on a journey, none of whom care for each other very much and are always threatening to leave until they eventually do part ways, with super tragic back stories, constantly struggling to put together enough money for a decent meal. There are even episodes from Samurai Champloo that were very clearly taken right from Cowboy Bebop (Best example being the drug trip episodes).

ANIMATION:

 The animation for the most part was good, as to be expected from the people behind cowboy bebop. Excellent action scenes, interesting character designs. I'm not sure exactly what it is, it might just be the general darkness of an anime that takes place primarily in the blackness of outer space, but I did enjoy Cowboy Bebops animation better. Additional points off of Samurai's animation for having a main character that looked similar to Spike from Bebop, and for random points in the series where some main characters didn't look the same as they usually do.

SOUND:

 Hip hop is not my scene. 

CHARACTERS: 

  As with the story from Samurai, the series characters are good, but again,  I feel like Samurai doesnt do enough to set them apart from the characters in Bebop. Although darker and rougher around the edges then Spike from Bebop, Mugen is pretty much the same guy as Spike.

 Just like Jet from Bebop, Jin is the strong silent one of the group. It is a bit of stretch to be fair, but both Jin and Jet have demons about a falling out with their closest "work" accomplice. 

 Luckily Fuu wasn't a complete rip off of Faye Valentine. In reality she was actually quite opposite. She was not a bad ass capable of holding her own in any situation. And she was actually quite likable from start to finish, where as you dont really develop sympathy for Faye until well into Bebop. Oh but then again, there is the fact that neither Faye or Fuu have many/any memories of important portions of their past. 

 They even have a super intelligent pet companion in the group in both shows.

 The characters in Samurai weren't a complete carbon copy of Cowboy though. There was no character like Ed.