noname0302

Hard one. 

Usually when an anime has style and looks good, it is more or less enough for it. Samurai Champloo is between the 5 most stylish series I have ever watched. Not only art-style, but the whole atmosphere its unique. Its the only one of its kind. But, you see, style is not anough and this is what the creators failed to realize. They thought that having atmosphere was enough to keep you hooked, but it just doesnt work as well as its intended too. I have to compare it to Cowboy Bebop. Same creator and that is pretty obvious. But CB has such a high pace that even if you just sit down to watch 1 episode, you will have fun. You dont even need to get sucked in by the atmosphere to enjoy it to the fullest. 

In Samurai Champloos case however. You watch 1 episode, its boring, you watch a lot and the atmosphere still cant compensate for the lack of pace. Its more of a curiosity than fun. At first I sat down and watched like 8 episodes in one night. After that I only magaed 3, after that 2, in the end, I needed to put my ass down twice to watch a single episode. You get the picture. Then the novelty of it wares down, it just doesnt have enough strenght to keep you there. Not like CB.

Story: inexistent. 16 episdoes in and basically nothing, and even the mini plots from every episode are pretty dull. Usually they get to a new city/village/whatever, they do eeverything in their power to mess things up for themselves and in the end, in the midst of the chaos they created they somehow manage to survive and continue their journey.  Same as CB isnt it? Onyl difference: in CB you care deeply for the main characters, they are all really well built, and fun. Here. Meh. You dotn really care at all for them. Plus the pace is incomparably slower than CB. 3.5/10

Characters: They tried. I like the main characters, but you just cant care for them. They are boring and selfish on too many occasions. But to be honest, the characters alone are not the problem. 7/10

Animation: stylish, but forgettable. 7/10

Music: even more stylish and its actually perfect to estabilish atmosphere. 8.5/10

So is it good or is it bad? 

I think its just much weaker than its supposed to be. We have all the important stuff for something as good as CB, but everything is 1 leves weaker and put them together and it feels like a cheap ripoff. 

Should yoo watch it? I actually recommend a try. Its not bad at all, if you liked CB and can stop youreself from comparing the two every 5 minutes, you will actually have fun with it. But there is no guarantee that the series will keep you watching it till the end and that you wont stop midway through.