Samurai Champloo Vol. 1
Synopsis
Mugen’s a buck wild warrior-violent, thoughtless and womanizing. Jin is a vagrant ronin-mysterious, traditional, and well-mannered. These two fiercely independent warriors couldn’t be more different from one another, yet their paths cross when Fuu, a ditzy waitress, saves them from being executed when they are arrested after a violent swordfight. Fuu convinces the two vagrant young men to help her find a mysterious samurai ‘who smells of sunflowers.’ And their journey begins.
Review
This show has been getting a lot of hype. And for good reason. Reason one: the guy who directed Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe, is also directing Samurai Champloo. Reason two: one of the two credited screen/scriptwriters for Samurai Champloo was also one of the credited screen/scriptwriters for Cowboy Bebop (Dai Sato). Reason three: the other screen/scriptwriter, Shinji Obara, has made it a rule (basically) that no character can have more than two-three lines of dialogue before someone else speaks, so as to cut down on needless and annoying exposition, an anime staple that really does need to go away. These three reasons alone are good enough to create the hype Champloo has been getting, and in the end it’s well deserved.
It’s unfortunate though that this show gets compared to Bebop so much just because of the same scriptwriter and director. Bebop is a class A anime, and to top it (even by the same people) is an unfair pedestal to put this show on. I’ll state here and now that so far, Champloo is not as good as Bebop. But it’s still amazing in its own right, and far better than most other anime shows out there. So far, anyway. But please, put the Bebop comparison aside. This is its own show.
The first thing I should mention is the animation for this show. It’s amazing. Along with the splendid roughness and gritty character designs (a far different style than used in Bebop), the animation is fluid and colorful, while keeping a darker, more somber tone in the background. Colors represent characters, with Fuu’s kimono looking bright and happy, Mugen’s clothes looking fiery red (to symbolize his recklessness) and Jin, who wears dark, foreboding colors. The fight scenes especially scream of high production values, where every fight is shown on screen instead of blue sword-slash still-screens or off-camera action. The action scenes in Champloo are treated like good, real action sequences.
The music as well, with hop-hop artists like fat jon, Nujabes, and Tsutchie contributing to the score, is stellar, and took me by surprise (I mean…samurai and hip-hop?). Watanabe planned the show around the music, and it shows. He shows and treats the show with the inventiveness that hip hop showed in its early days. He doesn’t take the show to seriously, and even goes so far as to use record scratching as a transitional tool. It’s very slick.
The Breakdown
The hype was called for. This show rocks completely and I absolutely cannot wait for Vol. 2 to come out. In fact, I think I’ll go rewatch it again right now.