Samurai Champloo 8/10

Since I'm not a fan of samurai anime, today I bring you a review of a samurai anime. Who'd have imagined? Well, with all the hype I HAD to see Samurai Champloo. Did it live up the hype? Is it as good as Cowboy Bebop? Will I bother to figure out what the hell Champloo means?

This show has a pretty great look as far as the backgrounds are concerned. Lots of detail and colour but I didn't like the character designs as much in these 26 episodes from 2004. I found the designs used for alot of the background characters to be borderline unpleasant to look at. Ugly faces, drab or insane outfits, strange movements. I did like the designs for the main characters, especially Jugen and Fuu which is a good thing. Jugen was well served with a rather stooped, scruffy, and scrawny look which matches his crazy fighting style quite well. Fuu is one of the few "cute" designs in the show which lends some credibility to her childish behaviour at times. The music had some real highlights with some of the end credit themes being very good and the music in the first half of episode 14 being especially great. I felt the show didn't need the weird hop-hop vibe it had at times since it really seemed like something thrown in after the fact.

So, who are these Jugen and Fuu people I spoke of earlier? Two of the three main characters of course! Fuu is an orphaned 15 year old girl who uses a coin toss to wrangle a couple of slacker but skilled bodyguards to accompany her in her quest to find the Samurai Who Smells Like Sunflowers. Jugen and Jin are extremely skilled with swords and have seen alot of battles in their day. Jin is the classic samurai, he's cool, collected, and honourable. Jugen on the other hand is prone to fits of rage, criminal behaviour, and fights with a crazy breakdancing style. The story mostly is about their journey across Japan, visiting various places and constantly either getting into, or out of trouble. They're always broke, the two guys take off on Fuu constantly much to her displeasure, and they seem to always get the short end of the stick.

The best part of this show is the comedy. With various gags about Fuu's lack of sexual appeal, various encounters with angry shopkeepers who want their money, the constant underlying hatred between Jin and Mugen, and Fuu's incredible ability to get kidnapped (which rivals Meg's in Burst Angel) there's alot to laugh at here.

This show also has a serious side that's hit and miss. The more serious episodes tend to be 2-3 episode arcs and really don't fit into any overall plot until the final one. The search for the elusive samurai tends to take a back seat and is only occasionally mentioned by Fuu. The ending is alright but the series didn't really build up to it thus robbing it of some of it's impact.

The point of the series is really to show how the three travellers become friends in the end but there's no real payoff. At least not a payoff I wanted to see. Only Fuu shows any emotion for the other two and it's a little bit too late in the series when it happens. I can easily recommend this show because it's very entertaining but I didn't think the ending was as good as it could have been so it doesn't get a 10. Recommended.

champloo: A word from Okinawa meaning "to blend".