Blair Loveday
Cowboy Bebop is one of the most iconic anime series ever.
The late 90’s wouldn’t have been the same without it, even if I saw it way later for the first time. If you told me that the director Shinichiro Watanabe had made a new series not long after that screams similar vibes, I would have called you a dang dirty liar.
Well it turns out he did, and Samurai Champloo is exceptional!
Samurai Champloo takes us back to Edo Japan where we have an outlaw swordsman Mugen.
Mugen is in a tea house where he offers to help the young waitress, Fuu, to get rid of some nasty people in exchange for some food. Jin, who is a ronin, is taking out the bad prefects guards when he mistakes Mugen for one of those guards. They get into a fight in the burning teahouse when they have to escape. Well they get caught and are about to be executed when Fuu comes to the rescue. She saves their lives and they escape the area.
The stubborn gits they are, Jin and Mugen try to have their fight again. The problem is that Fuu points out she saved their lives and asks them to help find a mysterious samurai who smells like sunflowers. So the three very different people go off on their quest to find this samurai who may or may not be related to Fuu.
For the bulk of the show they are on the journey to find this man. Fortunately, the show doesn’t just follow them on a long trudging journey. On the journey we get everything, finding bad people and bringing them to justice, an eating contest to keep their swords, and heaps of solid character development.
All of this is helped along by a similar animation style to Cowboy Bebop which is of course, absolutely stunning. This is essentially because there are heaps of awesome and over the top sword fights which thanks to the shows style, are an absolute treat to watch at all times. This results in the 26 episodes flying by so much faster than expected.
On the disc there are some special features but they really are just the standard ones like the opening and closing videos, and some other basics like that. I really would have loved something like a documentary, or a behind the scenes on here. It’s the perfect release for such an iconic series.
This edition has the Bluray case inside a hard case that has fantastic art and a really rough matte finish that feels fantastic and looks amazing on the shelf. Then inside the case are a bunch of art cards.
Samurai Champloo is a fantastic series that doesn;t just hold up, it excels. If you haven;t watched this yet, then learn from my mistake and grab this ASAP. It’s a banger of a series and this is a really nice edition to have on your shelf.
