I am a nut for anything dealing with swords, so naturally, I couldn't pass up on Samurai Champloo. Another one o those titles I caught on Adult Swim, it's a popular piece, partly because of the theme, composed by SHING02 and the late Nujabes. In direction, this was Shinichiro Watanabe's first directorial effort, succeeding that of the preceding and famous work Cowboy Bebop. As it was critically acclaimed, it reached the plateau its predecessor took before.
Kind of a weird way the three individuals meet one another. Fuu is a waitress who ends up being harassed by a band of samurai, not helping that one of those happens to be the son of Magistrate Tomonoshima. However, things go south for him as she is rescued by a rouge named Mugen, while shortly later, another samurai, Jin, enters. After their own respective battles, the two match glares with one another, sparking a fight amongst themselves. However, during the conflict, the restaurant burns, and the prefect's son ends up one arm less after Mugen sliced it off. Caught by the authorities, they are set to be executed, but Fuu intervenes. As compensation for saving their lives, Fuu enlists their help seeking a samurai that smells of sunflowers. It came with a stipulation, however: until this man is found, they are not to attack one another. And with both acquainted in battle once, this is a tough stipulation to hold... especially when it's the ronin and the vagabond hungrily at each other's throats!
Where Cowboy Bebop had a jazzy to early rock theme to their music, Samurai Champloo features a hip-hop to mid tempo style. A few songs also had R&B elements to them too, and during the battle, the tempo picks up. Even in their game, they feature a turntable (I've yet to play it, but should I do so, I'll put it in the Gamer Base blog.) Like Bebop, Champloo saw 26 episodes aired on TV, shown as part of the Adult Swim block. Made in Manglobe Studio, it was licensed by the defunct Geneon Entertainment, and one of the several titles turned over to Funimation Entertainment, who currently holds the license. Between the anime and the video game Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, the voice actors have been for the most part consistent. In the case of Mugen, however, he had two different ones: in the anime he was voiced by Steven Blum (who was known as the voice of TOM of Toonami, and amazingly as Spike from the aforementioned Cowboy Bebop anime), while Liam O'Brien (who voiced Taishi of Comic Party and Captain Ukitake of Bleach) voiced him in the game. The latter two are consistent, with Jin voiced by Kirk Thornton (who voiced Saito of Ruroni Kenshin, and as of the game Sonic Free Riders, is the current voice of Sonic series character Shadow the Hedgehog), while Fuu is voiced by Kari Wahlgren (who also voiced Kagami Hiiragi of Lucky Star, and debuted as Haruhara Haruko of FLCL.) I can only say this now, but even with the editing out of some bloody scenes, the nudity, and the language, it's still errs into the not-so-kid-friendly zone as far as content, so keeping the little o0nes away is a must.
Samurai Champloo ended up as acclaimed as Cowboy Bebop with good reason. Fitting enough, not perfect, but another 9 of 10 is satisfying. Personally, as far as directing goes, Watanabe did great.
