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79 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stylish genre- and era-bending action from Watanabe, October 6, 2004
This review is from: Samurai Champloo - Volume 1 + Series Box (DVD)
Samurai Champloo is the long-awaited next project from Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe. His two short films in the Animatrix compilation (Kid's Story and Detective Story) give American audiences a sneak peek at the phenomenal art style of this series, but they barely hint at the jaw-dropping action and unorthodox blend of history and music contained therein.
The first four episodes of Champloo introduce its three protagonists: the vagrant swordsman Mugen, the rogue samurai Jin, and the tea-shop waitress Fuu. This unlikely and volatile trio begin a road journey through post-shogunate Japan (ca. 1780), brought together by circumstances best seen to be believed.
"Champloo" means mixed-up or stir-fry, and that's what this series is: a stylish blend of old school values and situations, meshed with more modern sensibilities, fighting styles, and visual design. Over the lush, dynamic art, a soundtrack of some of the best hip-hop from modern Japan plays. Though it's a noticeable device in the first few episodes, it doesn't take long before the music feels like second nature despite the anachronism.
Champloo is many things: a mature drama, an action series, an uproariously funny comedy and a visual feast. Watanabe-san demonstrates here that the success of Cowboy Bebop was uniquely his, and no fluke - fans of that series will not be disappointed, despite how radically different the two storylines are from one another.
As the first title card of the first episode of Samurai Champloo says, "Just shut up and watch."
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A spicy dish served up hot!, October 7, 2005
"Champloo" is an Okinawan word (more properly pronounced champuru) meaning "mix" or "blend," and is most often applied to traditional food dishes such as "Goya Champloo" or "Stir-fried Champloo." It's basically a mixed stir-fry with a seemly infinite number of potential ingredient, and a very fitting description of Watanabe Shinichiro's new series "Samurai Champloo," an eclectic blend of ancient and modern, hip-hop and koto, and pretty much everything else thrown into the mix.
Watanabe is a heck of a chef, and manages to balance such dissonant elements as a bookish but deadly Ronin (Jin), a wild sword-swinging roustabout (Mugen) and a kooky but determined waitress (Fuu) into a tasty dish worthy of his previous concoction "Cowboy Bebop." Each ingredient supports the flavor of the other perfectly, creating a variety of story possibilities that couldn't be found by following just one personality. Hip-hop music sets the background for a Japan where a wild swordfighter uses capoeira moves to slice and dice with a fury, and an enormous man known as the Oni smashes skulls with his massive club.
This first DVD sets the stage accordingly, with the trio being pushed into an unhappy alliance, attempting to split up, and finding their destinies inexorably intertwined. Fuu leads them on a quest for the "Samurai who smells of Sunflowers," providing the McGuffin that keeps the story moving.
Watanabe's trademark style is on fine display, with smooth animation and a quick and flowing story punctuated with quiet moments of reflection. The story builds at a good pace, allowing all the characters to develop in time. If "Cowboy Bebop" is anything to go by, we can expect quite the ride and explosive finish to "Samurai Champloo"
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Innovative, kickass anime, January 15, 2005
This review is from: Samurai Champloo - Volume 1 + Series Box (DVD)
There's just nothing out there like Samurai Champloo. Created, directed and masterminded by the brilliant Shinichiro Watanabe, it uses hip-hop the way his classic "Cowboy Bebop" uses bebop jazz--not so much as soundtrack music, but as a motif and a defining overall style. Flavored with sassy anachronisms, Champloo is nonetheless set in the last gasp of the era of Samurai Japan, when the boundaries are breaking down on all sides, and three stray-cat kids--a teahouse waitress with a secret, a quiet and deadly ronin with a dark crime in his past, and a tattooed wild boy from Ryuukyuu with a lot to learn--meet and form an alliance none of them expected. Their quest: to find the Sunflower Samurai, for reasons only Fuu (the waitress) knows. Their problem; in their initial battle, neither Jin (the cool elegant ronin) nor Mugen (the island wildboy) was able to so much as scratch the other, and thus was born a vow that neither is allowed to die at the hands of anyone else--forming a strange protective alliance that might even be a friendship. Who knows?
In episodes 3/4 they end up on opposite sides of a yakuza war; they have a long way to go. I promise if you watch this DVD you will want the rest; the visual techniques are outstandingly state-of-the-art, the synch of music and action is top-notch, and Jin and Mugen's swordfight in the teahouse is one of the coolest ever, anywhere, I mean it.
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