Product Details

• Actors: Kazuya Nakai, Ginpei Sato, Ayako Kawasumi, Steve Blum, Kirk Thornton
• Directors: Eric P. Sherman
• Format: Box set, NTSC, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Japanese, English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 7
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Funimation
• DVD Release Date: June 30, 2009
• Run Time: 625 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0023S4A5I
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,940 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "Samurai Champloo: The Complete Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Mugen’s a buck-wild warrior -- violent, thoughtless and womanizing. Jin is a vagrant ronin -- mysterious, traditional, well-mannered and very strong as well. These two fiercely independent warriors can’t be any 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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a samurai period piece... and hip hop, July 6, 2009

By	H. Bala "Me Too Can Read" (Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Mugen is a cocky, rebellious, bandy-legged fighter who incorporates break-dancing techniques into his unorthodox fighting style. Jin is more your typically calm and stoic samurai (or ronin, to be more precise), steeped in martial tradition, who finds satisfaction in the perfect execution of his warrior craft. Mugen and Jin aren't friends - in fact, they are contentious and want to test their skills against each other - yet they find themselves joining forces, thanks to Fuu, an insistent and kinda quirky waitress who inveigles the two into helping her search for the Samurai Who Smells Like Sunflowers. For 26 episodes, the discordant trio undergo many adventures, some serious, some hilarious, some just plain out weird. The only constants are the bickerings amongst the three, the scrounging for food, and the intrusion of modern day sensibilities. Oh, and the rampant butt kicking as done by Mugen and Jin.

On the heels of his popular Cowboy Bebop anime series, Shinichiro Watanabe decided to put a new spin on the samurai anime with his irreverent, hip Samurai Shamploo. Shamploo means "stir fry" or a mix, and this is certainly what this series is about, as it fuses the traditional samurai credo and decorum with the unexpected modern day incursions of hip hop attitudes, beatboxing, street tagging, and baseball. The episodes are supported by cool Japanese hip hop music soundtracks and blazing hip hop scratches for scene segues. Watanabe also makes beautiful use of visual metaphors, thereby adding more depth to the shenanigans. The ripping animation and dynamically constructed fight scenes are guaranteed not to disappoint.

Kudos, too, to the voice actors, especially Steven Jay Blum (aka Daniel Andrews, who also voiced Cowboy Bebop's Spike) as the bestial Mugen. Kirk Thornton as Jin and Kari Wahlgren as Fuu are both excellent. The voice actor for the sometimes series narrator Policeman Sakami Manzou ("the Saw") is also very good.

These episodes are definitely rated PG-13. This anime series doesn't hesitate to throw in scenes of drug use and graphic violence. Some episodes even contain mild sexual scenes.

My favorite episodes are "The Art of Altercation" (for the rapping samurai and his beatbox backup), the atmospheric "Cosmic Collisions" (where the trio fight the undead), the hilarious "Baseball Blues" (where the American pitcher couldn't find the strike zone with the dog at bat, and he ends up inadvertently hitting the mutt - not to worry, no animated dogs were hurt in the making of this anime), and the concluding 3-episode arc "Evanescent Encounter" (where Mugen and Jin are challenged to their very limits, resolve their rivalry, and Fuu at last catches up to the Sunflower Samurai).

Here are the 26 episodes (American titles first, with the original Japanese titles in parenthesis):

- "Tempestuous Temperaments" ("Storm and Stress") Episode 1
- "Redeye Reprisal" ("Veritable Pandemonium") Episode 2
- "Hellhounds for Hire" Parts One & Two ("Tacit Understanding") Episode 3-4
- "Artistic Anarchy" ("Utter Indifference") Episode 5
- "Stranger Searching" ("RedHeaded Foreigner") Episode 6
- "A Risky Racket" ("Surrounded on All Sides") Episode 7
- "The Art of Altercation" ("Self-Conceit") Episode 8
- "Beatbox Bandits" ("Evil Spirits") Episode 9
- "Lethal Lunacy" ("Fighting Fire with Fire") Episode 10
- "Gamblers and Gallantry" ("Fallen Angels") Episode 11
- "The Disorder Diaries" ("Learning from the Past") Episode 12
- "Misguided Miscreants" Parts One & Two ("Dark Night's Road") Episode 13-14
- "Bogus Booty" ("Through and Through") Episode 15
- "Lullabies of the Lost" Verses One & Two ("Idling One's Life Away") Episode 16-17
- "War of the Words" ("Pen in One Hand, Sword in the Other") Episode 18
- "Unholy Union" ("Karma and Retribution") Episode 19
- "Elegy of Entrapment" Verses One & Two ("Generous Elegy") Episode 20-21
- "Cosmic Collisions" ("Anger Shot Toward Heaven") Episode 22
- "Baseball Blues" ("Heart and Soul into the Ball") Episode 23
- "Evanescent Encounter" Parts One - Three ("Circle of Transmigration") Episode 24-26

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Samurai fighting to hip-hop music? Cool., July 21, 2009

By	lain4ever "And I'll form the head!" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)

It's hard to take "Samurai Champloo" too seriously. The series features a breakdancing samurai, hip-hop music, beatboxing and rapping.

But "Samurai Champloo" is a masterpiece in light comedy, action and even a compelling story involving a daughter of a samurai who smells of sunflowers.

As the two samurai heroes say in episode two, there's something silly about a samurai who smells of sunflowers. However, this series truly shows off some of the best battles ever seen in an anime, embellished with the gorgeous environment of ancient Japan. There's a wide variety of stories, from a complex episode about a dying mother, an episode about the origins of Japanese manga and even an episode about a traveling geisha.

There's just one catch--the series is chock full of hip-hop references. Episode 8 alone is a goofy comedy tidbit about a samurai traveling the world with a beatboxing companion. Episode 16 features three samurai travelers rapping rumors they've heard on the road. Episode 18 gives us a closer look at the dangerous life of taggers in ancient Japan.

Okay, maybe this isn't the most realistic period piece series ever made. However, this series has so much fun with blending hip-hop, Christian missionaries and samurai fighting together that one can't resist loving this series.

It's no surprise that this is one of the most accessible action anime series around. Director Shinichiro Watanabe, responsible for the excellent series "Cowboy Bebop," has a flair for creating some of the slickest battle sequences ever made. His storylines might be more simplistic than, say, "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex." However, this is exactly why American audiences enjoy his anime series the most. They are simple stories of men who fight for something they care for.

There's no better time to buy the box set of "Samurai Champloo." The box set is $30 cheaper than the Geneon set, so anime fans have to get this collection. Hands down, this is one of my absolute favorites.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A spicy dish served up hot, February 1, 2010

By	Zack Davisson "japanreviewed.com" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)

It has been several years (five to be exact) since I watched "Samurai Champloo," and while I always knew it as good I somehow forgot that it is in fact one of the greatest anime series ever produced.

"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 "Samurai Champloo."

An eclectic blend of ancient and modern, hip-hop and koto, and pretty much everything else thrown into the mix, this is a Japan where a wild swordfighter uses capoeira moves to slice and dice with a fury, an enormous man known as the Oni smashes skulls with his massive club, and two twin brothers compete in a match to graffiti Himeji castle. Watanabe is a heck of a chef, and manages to balance all these seemingly dissonant elements into a tasty dish that might even top his previous concoction Cowboy Bebop.

The story features a bookish but deadly ronin (Jin), a wild sword-swinging roustabout (Mugen) and a kooky but determined waitress (Fuu). The trio is pushed into an unhappy alliance, several times attempting to split up, yet always 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. Each episode changes in tone and character, moving effortlessly between comedy and drama, tragedy and action.

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. Categorize "Samurai Champloo" as "hip-hop samurai" is too much of an easy dismissal; the series goes much deeper than that. Along with hip-hop music and culture, the series features Japanese history like the hidden Christian sects, and samurai movie mythology such as Miyomoto Musashi and the female ninjas kunoichi. Every episode is a surprise, and every episode had be glued to the screen in anticipation of what would come next.

Watanabe's trademark style is on fine display, with some of the most fluid animation you will ever see 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. With twenty-six episodes, there is plenty of time to build characterization and identity, and while Jin, Mugen and Fuu appear at first to be mere stereotypical genre characters, they deepen with each telling.

This boxset is a pretty sweet package for this amazing series. Produced by Geneon and released by Funimation, it has all twenty-six episodes on seven disks, each with its own slim case. There are four episodes per disk, meaning that no quality has been lost by squishing too many episodes on a single disk to save space. Inside each case is an essay or comments by one of the people who worked on the series, giving insight into how it was created and what goes into such a collaboration.

The only possibly thing I would have wished for this box set is that Funimation had double-packed the DVDs into the slim cases, as they have with most of their other series. With as many DVDs as I own, space can be a premium at my house and so the smaller the packaging the better.