Samurai 7 Recommended

Director
Toshifumi Takizawa
Production
Gonzo Digimation
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2004

Samurai 7 - Episodes 1-5

By Nephy
1st Aug 04

Samurai 7 - Episodes 1-5

Why only episodes 1-5? Well that is simple, those are the only ones I have seen right now, and it would be unfair to judge the whole series based on these five. Now I will state at the beginning of these review that I have seen fan subbed copies, but well done subs, and as I prefer sub to dub anyway... but I digress, now to the review.

Samurai 7 is loosely (and I mean loosely) based on Kurosawa Akira's famous movie, 'Seven Samurai'. Produced by Gonzo Digimation, a studio that has been producing some amazing anime recently

Set in a techno-imperial world, a kind of mixture between 1600's Japan, and Mech-wielding high tech future. The basic story is much the same of the movie, that is some bandits are raiding a small village for its yearly rice crop, and they in desperation and the threat of starvation decide to hire Samurai to help them defeat the bandits...

The story opens with a little girl riding on the back of an ox drawn cart through fields of rice, a farmer working in the fields watches her pass. He looks up, and see's a giant space ship, a kind of flying pagoda falling to earth. The intro then is quickly changed to a battle scene of flying Mechs and Spaceships, in a space opera style laser shootout. Part CG part Cell animation, as is the trend in Japanimation. The quality is very high, though the transition is a little, odd to say the least. Especially when a seemingly normal human Samurai, starts leaping from ship to ship, cutting carrier size ships in half, as well as the Mech suits around them. The Intro, which you later realise the heroic Samurai was the hero of the story (Kambee), seems a little disjointed at first especially as it is followed by a scene of monks chanting and a young girl singing with them while performing magic through a glowing crystal. But once done, the first episode begins...

It is here your introduced to the village in need, and the main female character, a young water priestess (called as she seems to have a magic ability to divine water with a small crystal) named Kirara, the basis of the plot is laid out in a discussion with the elder. Which is you have seen the Seven Samurai you pretty much know, bandits take food and women, the villagers don't want this, so they send of Kirara with some friends (Kiraras sister, a slightly annoying brat named Komachi, and a villager who's name I never did pick up) to the city in order to find Samurai to help them fight the cyborg bandits, having no money to hire them all they can offer is rice. Once at the city they meet Katsushirou, a young Samurai wannabe. Kikuchiyo (yes a lot of 'K' names) an 8-foot mech with a big sword who calls himself a Samurai but is pretty much a clumsy butt of jokes from the real samurai.

I won't spoil the story but they meet various other characters, some good some bad, have a few battles, all while attempting to find the samurai they need, which by episode 5 they gain 3 of. Though one Samurai, Kyuzo (Another 'K'), in service of the corrupt leader of the city, is worth mentioning, if only because he looks like the bastard child of Vash the Stampede and in episode 4 has a stunning duel with Kambee.

The Animation is as slick as you would expect from Gonzo, the production values high, the Japanese voice talent is very good, and even though I do not understand Japanese much at all, manage to portray emotion, feeling and attitude very well.

The story is a classic, how could it not be been based on Seven Samurai, and is reproduced quite well. The characters are well done, and likable there is no (what I like to refer to, meaning almost universally hated and annoying) Jah-Jah character... even the big foolish, at times annoying robo-samurai grows on you.

Though from the first 5 episodes I would not call this anime action-packed it does have some good scripted, and animated action sequences, which works well alongside the character development and flow of the story But most of the time is spent on the interplay and growing friendships and relationships between the main characters.

The Music is good, having gone for a more traditional Japanese score making heavy use of taiko drums especially in the action sequences (reminiscent somewhat of action scenes in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), which fits in the Neo-Feudal setting and adds to the movie, rather than distracts, which in the end is the ultimate aim of any score.

There is one thing which annoys me about the episodes of Samurai 7, and that is the length of each, after the 'previously on', the titles, the credits, and the 'next episode on...' parts (7 to 8 minutes in all), it almost feels as if the episodes themselves have been stretched out a little to fit over the whole series, making each episode actually about 18 minutes long.

All in all it is a minor gripe, to what is an enjoyable and well-made start to a series, and I look forward to viewing the rest of it very soon. I highly recommend that if you have the chance watch some or all of this series, you do. Not a classic, nothing that will have us talking about it, and a million and on fan-boy sites created for its genius, with groupies claiming they are in love with the main characters (*cough* Trigun, Evangelion etc.) But it is a well-made, often amusing, sometimes cool bit of storytelling.

So give it a watch, you won't regret it.

Nephy

-- Nephy 1st Aug 04

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