Samurai Champloo Recommended

Publisher
Geneon / MVM
Director
Shinichiro Watanabe
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes / 25 minutes
Year
2004

Samurai Champloo Volume 3

By otaku_kei
4th Feb 06

For people who know me they are well aware of my interest in samurai and the feudal period of Japan in general. From the history of the period, to Kurosawa's famous samurai films, Koike & Kajima's "Lone Wolf" and "Samurai Executioner" series, it is a period ripe with interest and the potential for some fantastic storytelling. Samurai Champloo continues to provide tales set during this period as Mugen, Jin and Fuu continue their quest to find the samurai who smells like sunflowers! But once again this is not going to be plain sailing for this luckless trio as a lack of money, constant hunger and bad fortune seem to be their constant companions!

This latest volume of Samurai Champloo contains possibly my favourite episode to date of this show, as the usually aloof and inscrutable Jin falls in love with a woman just sold into a whorehouse and ends up risking everything, including his precious samurai honour, in a bid to rescue his beloved from the life she is trapped in. This episode demonstrates the best of what this show can do with its healthy balance of action and emotion. Also by using Jin the creators have managed to tap into a more genuine sense of the time when this show is set as he embodies the samurai code and lifestyle that was prevalent at the time! But whilst this show may be able to deliver a serious love story, Champloo's comedy muscles are also in evidence on this volume. After being captured trying to use some forged travel documents, Mugen is sent on a government assignment if he hopes to save his companions! But not everything goes as planned and Mugen ends up setting in motion a "Summer of Love" and getting everyone in the area as high as a kite! After Cowboy Bebop's 'Mushroom Samba' episode and this latest from Champloo I think it could be said that Shinichiro Watanabe certainly did inhale!

And yet aside from all of this, volume 3 of Samurai Champloo leaves the viewer feeling flat by the end of the disc due to the bad luck of rounding off the volume with a recap show. These episodes have there place in anime for many reasons: at the mid-season break it allows for viewers to be given a full overview of what has come before; it is a cheap episode to put together compiled as they are with stock footage; ok, so only two reasons I can think of. But this comes as a major anti-climax after several exciting episodes, this unfortunately ruins the pace of the volume. Not being the greatest fan of recap episodes anyway, this episode really dragged down my enjoyment of the disc as a whole, in my mind recap episodes should be placed at the start of a volume so that the following episodes can build upon it rather than this! But that would be my only gripe with an otherwise fantastic set of episodes and is certainly no indictment against the quality of this show as a whole.

Over the last few days I have also finally gotten around to seeing Cowboy Bebop for the first time. I know that is almost heresy to be into anime but not have seen Bebop, but it just took me a while to get around to it. Champloo continues to demonstrate many of the qualities that made Bebop such a classic - the comedy, the action, the great characters - it all adds up to a fabulous entertainment package. This show is sure to go from strength to strength as long as it just keeps doing exactly what it has done up until this point so just sit back and enjoy!

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English Language 5.1; Japanese Language 5.1; Japanese Language 2.0; English Language Subtitles; MVM Trailers

Release information: OUT NOW

Notes: Well this certainly is not the show to buy if you are after a host of extras to add to your understanding and enjoyment of the show. But that is ot at all reflected in the quality of the dvd authoring. The menus are quick to use, the a/v quality is top notch and all in all this is a great show presented in the quality manner associated with MVM.

-- otaku_kei 4th Feb 06

Samurai Champloo Images