Samurai Champloo
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is an anime series consisting of twenty-six 24-minute episodes that began broadcasting on Fuji Television in Japan on May 19 2004. It is directed by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame. The show, which is set in a fictional version of the Edo period, features elements of action, adventure and comedy blended with an anachronistic, predominantly hip-hop soundtrack. Its name comes from the Okinawan word "chanpurū" (e.g. goya champuru), which means to mix or blend. Thus, the title may be translated as "Samurai Remix" or "Samurai Mashup," in keeping with the series's theme.
The show matches modern hip-hop music with a stylized form of samurai swordplay known as chambara, much in the same way Cowboy Bebop married science fiction to blues and jazz. Champloo's score features hip-hop beats by Japanese hip hop artists Nujabes and Tsutchie and American artist Fat Jon, among others.
The world of Samurai Champloo is often anachronistic. Characters' costume design, attitudes and editing methods reflect hip-hop culture. One of the protagonists, Mugen, fights in a style that resembles a fusion of capoeira and modern breakdancing.
Geneon Entertainment licensed the show for distribution in North America almost a year prior to the show's airing in Japan. This decision was based almost solely on the reputation of its creator, Shinichiro Watanabe. On January 20, 2004, it was made public that the broadcasting rights were acquired by Cartoon Network, and the series began airing on the Adult Swim block on May 14 2005, in the 11:30 p.m. timeslot on Saturday nights. On Saturday, November 22 2005, the second batch of episodes (episodes 14-26) began airing at 11:30 p.m. EST/PST, but moved to Wednesday nights at 12:30 a.m. in January 2006. The airing of the final episode was March 18 2006. Currently, reruns are airing Sunday mornings at 1:00 a.m.
Characters
- Main article: List of Samurai Champloo characters
At the beginning of the story, Fuu helps Mugen and Jin escape from a vengeful local magistrate, and she persuades them, by flipping a coin, to help her in her search for a mysterious samurai who smells of sunflowers. In the progressing adventure she will have the trouble of keeping her two companions out of trouble and from attempting to kill each other.
Like Bebop, Champloo is largely episodic (which has garnered it some criticism in spite of its visibly high production values), and contains an extensive cast. Apart from the main trio, most characters only appear once or twice; rarely more than three times.
Episodes
The Past
Samurai Champloo contains many marks of Watanabe's distinct style, which he first realized in Cowboy Bebop. Both anime share a foremost theme: there's no running from the past. There are episodes dedicated to the characters wrapping up earlier history, history that puts their lives at risk.In the two-parter "Misguided Miscreants" (a.k.a. "Dark Night's Road"), Mugen encounters his old gang and becomes involved in a love triangle that quickly turns into a backstabbing contest that results in much bloodshed. In a number of episodes, Jin is pursued by students of his former dojo who wish to exact revenge for the death of their master.
In the final three-episode arc, "Evanescent Encounter" (a.k.a. "Circle of Transmigration"), both men face their toughest battles, as reprisal for past misdeeds. Jin is challenged by a master swordsman who has unfinished business with him related to the death of his (Jin's) master. Mugen is confronted by three brothers whom he scarred, crippled and drove insane during his days of piracy. Fuu, too finally meets the Sunflower Samurai.
Visual metaphors
Mugen works his magic on some goons
In Samurai Champloo, Watanabe makes creative use of visual metaphors to portend or enhance a scene. The following lists when they are employed:
- In Episode 1, right before Mugen enters the teahouse, catalyzing events that will lead to the trio's aggregation and subsequent search for the Sunflower Samurai, he spins a small yellow pinwheel, making it look like a sunflower.
- In Episode 2, after Oniwaka is freed from his cell, a butterfly is shown flying out of the window.
- In Episode 2, a firefly lands on a dying Oniwaka's hand and flies away after his hand falls. Fireflies have traditionally symbolized death.
- In Episode 4, right before Ishimatsu is honorably killed by Mugen, a dove flies past the screen, showing that Ishimatsu is finally at peace.
- In Episode 8, the first episode where we learn about Jin's past, he spends it without his glasses, represent, a lowering of one of the walls Jin has built around himself.
- In Episode 10, when Mugen first sees Shouryuu, Shouryuu is walking up a bridge with a trail of blood (from one of his victims) leading from him, a possible allusion to the symbolic (and literal) "trail of blood" he is leaving behind with each murder he commits.
- In Episode 10, Shouryuu dictates a story of a man who climbs high mountains (symbolically him) as he and Mugen climb to the top of a bridge, and talks of the mountain climber's descent into darkness as he and Mugen climb back down the bridge.
- In Episode 10, upon Shouryuu's death, Zuikou's prayer bracelet snaps.
- At the end of Episode 11, Jin slices dead three samurai. As they collapse, their straw hats fall slowly in front of the camera with them, covering their faces.
- In Episode 11, Jin remains in town with Shino/Kohana because of the rain. The sun is shown coming out right after he has freed her of her burden.
- In Episode 11, Jin also has his glasses removed when he is with Shino/Konoha, foreshadowing the change in Episode 25.
- In Episode 17, in Okuru's flashback, as he sees his dying wife and child, the reflection of light in his eyes slowly fades away.
- The cross is shown occasionally in different episodes, such as in Episode 19 at "Francisco de Xavier III's" death, representing divine intervention against him, or at the church where Mugen fights Umanosuke and throws his sword, "the soul of a warrior", into the cross, symbolically sacrificing his soul to save Fuu.
- *In Episodes 20 and 21, Sara's weapon is shaped like a cross, possibly symbolizing the burden she must carry of her child's life and of having to kill people whom she cares for.
- In Episode 21, after a wounded Jin slices the rope bridge in half to escape Sara and they both go plunging into the river below, his glasses are seen floating above the water for a moment before they are covered by his blood.
- In Episode 21, Jin, recuperating from grievous injuries, attempts to move towards a rice bowl. Beside him, an inchworm is crawling, slowly and pathetically.
- In Episode 21, the stoppage of one of many pinwheels causes Sara to realize once and for all that her son is dead.
- In Episode 21, Fuu, upon seeing Sara cut Mugen open during a heated battle, drops her lantern. The flame goes out.
- In Episode 21, when Mugen is about to confront a recuperating Sara, the door slides shut behind him and the room becomes palpably darker.
- In Episode 24, Fuu encouters Kariya at a wharf and nearly mistakes him for the Sunflower Samurai. A butterfly lands on his kimono, and she asks him if he is indeed who she thinks he is. But when the butterfly flutters away, she thinks better of it and balks.
- In Episode 25, a flashback of Mariya and Kariya occurs. Kariya is tending to his garden; Mariya says that he can't be expected to kill Jin. Kariya doesn't answer, and instead snips clean away the head of the flower he is pruning.
- In Episode 25, the point of Kariya's sword swipes Jin's glasses into the depths of the ocean, heralding a power metaphor. The glasses are a mask he donned upon his master's death, a symbol of the wall he built around himself emotionally. In their second duel, no longer bespectacled, Jin remarks to Kariya, "I was fighting for myself. My sword was for me alone." This time, he embraces the meaning behind their journey, and fights for Fuu and Mugen, too.
- In Episode 26, Fuu comes upon a wilted sunflower at the doorstep of the shack she is about to enter. Upon entering, she finds the Sunflower Samurai, her father, sick and dying.
- In Episode 26, at the end of their final battles (at least in the show), Jin and Mugen, half-dead from their wounds, agree to settle their grudge once and for all, but instead strike their swords against each other in such a way that both blades are snapped in half. This signifies several things: (1) They have done enough fighting and wish to give it a rest (they are, after all, half-dead). (2) Their grudge is settled (their swords are their primary tools of killing). (3) They respect one another (they are willing to destroy the swords they value in order to make peace). (4) Their strength is eternally equal, and neither wins or loses. When they fall, their bodies form a yin-yang, symbolizing two eternally opposed, but eternally balanced, forces.
- An overall metaphor is the use of fire for Mugen and water for Jin, and to a lesser extent, plants for Fuu.
- *In the opening sequence the background for Jin's closeup are Fish while Mugen's are Roosters.
- *Mugen is dressed primarily in red, Jin in blue, and Fuu's kimono is pink in the style of a flower.
- *In the first episode at the end of Mugen and Jin's fight in the burning teahouse, Mugen is seen engulfed in flames while Jin is naked in a bathtub.
- *Mugen escapes the monk warriors and inadvertently saves Jin and Fuu by starting a fire in "Beatbox Bandits".
- *Jin meets Shino when she is about to commit suicide in a river in "Gamblers and Gallantry".
- *Jin being unable to cook eels and Shino teaching him about them also occurs in "Gamblers and Gallantry".
- *In "Lullabies of the Lost", Mugen sees fire engulfing the body of Okuru as he escapes, while Jin risks drowning to escape Yukimaru, or, more practically, escape his own circumstances.
- *Both of Mugen's near-death experiences in "Misguided Miscreants" and "Evanescent Encounter, Part 3" came from fiery explosions. Two of Jin's near-death experiences with him losing battles to Sara (in "Elegy of Entrapement") and Kariya Kagetoki ("Evanescent Encounter, Part 2") ended with him falling into water.
- *Jin receives personal training in the "Way of the Water", from an old man who may or may not be Musashi Miyamoto.
- *The fact that Fuu is the owner of Momo, a squirrel, shows another parallel.
Director trademarks
Crows
Crows have become a trademark of Watanabe's. In the penultimate episode of Bebop, a single crow foreshadows the death of Julia. In Champloo, flocks of them appear numerous times either to foreshadow or signify a death.List of scenes where crows make an appearance:
- In Episode 1, during Jin and Mugen's execution, when the executioners' blades flash. (They are not the ones to die, escaping instead and ending the lives of nearly every antagonist in the area.)
- In Episode 13, over the raided village, as Jin describes the massacre that took place there.
- In Episode 14, in Mugen's flashback, dispersing after having feasted on a human skull.
- In Episode 16, when Yukimaru's blade cleaves toward Jin, before they end up at a stalemate, as Jin refuses to take the life of his former cohort. Instead of cheating death, however, Yukimaru persistently pursues Jin, leaving Jin with no other choice. Ultimately, the crow's prediction comes true.
- In Episode 17, before Okuru is riddled with arrows by Tobata's men.
- In Episode 26, Mugen envisions a flock of carrion crows consuming his body as he nears death. When Fuu calls out to him, the crows scatter and he returns to life.
Eyes
Closeup shots of eyes have long been a trademark of Watanabe.- In Episode 1, immediately before Shibui's men swing their swords to execute them we see closeups of Mugen and Jin looking up.
- In Episode 1, we see a closeup of Mugen's eyes when he and Fuu first make eye contact.
- Mugen's drowning sequence in the episode, "Misguided Miscreants, Part 2", mirrors Spike's fall from the church tower in the Cowboy Bebop episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels". Both feature interwoven flashbacks in sepia tone, complete with closeups of the character's eyes.
- The two-part episode, "Lullabies of the Lost", opens with a closeup of Mugen's eye, a flaming man reflected in it, who falls off of a cliff. The episode then goes into flashback, and climaxes with the same shot of the flaming man.
- In Episode 26, when a dying Mugen is revived, the scene segues to a closeup of his eye, with Fuu reflected in it.
- Closeups of the eyes are frequently used when characters with dark pasts undergo flashbacks, like Oniwakamaru, Okuru and Mugen himself.
Trivia
- Mugen and Spike of Cowboy Bebop share a strikingly similar physical appearance, including an almost, if not identical, hairstyle. Their respective fighting styles also favor high kicks. They also share very stubborn attitudes and pasts which they regret, although Spike is much more calm, intelligent, and less anti-authoritarian than Mugen. This similarity is strengthened in the English dub of both shows, as both characters are voiced by the same voice actor, Steven Jay Blum.
- Like the main cast of Cowboy Bebop, the main cast of Samurai Champloo is constantly broke and starving.
- The recurring character Manzo the Saw, who both appears in and narrates several episodes, is a parody of the titular character from the Hanzo the Razor movies.
- The show features cameos by other protagonists of the chambara genre, such as Mito Komon in "Evanescent Encounter, Part 1", Ogami Daigoro from Lone Wolf and Cub in "Elegy of Entrapment, Part 1" and "Evanescent Encounter, Part 1", and Lone Wolf and Cub themselves in "Cosmic Collisions".
- In "Evanescent Encounter, Parts 2 & 3", Mugen bears scars from being slashed across the face by Denkibou's claws. Coupled with his new hairstyle after emerging from the sea, he bears a strong physical resemblance to Bruce Lee's character in Enter the Dragon.
- The art style, character design and motives in the episode "Redeye Reprisal" suggest homage to Ninja Scroll. In the episode, Mugen is poisoned while enjoying the attentions of a seductive female, and has to battle a deformed hulk of a man wielding a double-bladed bisento in order to retrieve the antidote. In Ninja Scroll, the protagonist, Jubei, is poisoned after nearly succumbing to the charms of a seductive female; one of his foremost objectives is acquiring the antidote. A deformed hulk of a man wielding a double-bladed bisento proves to be a formidable enemy.
- Mugen seems to consistently fight people who are mistaken by others as some type of spirts or mythical beasts, like Oniwakamaru, the Tengu, and Okuru. In episodes where Mugen and Jin are separated and fight different enemies, Mugen's enemies tend to have varying levels of uniqueness to them, while Jin's are more traditional.
- *In "Redeye Reprisal", Mugen fights a one-armed man and an "ogre" while Jin fights a pragamatic samurai.
- *In "Lullabies of the Lost", Mugen fights an Ainu warrior, while Jin fights a vengeful samurai.
- *In "Evanescent Encounter", Mugen fights three brothers with varying levels of physical disability and mental stability; Jin fights a cold-blooded samurai.
- Mugen and Jin in many instances fight opponents who complement each other.
- *In "Tempestuous Temperaments", Jin kills a corrupt daimyo, while Mugen is directy responsible for the death of the daimyo's corrupt son.
- *In "Hellhounds for Hire", Mugen works for the corrupt Nagatomi gang while Jin works for the more benevolent Kawara gang.
- *In "Artistic Anarchy", Mugen brawls with low-life yakuza, while Jin "battles" the actual head of those yakuza in a game of shougi.
- *In "Lethal Lunacy", Jin almost fights Zuikou, while Mugen fights Zuikou's former apprentice, Shouryuu. Mugen initally regards Shoryuu as a friend, while Jin mistakes Zuikou for an enemy.
- *In "Misguided Miscreants", Mugen and Jin each kill one half of the only two men who know the location of a particular stolen treasure. Mugen and Jin's vengeance for different reasons cost them a chance at enough money to make them rich.
- *Both characters have each killed a Shogunate assassin, Mugen killing Sara and Jin killing Kariya.
- *In the first episode, the first person Mugen kills in the series is killed while Mugen is facing away from his victim. Likewise, in the final episode, Jin is facing away from his final victim in the series, Kariya. Also, in the first episode Jin's first victims are the Yagyu Three, while in the last episode Mugen last victims are the three brothers.
- Watanabe has stated that the movies Zatoichi, Dirty Harry and Enter the Dragon were influences on his work.
- The episodes "Gamblers and Gallantry" and "Bogus Booty" can be seen as different versions of each other. In "Gamblers and Gallantry", Jin fights in the name of love to free a brothel employee. In "Bogus Booty", Mugen battles for the sake of lust, to help an undercover government agent disguised as a brothel employee defeat the criminals there, freeing her from her obligation to remain at the brothel. Both episodes feature the heroes having to fight without their swords. Both episodes leave open the possibility that the rescued women may one day be reunited with their saviors.
Adaptations
Samurai Champloo has been adapted into an original manga, mirroring Cowboy Bebop's Shooting Star. It debuted in Shonen Ace on August 2004. TOKYOPOP licensed the manga in North America. Madman Entertainment have licensed and released the manga in Australia and New Zealand. Bandai developed a Samurai Champloo beat 'em up game for the PlayStation 2 titled Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked. It was released on April 11th, 2006 in the United States, to fairly positive reviews. Music factors heavily into the gameplay.See also
- List of Samurai Champloo characters
- Samurai Champloo media information
- List of Samurai Champloo episodes
External links
- [Geneon Samurai Champloo Web Site]
- [Japanese Samurai Champloo Official Web Site]
- [Madman Samurai Champloo Official Web Site]
- [Fuji TV Samurai Champloo Official Web Site]
- [TOKYOPOP Manga]
- [Chuang Yi Publishing : Singaporean English Manga Licensee]
- [Samurai Champloo at TV.com]
- [Amalgam] (comprehensive fan site)
- [Soundtrack listing for each episode]
- [Champloo-fan] (fan site)
- [Too Many Champloo...] (fan site)
- [Samurai Champloo Fan Site]
- [Samurai Champloo Music Record "KATANA"] at MusicBrainz
- [Samurai Champloo Image Gallery @ Anime Galleries]
- [Spanish Community- Comunidad en Español]
| Characters | Episodes 1-12 | Episodes 13-26 |
| The Works of Shinichiro Watanabe |
| TV series: Cowboy Bebop | Macross Plus | Samurai Champloo |
| Films: |
| Short Films: A Detective Story | Kid's Story |
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