Samurai Champloo

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Samurai Champloo
サムライチャンプルー (Samurai Champloo)
Genre	Action, Adventure, Comedy, Seinen
TV anime
Directed by	Shinichiro Watanabe
Studio	manglobe INC.
Network	Animax, Fuji TV Canal + VOX Cartoon Network (Adult Swim) SBS Razer
Original run	May 20, 2004 – March 19, 2005
No. of episodes	26 (approx. 24 min. each)
Manga
Authored by	Shinichiro Watanabe (story) Masaru Gotsubo (art)
Publisher	Kadokawa Shoten Soleil Bandai Entertainment Panini Comics Tokyopop
Serialized in	Shonen Ace
Original run	August 2, 2004 – October 29, 2004
No. of volumes	7

Samurai Champloo (サムライチャンプルー, Samurai Chanpurū^?) is an anime series consisting of twenty-six episodes. It was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame. The show is set in a fictional version of Edo period Japan, featuring 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, keeping with the series' blended theme.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Plot 3 Setting and Style 3.1 Influences and cultural references 4 Distribution and Reception 4.1 Japan 4.2 North America 4.3 Latin America 5 Soundtrack 6 Adaptations 6.1 Manga 6.2 Video Game 7 Trivia 8 References 9 Notes 10 See Also 11 External links

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of Samurai Champloo characters

Samurai Champloo revolves around the journey of three individuals:

• Mugen - a brash and rude former pirate from Ryukyu, with a fighting style based on breakdancing that resembles capoeira.^[1]
• Jin - a quiet and stoic ronin who fights in a traditional samurai style of kenjutsu.
• Fuu - a young, feisty, and persistent waitress who recruits the two warriors to help her find a "samurai who smells of sunflowers."

Like Bebop, Champloo's episodes are mostly self-contained (which has garnered it some criticism), and the show contains an extensive cast. Apart from the main trio, most characters only appear once or twice; rarely more than three times.

[edit] Plot

See also: List of Samurai Champloo episodes 1-12 and List of Samurai Champloo episodes 13-26

The plot of Samurai Champloo largely revolves around Fuu's quest to find the samurai who smells of sunflowers and the unfinished duel between Mugen and Jin. Mugen meets Fuu when he enters a tea house where she is a waitress and offers to take care of some ruffians in exchange for food. Fuu agrees, but Mugen characteristically overreacts and the scene erupts into a brawl. As the situation progresses, he and Jin end up in a duel that remains unfinished as they literally bring the tea house down on themselves and are arrested and sentenced to death.

Fuu recruits the two to help her in a quest to find the Sunflower Samurai in exchange for helping them escape from prison. Mugen and Jin, however, are intent on completing their duel first. Fuu gets them to agree to a coin flip: heads, they continue their duel; tails, they travel with her and put their duel on hold until the journey is over. Mugen flips the coin and Fuu tells them it is tails: Mugen and Jin are thus obligated to hold off on their duel and journey with her. At various times, however, they try to abandon Fuu, and they also intermittently confront one another – each vowing to kill the other by journey's end.

Throughout the journey the trio are often broke and starving. They are also forced to face many elements of their pasts. In the two-part "Misguided Miscreants" (a.k.a. "Dark Night's Road"), Mugen encounters his old pirate gang and becomes involved in a looting scheme with his old partner Mukuro. The situation quickly turns into a backstabbing contest resulting in much bloodshed. It is revealed that Jin killed his master, Mariya Enshirou, and in a number of episodes ("The Art of Altercation"; "Lullabies of the Lost") he is pursued by students of his former dojo who wish to exact revenge. Jin is reluctant to kill these pursuers.

In the final three-episode arc, "Evanescent Encounter" (a.k.a. "Circle of Transmigration"), all three must confront their unresolved pasts. Fuu finally meets and confronts the Sunflower Samurai. Jin is challenged by a master swordsman, named Kariya Kagetoki, who is revealed as the primary antagonist of the series, although he has remained behind the scenes until this story arc. It is revealed that Kariya attempted to gain control of Jin's dojo and train its adepts for the purposes of assassination. Mariya Enshirou was ordered to kill Jin because of his opposition to the plan, and in the ensuing fight Jin killed his master in self-defense and was forced to flee the dojo. It also turns out that Kariya had the group tracked so that he could find and kill the Sunflower Samurai, Kasumi Seizou, as punishment for his role in the Shimabara Rebellion. In the course of the story, Mugen is also forced to confront three brothers seeking revenge because Mugen crippled one of them during his days of piracy.

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.

[edit] Setting and Style

Samurai Champloo largely relies on a blend of historical Edo period backdrops combined with modern day styles and references that are largely anachronistic. The show pays homage to historically factual elements of Edo-era Japan, such as the Shimabara Rebellion ("Unholy Union;" "Evanescent Encounter, Part I"), Dutch exclusivity in an era where edict restricted Japanese foreign relations ("Stranger Searching"), Ukiyo-e paintings ("Artistic Anarchy"), and fictionalized versions of real-life Edo personalities Mariya Enshirou and Miyamoto Musashi ("Elegy of Entrapment, Verse 2").

Incorporated within this are anachronistic elements largely reflective of hip hop culture, such as rapping ("Lullabies of the Lost, Verse 1"), graffiti ("War of the Words"), and much of Mugen's character design, including a fighting style influenced by breakdancing. Champloo's musical score predominantly features hip hop beats. Certain anachronistic references are not based upon hip-hop, however, such as baseball ("Baseball Blues") and references to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki (“Cosmic Collisions").

See also: List of Samurai Champloo episodes 1-12 and List of Samurai Champloo episodes 13-26

[edit] Influences and cultural references

• 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.
• Samurai Champloo is an example of the popular chambara film and television genre--the trademarks are a setting in the Edo Period, a focus on samurai or other swordsman characters, and lots and lots of thrilling, dramatic fights. Chambara was used in the early days of Japanese cinema (when government political censorship ran high) as a way of expressing veiled social critiques, and it is possible to read Champloo as a satire of contemporary Japanese society. The show features cameos by other protagonists of the genre, such as Mito Kōmon 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 episode 5 (Artistic Anarchy), Mugen is heard to mutter "damn, doing it with a squid" while looking at a book of ukiyo-e art. This is probably a reference to a Katsuhika Hokusai piece entitled Kinoe no Komatsu (The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife).
• In episode 13 (Misguided Miscreants, Part 1), Mugen's old pirating partner Mukuro has two ship mates named Ken and Ryu. The names Ryu and Ken together may be a hidden reference to the word Ryukan, which is their and Mugen's ethnicity, though it may also be a joke by the animators and script writers on the hit fighting game Street Fighter which has Ryu and Ken as the main characters. In Japanese, Ryu means either "dragon" or "style", and Ken means "sword."
• In episode 14 (Misguided Miscreants, Part 2), Jin's sword-against-gun battle with Mukuro is reminiscent of Sanjuro and Unosuke during the climactic final battle in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
• A character named "Sabini" is featured in the zombie-filled episode 22 (“Cosmic Collisions”), a possible reference to actor Tom Savini, most famous for his appearances in George Romero's classic zombie films.
• Watanabe has stated that the movies Zatoichi and Enter the Dragon influenced his work. Mugen using his scabbard as a walking stick as well as his inverted grip of the sword at the end of episode 14 may be a reference to similar practices used in Zatoichi. Also, in episode 25 (Evanescent Encounter, Part 2) Mugen's face is scarred after being slashed by Denkibou's claws, bearing a strong resemblance to a similar Bruce Lee scar in Enter the Dragon.^[1]

[edit] Distribution and Reception

[edit] Japan

Samurai Champloo began broadcasting May 20, 2004 on Fuji Television in Japan.

[edit] North America

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. time slot 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 final episode aired on March 18, 2006. The show now airs reruns every Saturday night at 1:30 a.m. on Adult Swim. Samurai Champloo also made its debut in Canada on December 24th, 2006 on the Canadian digital station, Razer.

The show has largely received favorable reviews, though it does not enjoy the same level of popularity as its predecessor Cowboy Bebop. For instance, its IMDB rating as of March 2007 is an 8.9 out of 10 from 726 votes as opposed to Cowboy Bebop's 9.3 out of 10 from 1,573 votes.^[2][3]

[edit] Latin America

In September 2006 the series was aired for the first time in Latin American countries.

[edit] Soundtrack

There are four full-length Samurai Champloo soundtracks, as well as two singles. The names of the full-length albums are "Masta", "Playlist", "Departure", and "Impression". Featured heavily in the soundtracks are Nujabes, Force of Nature, Tsutchie, and Fat Jon, among others. Also performing over Nujabes' beats are Japanese hip hop artists Shing02, who performs the vocals on the opening theme "BattleCry," and Minmi, who performs the ending theme "Shiki no Uta" (“Song of Four Seasons”).

Some of the songs from the show are not availble on the official soundtracks. Some examples of these are the songs "Obokuri-Eemui" ("Obtain Bearing") by Ikue Asazaki from her album "Utabautayun" (played during Mugen's underwater scene in episode 14) and "San Francisco" by Midicronica from their album "#501" (the ending song in episode 26). In addition, the names of several tracks played during the series remain unknown to Champloo fans. The most famous of these is the song played during the brothel escape scene in episode 11, which uses a sample from the Jose Feliciano song "Affirmation."^[4]

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] Manga

Samurai Champloo has been adapted into an original manga. It debuted in Shonen Ace on August 2004. TOKYOPOP licensed the manga in North America. Madman Entertainment licensed and released the manga in Australia and New Zealand.

TOKYOPOP descriptions:

• Volume 1: “In a world full of evil, a hardworking waitress, an arrogant mercenary and a mysterious samurai meet. Through a series of misunderstandings, Fuu, Mugen and Jin find themselves running from officials and wanted by the law. Together they form an uneasy alliance to search for the enigmatic Sunflower Samurai. Along the way they come across misleading characters, ninjas, assassins and a prince in disguise. Their journey proves to be nothing less than a roller coaster ride of battles, danger, desperation and companionship.”

• Volume 2: “When rumors of a mysterious figure with a vendetta against samurais start to spread, Mugen and Jin volunteer to take care of the killer before the body count rises any further. But after a grueling, explosive battle, they discover that the samurai killer is on a mission of his own--to collect the swords of a thousand defeated warriors! Could this vicious swordsman be the link to the elusive Sunflower Samurai?"

[edit] Video Game

Bandai developed a Samurai Champloo video game for the PlayStation 2 entitled Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked; however, the manufacturer has stated that the game has no relation to the show. It was released on April 11th, 2006 in the United States and received mixed reviews.^[5]

[edit] Trivia

• Mugen and Spike Spiegel of “Cowboy Bebop” are both voiced by Steven Jay Blum.
• A man bearing Jin's likeness makes a short, non-speaking cameo in an early episode of The Boondocks entitled "Guess Hoe's Coming to Dinner." Creator Aaron McGruder has stated that he is a big fan of this series.^[6] The opening credits sequence of The Boondocks is similar in style to this series'.

[edit] References

Most of the information in this article is sourced from the anime or TOKYOPOP manga of the same name.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See Also

• Chambara
• Shinichiro Watanabe

[edit] External links

Official sites

• Samurai Champloo Official Web Site (Japanese)
• Geneon Samurai Champloo Web Site
• Madman Samurai Champloo Official Web Site
• Fuji TV Samurai Champloo Official Web Site

Unofficial sites

• Amalgam: A Samurai Champloo Fansite
• TOKYOPOP Manga
• Chuang Yi Publishing: Singaporean English Manga Licensee
• Samurai Champloo at the Internet Movie Database
• Samurai Champloo at TV.com
• Samurai Champloo Anime Gallery
• Samurai Champloo Full Episodes

Samurai Champloo v • d • e
Main:	Characters • Episodes: 1-12 — 13-26
Music:	Masta • Playlist • Departure • Impression
Game:	Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked

The Works of Shinichiro Watanabe v • d • e

TV series: Macross Plus | Cowboy Bebop | Samurai Champloo Films: Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door Short films: A Detective Story | Kid's Story | Baby Blue