Samurai Champloo
From Zanecorpwiki
WIP
One of the top 5 post 2000 anime series. BluRay and DVD?
Summary
It's Hip Hop attitude set in classic Edo-era (1603-1868) Japan. I really enjoyed this series... right up till the end.
Notes and Details
It's everything Afro Samurai isn't: subtle,
I very much appreciated the Hanzo the Razor[notes 1] and Yojimbo[notes 2]. These are little easter eggs for the hard core. You don't need them, and they only add if you're "in the in crowd", but for those that recognize them, it's a real treat.
Not only cultural, but hard core historical references including Francisco Xavier and Simabara Rebellion. All this makes for a really enjoyable story.
But at the end, it just doesn't deliver. (Somehow, I didn't note this right after watching, I think I had an edit that was lost, so I'm writing this quite a bit later.) A lot of anime has "unconventional" endings, in terms of what a Western audience may expect (lots of "and then life goes on" and very little finality, often anti-climactic), but this was just kind of limp. This story really is about the journey. Which is maybe the point, if there is one.
Notes
- ↑ Something (don't remember) the Saw in the Edo episodes is clearly a only slightly oblique sly reference to the soft-core porn Hanzo the Razor character from the early 70's.
- ↑ Episode 19, the way the thug in the opening scene holds his gun is straight out of Yojimbo, which itself was the basis for A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing.
