B2112's Anime Reviews - Episode 3: Samurai Champloo

When I write reviews, I tend to give myself one golden rule - don't write a review immediately after having experienced something; but if you do, wait a few days before hitting "submit." By letting the sentiments you felt immediately after watching/experiencing something coagulate, you can avoid the trap of passion. It is very easy to misrepresent your feelings as being too strong in one way or another, and I'd rather avoid that when making a recommendation. I must admit that I started writing this review roughly fifteen minutes after having seen the final credits of Samurai Champloo, and I am knowingly breaking my golden rule. The only reason for this is because I realized my feelings for this show about six episodes in, and my feelings did not change once the reverb of its final notes decayed.

Oh my god. This anime is really, really not for me.

Once you read that spoiler text, you will probably have an idea of what follows.

Where do I start... Samurai Champloo is one of those shows that has a reputation of being an absolute classic - a masterpiece. It is from the creators of Cowboy Bebop (which I also haven't seen, and tbh I likely won't), and I can't deny just how many times I've heard other anime fans approach me and say "have you seen SC?? Oh my god, you have to watch it, it is amazing." It is lauded by fans for its beautiful art, and amazing style. People proclaim it as being among the greatest anime of all time, and I just don't see it. Now, I want to clear something up right off the bat: Samurai Champloo is not a bad show - it is merely okay. The thing is that my expectations were so high going in, that I was beyond let down. If I had gone in with no expectations, I probably wouldn't feel so strongly. Think of it like Giant Bomb's "most disappointing" category in their GOTY awards - those go to the games with the biggest gulf between expectations and experience.

I mentioned that the show is praised for its art and style. You know what? The art is pretty great, and its style (styyyllleeeee) cannot be denied. The creators wear their influences on their sleeves - it combines 19th century Japan with a 90s hip-hop vibe just about as well as you could hope. There are many scenes during which you could pause the show, and it would make a great background to your computer or phone. The art is consistently great, and I would be doing a disservice one of the best parts of the show if I said otherwise.

With that praise being said, I cannot say that the show's style always worked for me. There was a really heavy disconnect between their attempts at accurately portraying (an alternate history) Edo-era Japan complete with Ukiyo-e (wood block paintings), Geisha, Kotos, et cetera; but also having gangsta's wearing coloured bandanas and holding their guns sidways, graffiti, and baseball. There would be moments where I was starting to really immerse myself in the world the show was creating, only to be rudely pulled out by a character beatboxing (complete with record-scratching) diegetically within the world. These moments had me rolling my eyes and audibly groaning, it was so stupid. There is a whole episode based on two brothers competing with each other by literally tagging the city with graffiti. Modern styled graffiti. I mean... Maybe if you're fifteen and a stoner, this comes across as hilarious and badass; but as a late-20s dude who just wants to watch a good story, it seriously pulled me away from any enjoyment I'd been having.

By the way, I don't single out stoners for no reason. There was another episode where the crux of the story was "... then they burned a pot field, all of the bad guys/good guys got super high together, and that's how our heroes managed to overcome this obstacle." It ends with an episode-specific character narrating 30 years later, saying "ahhh do you remember that day where we all danced together? .... Eh, probably not." *THE END* This was maybe the first moment I threw my hands up in the air and said "what the hell, I thought this show was supposed to be great - that was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen."

I think this issue can, in part, be traced back to the format of the show, which is episodic. There are plenty of great shows that are episodic. Pokemon comes to mind! The characters have a general goal (for Pokemon, Ash wants to beat all the gym leaders and be the best trainer around) and each episode is an individual adventure to help them approach that goal. A lot of Western shows are episodic - think Scrubs, or The Office. The format can work, and I can certainly appreciate it; but it really did SC a disservice. The one-off episodes rarely saw the main characters evolving, facing any real adversity, nor coming into the next episode having taken anything away from the experiences of the past episode(s). The writer's way of solving issues often comes back to "hey you know that side character this/these episode(s) focused on? Yeah we're just going to kill them and then the story will move on." Potential love interests, seemingly important people, etc are just murdered, and then the main characters just kinda move on. No reflection, no pathos, just "LET'S GO ON TO THE NEXT ADVENTURE!"

With the above being said, there were a fair number of episodes that were actually pretty decent. I wouldn't go so far as to say they were insightful, nor were they amazing; but they were good enough for me to say "okay, I can see little moments of brilliance here." They are willing to tackle tough issues with relative grace, such as characters being prosecuted for being gay. There are some good fight scenes, moments where it seems like you are actually witnessing a character going through some kind of change, 2 or 3-episode arcs that have an interesting ending.. Those do happen, but I would say they are, ultimately, in the minority.

The characters of the show aren't terrible, to be fair. Fuu, our lead girl, is... Well actually she is kinda frustrating. She is smart, but I'd say roughly half of the episodes are about her getting into trouble, and the others having to rescue her. Anyways, she's the impetus for the whole show - she wants to meet someone known as the "sunflower samurai." She enlists the help of two swordsmen who met after trying to murder one another. The first is Jin, who I actually kind of like. He's a softspoken samurai who is very skilled. He is sensible, sane, and generally a pleasant character. The other is Mugen, who I could take or leave. He's a prototypical bad-guy playing the good-guy role with a history in being a pirate, and is the stereotype of an uneducated ruffian. He has a nice arc overall, but I can't say I like him... I mean he regularly makes awful offhand comments and jokes, such as "I'm going to rape you, girl" when Fuu is unconscious and they're carrying her along. I can't really get behind that.

The music was okay. Nothing great, nothing terrible. There is a decent hip hop track with super distorted synths and guitars in the final episode as a battle takes place, that was the highlight. Everything else has been done before.

I don't really know what else to say about SC. Its overall story was disappointing. Its ending wrapped up way too neatly and was too much of a "super happy ending" to really feel like it was worth the journey. At least 40% of the content was actively bad (don't get me started on the Baseball episode). The characters were just okay. I am glad I watched it, because now I can have an opinion on this show that is considered a masterpiece; but I really, really have no desire to ever see it again. I can't recommend this show, and though it does have moments that make the experience decent overall, and the art is beautiful; it just isn't anything great.

I rate Samurai Champloo: 2/5

B2112's Anime Reviews: Episode 0