Samurai Champloo

if there's an anime that successfully combined cultural assimilation with a touch of intriguing issues like politic, religion, racism, up to sexuality, then i gotta hand it on to samurai champloo (SC). SC is another work of shinichiro watanabe, the mastermind behind the legendary cowboy bebop. theme wise, it's placed on a completely different ground; while bebop toys out with futuristic spaceship and gun fights, SC is set in a historical setting, precisely Edo era Japan. the story generally centers around fuu, a fearless girl who embarked on a journey to find the mysterious 'samurai who smells of sunflower'. she decided to tag along with two skilled samurai, mugen and jin, with each of them bearing completely different personalities. mugen is rather vulgar, impulsive, and violent by nature, meanwhile jin leans more as a composed and calculated figure. its truly interesting to witness the three of them going through a wild and thrilling adventure with their diverse characteristics. even though it started off quite rocky at first, but the events they went through slowly helped them to develop their bonds which makes them come to a realization that they're teaming up as friends and not simply by chance. the 26 episodes journey are filled with rich and colorful encounters from blind assassin, colonial baseball game, illegal homosexual dutch guy, to zombies! oh, also just like bebop, SC is an episodic series. it often gives a brief recap once in a few episodes so its safe to watch it in casual chronological order.

SC aced in good production, decent animation (though there are some fighting scenes that fell quite short), and natural dialogues. it also served some good portions of slapstick jokes and satire touch on the historical background. its effort in fusing hip hop with traditional japanese culture is undoubtedly the most fascinating part of this series though. it starts off with a heavily infused hip hop themed opening, then we get to see the scenes breakdown through beatboxing bridges, hell, even mugen's fighting style embodies some breakdance moves. i gotta say that watanabe is truly lucky for he always got the best composers out there pouring their genius talent into his works (first yoko kanno and now nujabes??? DUDE!). since im a sucker for amazing soundtracks then SC effortlessly carves its way onto my heart. its such a treat to the eyes to perceive lush nature panoramas being followed by beautiful instrumental tracks like aruarian dance, for instance.

this might sound like an unpopular opinion but i do like how this series ends. its not as cathartic and impactful as bebop (i just cant help to bring these two into comparison sorry) but it leaves a nice and natural impression. this series shows that it doesnt take a death of main character to make a story 'edgy' or compelling. SC ended just how it started and its plain perfect in a sense. if anything i kinda wished mugen, fuu, and jin would stay together and board for another journey because their bond is just too great. nevertheless its such an entertaining show with creative tones and realistic premise, and its not an exaggeration to say that SC is truly one of a kind.