I’ve seen some of the anime that crossed over and became a hit in the US, but Samurai Champloo evaded me, most likely because it was on at odd hours as part of adult swim, which admittedly I rarely watched. But this came stateside in 2005 and had a lot of buzz, but 9-10 years ago there wasn’t the easy access to anime we have today, so I as wondering how it would hold up.

The storyline itself is pretty basic, in ancient Japan two wandering Samurai, Mugen and Jin, don’t really care about much except fighting worthy opponents (or anyone who pisses them off, really). This gets them in a load of trouble up to the point they are set to be executed, but they are rescued by a plucky young waitress named Fuu, on the condition that they help her find a mysterious samurai who “smells of sunflowers”.

Samurai Champloo is tagged as a “hip-hop anime”, but whoever did that probably has no fucking clue and was just trying to make it “hip” to American audiences. It’s supposedly unique hook is these “record scratch” moments where it’ll make the sound of a record scratch like a DJ was playing and either pause or rewind for a second. I just found it off-putting and annoying, and there’s nothing else that would fit the label of “hip-hop”, the music is solid but nothing that stands out as particularly “hip-hop” style.

And it’s too bad that Samurai Champloo feels it has to do this stuff to be different, because it’s a perfectly solid and fun anime. The trio of characters are fun and interesting, the swordfights are stylish and great to watch, and the humor is mostly well done, albeit with a few bits that run for whole episodes and fall pretty flat (like one where an artist who tricks girls into slavery suddenly becomes comedically panicky or the episode with a “European” disgusing himself as a samurai). That record scratch stuff just feels completely unnecessary. If you are looking for a deep and complex story you won’t find it here though, through the six episodes I watched, there wasn’t much in the way of character or plot development to the point where I occasionally forgot  what the protagonists main goal even was. Often the episode has them coming into a town and something distracting them like a rice eating contest or Mugen and Jin getting bored and tired of Fuu and going off to do something else for a whole episode before happenstance brings them together again, with maybe one bit of info thrown in about the samurai they are searching for at the end of the episode. Up to this point, it’s not even explained why Fuu is looking for the Samurai, but admittedly it’s only 6 episodes in of a 26 episode run, that’s plenty of time to explain things. And I enjoyed their distractions, but I could see it be maddening to somebody who wants to find out the mystery behind the samurai and why Fuu needs to find him. I suspect you could watch the first episode to get the basic setup and watch the last few episodes and not miss out on much in the way of important developments. But I would also argue that Mugen, Jin & Fuu are a fun trio to watch no matter what they happen to be doing in a particular episode so it makes up for the overall pacing.

Final Rating: 3.5/5 Samurais who smell of sunflowers…

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It’s mainly the story of master wizard Ryner Lute & his travel companion Ferris Eris (again, really? it’s not just the title that’s awful), a woman highly skilled with her sword as they travel the land seeking relics of legend at the behest of their friend and King, Sion. It also shows Sion’s struggle to be a good king surrounded by corrupt nobles who treat commoners like shit.

I watched 6 episodes of this series and it has sort of an odd pace, it spends the first episode setting up the basic premise, then spends several episodes showing how Sion became king as well as how he, Ryner & Ferris all met. The episodes leading up to him becoming King and sending Ryner & Ferris out on their quest are very well done, but it makes the first episode seem like a waste of time and gives the overall series a bit of a pacing issue.

Ryner & Ferris mostly play off each other well, but the series relies a little too hard on a couple of running jokes between them. Namely that Ferris constantly physically abuses Ryner for virtually no reason (not uncommon in anime but this seems to really be overdoing it) and that she’s think Ryner is a lout and a pervert and thinks everything is he does is motivated by trying to get her into bed, which she has no evidence of, and while it’s a little funny at first, it gets old pretty quickly. Ryner isn’t a pervert, he’s just lazy and wants to nap. A lot. He says he wants to nap several times in an episode. We get it, he likes naps. But when the series isn’t relying on these crutches, the characters work a bit better and their chemistry shines through, especially in the well-animated battle sequences, which is pretty standard sword and sorcery stuff but still fun to watch.

Ryner & Ferris are mostly the comedy act, Sion, while allowed to have plenty of funny moments (especially in a scene where he checks up on them posing as Ryner’s “cousin”) has much more serious scenes as he’s dealing in a deadly game of political maneuvering that could get him and his closest friends killed if he’s not careful, throwing the kingdom right back into the corrupt nobleman he’s trying to keep it from. It can make for an odd tonal shift when you are laughing at a hilarious scene focused on Ryner and Ferris and suddenly it shifts to somebody being brutally murdered as part of a political ploy. It’s not that you can’t have these elements mix well, it’s just that Legend of the Legendary Heroes makes no real attempt to do so, just jumping between the storylines at a whim with no regard for consistency.

That being said, I overall enjoyed what I’ve watched so far, especially the political stuff and if they can keep it interesting and tone down the reliance on one-note running jokes and balance the comedy and serious stuff a little better (and maybe they will, I do intend to watch more) they may have something really special here.

Final Rating: 3.5/5-:Legendary relics that blow everything up…

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