"Samurai chanpurû" (2004) TV series 2004-2005

Seasons:

1 | 2

Release Date:

11 January 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Music

Tagline:

Death, betrayal, and... hip hop!

Plot:

Fuu, a waitress who works in a teahouse, rescues two master swordsmen, Mugen and Jin, from their execution to help her find the "samurai who smells of sunflowers."

Plot Keywords:

Samurai | Baseball | Ronin | Fighting | Blind Woman

Cast

Kazuya Nakai	...	Mugen (26 episodes, 2004-2005)
Ginpei Sato	...	Jin (26 episodes, 2004-2005)
Ayako Kawasumi	...	Fuu (26 episodes, 2004-2005)
Steve Blum	...	Mugen (26 episodes, 2004-2005)
Kirk Thornton	...	Jin (26 episodes, 2004-2005)
Kari Wahlgren	...	Fuu (26 episodes, 2004-2005)

Also Known As:

Samurai Champloo (International: English title)

Runtime:

Japan:23 min | Japan:30 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | Dutch | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

UK:15 | South Korea:18 | Australia:MA | USA:TV-MA | Argentina:18

Company:

Fuji TV

Trivia:

The series was only allowed to be aired past 12:00 am in Japan for the network deemed it too graphic for prime time television.

Quotes:

Mugen: [after finding a bag of coins in the river] We hit the potjack!
Fuu: That's jackpot!
Mugen: All I know is we're filthy bitch!
Fuu: Filthy rich!
Jin: I hope your doing that on purpose.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: (#34.3)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

Shiki No Uta

Watanabe You Bastard, You've Done It Again!

The story is about Jin a traditional very skilled samurai, Mugen a innovative equally skilled samurai, and Fuu a girl who worked at a tea house. When Jin and Mugen get caught and are about to be executed, Fuu saves their lives and in return she makes them promise to help her find the Samurai Who Smells Like Sunflowers. It may sound stupid but trust me its not.

The animation. The animation on this show is Bebop quality. The animation is just incredible. The fight scenes are kick ass, beautiful and often times bloody. The backgrounds are very lush and detailed. You will be amazed and how good everything looks.

Now on to the best part, the music. When I first heard about Samurai Champloo the first thing that came to mind was "Well its made by the same dude that did Cowboy Bebop so its got to be good." ,the next thing was "Well what does a Japanese man know about hip hop?". Even though I'm still wondering about the second question, it doesn't matter because all the music works great. Just like with Bebop the series wouldn't be half as good if it didn't have the great music that it does. The opening theme song to Samurai Champloo is a "rap" song. I put rap in quotation because none of the lyrics rhyme so its not a true rap song, but its still great.

Bottom line. If you are a fan of Cowboy Bebop you have to see this. In fact if your a anime fan at all you need to see this. This will go down in history as one of the greats along with Cowboy Bebop.