Following Nier in my trend of watching or playing something because of its soundtrack, what got me into watching Samurai Champloo was Nujabes' music. I've listened to his music for a while now and the tracks that grabbed my attention first were Who's theme and Aruarian Dance. Now in my term-break, I've finally gotten enough time to just sit down and watch it over a couple of days. The rest of the soundtrack did not disappoint, although I did find it funny that Aruarian dance was used for about a minute in one of the more comedic-filler episodes and nothing else. I always imagined it being used in one of the many walking or scenery scenes, but nope, a dog playing baseball! On this note, many of these moments where I recognized the song subverted my expectations which in hindsight made for something more interesting. The soundtrack really is great, massive props to Nujabes, FAT JON, Tsutchie, Force of Nature, and Shing02 and Minmi.
The show's art itself was pretty good too and although the quality sometimes dipped, the animation was always spot on. The characters, archetypal as they may be, kept me engaged even through some of the more tedious side-tracks. I do wish it could have been more focused more of the time since they had a clear goal to start with but I'm glad they managed to keep them varied. In particular I loved Manzou, the narrator who would transcend time and describe zen's influence in the 1960s and Vincent van Gogh while doing macho police-work only to completely fail. Overall, what I appreciate about Samurai Champloo is how consistent it was over 26 episodes, even if it did stray from the main plot it kept me interested and even surprised me a few times. The ending didn't feel overly sentimental to me either and in hindsight, the pilot set up the show really well. Often a pilot feels awkward in hindsight, but here it was just like any other episode.
A great watch, would recommend.
The show's art itself was pretty good too and although the quality sometimes dipped, the animation was always spot on. The characters, archetypal as they may be, kept me engaged even through some of the more tedious side-tracks. I do wish it could have been more focused more of the time since they had a clear goal to start with but I'm glad they managed to keep them varied. In particular I loved Manzou, the narrator who would transcend time and describe zen's influence in the 1960s and Vincent van Gogh while doing macho police-work only to completely fail. Overall, what I appreciate about Samurai Champloo is how consistent it was over 26 episodes, even if it did stray from the main plot it kept me interested and even surprised me a few times. The ending didn't feel overly sentimental to me either and in hindsight, the pilot set up the show really well. Often a pilot feels awkward in hindsight, but here it was just like any other episode.
A great watch, would recommend.
