Open Video
Long ago in a distant land, I,
Aku, the shape shifting
master of darkness, unleashed an
unspeakable evil!
But a
foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic blade stepped forth to oppose me.
Before the final blow was struck, I opened a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law.
Now the fool seeks to return to the past and seeks to undo the future that is
Aku!
Set fifty years after the end of season four, Jack has grown weary and restless in his mission to return to the past. He does not age, so he and Aku are locked in an endless struggle, with neither able to defeat the other, and with Jack seemingly having no way home.
The season's story is said to be one of redemption; Jack has lost his way, and the season will have him find who he truly is, so he can finally face off against Aku once more.
An ancient Samurai warrior, as a child, Samurai Jack fled his home after Aku invaded and destroyed it. Having traveled around the world and learned many different styles of combat, Jack is a deadly and efficient warrior, although one who has never killed an innocent, or even a flesh and blood person.
Nicknamed ”Jack" soon after entering the future, the Samurai is always quick to do the right thing, even if it would interfere with his own goals, or would prevent him from going to the past. Jack is very quiet, slow to anger, and usually the last to speak. It is common for Jack not to speak more than a few sentences in an episode.
The embodiment of evil, the maniacal shape shifting master of masters is the current overlord of the Earth. Achieving a near godlike status, Aku is invulnerable to all mortal weapons, meaning he may not be killed by any other known weapon aside from Jack's blade.
Aku is desperate to destroy Jack, the one threat to his rule, and is notorious for sending legions of bounty hunters against the Samurai. Indeed, Aku has a two googolplex ($20,000,000,000^100) bounty on Jack's head.
Scottish as hell, wearing a
skirt kilt, and with a machine gun leg, the Scotsman is one of Jack's few equals in combat. Yet aside from combat prowess and being an enemy of Aku, the Scotsman is Jack's opposite in nearly every way. Where Jack is quiet and reserved, the Scotsman is loudmouthed and belligerent. Where Jack tries everything in his power to avoid a fight, the Scotsman often goes looking for them.
Despite this, the Scotsman is the closest thing Jack has to a friend in Aku's future. They have helped each other out on several different occasions, and seem to somehow enjoy each other's company.
Reviews & Previews
Beware, while not included in the OP, some reviews contain very mild spoilers. Click at your own risk.
The Return of Samurai Jack Is Everything You Wanted, and So Much More
Samurai Jack's fifth season opens with a bold, declarative intent for where Tartakovsky wants to take the titular hero for his final journey—all the while reminding you that along the way, it's still that beloved show we were all sad to see leave screens back in 2004, just bigger, bolder, darker, and better-looking than ever.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-return-of-samurai-jack-is-everything-you-wanted-an-1792788975
‘Samurai Jack' Season 5 Review: A Bold and Brutal Finish to a Beloved Series
An image is worth a thousand words, and the frames in Samurai Jack have always had a tendency to knock you on your ass. They're bold, they're evocative, they tell stories, they are frozen moments in time. So even without the new season's brief logline, we need only look at the opening image of the trailer to get a sense of what's been happening in Jack's world: the samurai is standing at the edge of a cliff, with only his shadowed silhouette visible from a distance as the wind tosses back his un-cinched hair. He stares into the crashing waves below, despaired.
★★★★ Very good — Damn fine television
http://collider.com/samurai-jack-season-5-review/#images
SAMURAI JACK'S RETURN IS TOUGHER, MEANER, AND UNDENIABLY COOL
Pretty much, this is a gorgeous and exciting piece of action animation, maybe even more so than it had been in its Cartoon Network days. This feels like a story that deserves to be told, unlike some of the recent reboots. Fans of the series have wanted to see Jack finish his battle with Aku, and our patience has paid off. This is exactly the show I had hoped we'd get, with a harder edge than before but no less heart. I'm incredibly curious to see where the show goes and what Jack will have to endure. And with only 10 episodes, you can expect no filler.
http://nerdist.com/samurai-jacks-return-is-tougher-meaner-and-undeniably-cool/
‘Samurai Jack' Review: Adult Swim Resurrects the Best Samurai of the 21st Century, and It's Already an Action-Packed Masterpiece
You never know what's coming in ”Samurai Jack," and Tartakovsky squeezes an astonishing amount of storytelling into 20-minute installments.
...
With the flexible potential of animation at his disposal, Tartakovsky hurtles fascinating images at the screen at an astonishing rate. Each scene catapults to the next, and it will be thrilling to anticipate new installments in the weeks to come, as well as a sense of closure just around the corner. It's hard to tell if this tighter approach to episodic storytelling will reach a satisfying end, since Tartakovsky excels more at bringing us into the heat of the moment than exploring a bigger picture. But he's off to a promising start. Jack may not be back from the past just yet, but Genndy Tartakovsky has certainly returned to form.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/samurai-jack-review-adult-swim-new-season-1201788530/
Samurai Jack returns deeper, darker, and more violent than ever before
In season five of Samurai Jack, Tartakovsky's technique is on full display, helped in part by more than a decade of advances in animation. Every shot of the first two episodes is bursting to the brim with a distinct visual language and carefully crafted color choices. Even simple fight scenes, like Jack's arrival in episode one, bombard viewers with information: the camera swiveling with Jack's violent polearm thrusts, or time slowing down and the shot shrinking to a tiny square to show the spiked wheels of his motorcycle crushing a robot's face. A Tartakovsky hallmark — the lingering extreme close-up on a character's pointed expression — says more than a dozen lines of dialogue.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/27/14747336/samurai-jack-season-five-review-recap-genndy-tartakovsky
Jack is back and better than ever.
The return of Samurai Jack is a slam dunk that shatters the glass. Everything that made the original show so great is back with more intensity and maturity. Tartakovsky has only gotten better with time, and he uses this first episode to set a grim tone and establish new villains while never forgetting to deliver on the mesmerizing action scenes and hyper-focused storytelling that earned the show leagues of fans who are now ready to see how this whole thing shakes out.
9.5/10
http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/03/07/samurai-jack-xcii-review
In Its Final Season, Samurai Jack Is Still the Most Aesthetically Daring Show on TV
Samurai Jack does offer familiar narrative pleasures: Tartakovsky and his screenwriters tell a compelling, deliberately spare story about a man who's as cut off from his geographical and emotional roots as Odysseus. Prior seasons weren't afraid to structure themselves as collections of encounters or moments, akin to poems, short stories collected in a book, or songs on an album. These new episodes feel more obviously serialized, which makes sense considering it's chugging toward a finish line. But the style is still dazzlingly, and at times alienatingly unlike anything you've seen recently, unless you count the most audacious stretches of Hannibal, The Leftovers, Louie, Atlanta, or The Girlfriend Experience — and even those shows don't adopt muscular, abstract minimalism and run with it the way Jack does.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/samurai-jack-tv-review.html
Trailers & Behind the Scenes
Announcement Teaser
Teaser 1
Teaser 2
Teaser 3
Teaser 4
Teaser 5
Teaser 6
Trailer
Sneak Peek - One vs. Many
Samurai Jack: Season 5 Behind the Scenes
Samurai Jack: Season 5 Behind the Scenes - Music
Genndy Tartakovsky shows off production art Samurai Jack Season 5
Interview with Genndy Tartakovsky, Phil Lamarr, and Scott Wills about Season 5
Where and When to Watch
Samurai Jack is playing at 11:00 PM ET (4:00 AM GMT), every Saturday starting March 11th, on Toonami. Feel free to come join the
Toonami |OT| when watching it live. Any sort of extended discussion or analysis, either about the episodes, the plot as a whole or whatever, is recommended for this thread. Really, this is a general guideline in an attempt to avoid splintering discussion, but just post where you feel most comfortable.
If you have a cable login, you can stream Toonami live
here. If you don't have cable, you can pay for a service such as
DirectTVNow,
Sling TV, or
Playstation Vue.
Source
It is not known where it will be available for streaming, though I will update the OP with that information when I get it.
WACHA!
