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15 Years of Samurai Champloo


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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:12 pm Reply with quote
Nice article indeed.

That said, I have the opposite opinion of the author; in my opinion Champloo is a much more groundbreaking title than Bebop was. Bebop, to me anyway, was a good but not stand-out title. It seemed like any of a hundred sci-fi themed Shonen anime. It's claim to fame was its accessibility to a western audience, not that it was anything special beyond that. Of course there are countless samurai-themed shonen anime as well, but Champloo really feels different from the norm.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:25 pm Reply with quote
I really enjoyed Champloo, not as much as I enjoyed Bebop but its definitely among the best anime in my mind. But I feel like it started a long trend where his work is severely overshadowed by it's own soundtrack. Exception for space dandy, everything else he made since then was a good step below the soundtrack, whether it was a good anime (like kids on the slope) or an awful one (like terror in resonance), the soundtrack is always the best part of the show and never disappoint. Carole and Tuesday is also not looking at breaking this pattern.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4558
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:59 pm Reply with quote
I fell head-over-heels in love with Champloo from the moment I saw that mind-blowing first fight between Mugen and Jin set to that driving hip-hop beat. It may not quite reach the sublime heights of Bebop, but it's every bit a modern classic. I think the irreverence shown in its glorious mix of anachronisms extends quite neatly to its characters: there's a lighter tone overall than his earlier work, a sense that these characters really can move beyond their pasts and find a new life together. That being said, it also tackled some very heavy subjects: it's a rare anime series indeed that could include both the persecution of the Ainu people and the plight of early Japanese Christians. All of that blended together makes it a series I'll happily keep rewatching for years to come.

(Also, props for the shout-out to the classic fan site Amalgam!)
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5286
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:32 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Ian Condry, author of Hip-Hop Japan, is quoted saying, “It's not surprising that rappers and samurai go together. They both believe in honor and loyalty. They both represent where they come from. They both battle for supremacy through the strength of their skills.” This idea is compounded by Watanabe in an interview a few years after Champloo aired, stating, “I've been interested in hip-hop since it first appeared. I believe samurai in the Edo period and modern hip-hop artists have something in common: Rappers open the way to their future with the microphone; samurai decided their fate with the sword.”
The show makes them out to be opposites, just look at Mugen and Jin, the former is very much a street thug with an attitude, while the latter represents traditional Japanese values with polite behaviour.

Discussions on Samurai Champloo always seem rather limiting, as it boils down to samurai and hip-hop, when the show deals a lot with Japanese isolationism(which this barley touches on). You've got the Dutch trading, the American invaders and on the underground Christians, which feeds directly into the final plot.
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3614
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Love Bebop and enjoy most of Watanabe's works, but this one never did it for me *shrug*
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gridsleep





PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:14 pm Reply with quote
"...our favorite space western."
Or, second-favorite, if you are a Firefly fan.
Don't... annoy the browncoats. Just...don't. Friendly warning.


Also, just as an unrelated note, how much better the live action Ghost in the Shell might have been had they actually gotten Carrie-Anne Moss (the real Motoko Kusanagi) instead of sex kitten Scarlett Johanssen. And a different director. And writer. And special effects. And publicity department.Let's face it, if anyone other than Hollywood had done it. Anyone.


Actually, Japan's centuries of isolationism was ended not by any evolution within Japan's society, but by Admiral Perry's gunboats parked in the harbor, explicitly threatening to blast the place back to the stone age if they didn't immediately open up to unrestricted trade with the West (East? If you are right in the middle of the East, which way is West?) The US has been nation-building since the first Continential Congress. And Americans wonder why the world hates us so much? Certainly not because we are so loveable, which we are not.


"..orgasmically-fluid animation..."
Now, there's a phrase that won't let you forget it no matter how much you drink. Believe me, I'm trying. I may have to give up breathing for this one.
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LightningCount



Joined: 04 Mar 2018
Posts: 228
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:07 pm Reply with quote
While some members here have noted other worthy and fascinating avenues this article could have touched on, it was a very well done and interesting piece.

For me, Champloo is in a strange gray area. The first time I saw it, I found it to be very uneven, and its more exaggerated art style (compared to Bebop) felt jarring to me. Moreover, the mix of time period ideas was hard to get used to and kind of felt weird just for the sake of weirdness. Over the years, I've seen parts of it again, and my opinion of it has improved quite a bit, but I still don't know how to feel about it as a whole. I do feel it is a notable work of its era, however, and Manglobe was great at visually executing atmospheric and appealing animation that moved well.

One of the things that throws me off is how my mind lumps Samurai Champloo into a semi-movement of the mid-to-late 2000s of high-budget, highly choreographed sword/weapon-fighting anime set in historical periods or settings that resemble those periods. So, Champloo was 2004-2005 in Japan, but many of us caught it on Adult Swim later in 2005-2006. This dovetailed into Afro Samurai, which had anime content in early 2007 and 2009, airing on Spike TV, which not only had hyper-fast swordplay but included anachronistic elements and hip-hop/rap influences like Samurai Champloo. Likewise, the hyper-fast swordplay (or often spearplay) of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit was 2007 in Japan and 2008-2009 on Adult Swim. And finally, in 2007, there was also the technically impressive Sword of the Stranger by BONES that debuted in a limited US theatrical run in 2008. All that happened in roughly a 3-to-5-year period, and off the top of my head, as great as Champloo's action animation was, I can't say immediately that it was miles ahead of what came shortly after it. Moribito, in particular, is an underappreciated triumph.

When I lay it all out, I see that Champloo was the first out of the gate, but because of its timing overseas, it sort of blends into the pack for me. (I think Afro Samurai's Spike TV debut was about 10 months removed from Champloo's final episode airing on Adult Swim.) Despite its eccentricities, as of right now, I still feel Cowboy Bebop was the more solid, complete, and distinctive show. In terms of anime, the only shows that really overlap with Cowboy Bebop are Outlaw Star, Space Adventure Cobra...and to a lesser/more abstract extent, Lupin III and Trigun and maybe Crusher Joe.

In spite of its own jarring oddities, Cowboy Bebop's presentation of its scifi world and characters delivers in subtle ways that can't really be 1-to-1 compared to any other scifi anime, which is what has made its legend grow over the years and has won me over more than it initially did. You basically have the visual polish and creativity of a big Gundam OVA like 0083: Stardust Memories--not coincidentally sharing staff with Bebop--but on a show that is not mecha or space opera-driven. It's a very rare thing, even after all these years, which is also what elevates those that try to come close, like its less-subtle contemporary (and in-studio forerunner), Outlaw Star.
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sokpupet



Joined: 22 May 2004
Posts: 133
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:20 pm Reply with quote
One of, if not the only time that censoring profanities for broadcast didn't detract from the show.
I don't know who came up with the idea to use record scratches ([adult swim], Geneon, Manglobe, etc.), but it was brilliant.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4558
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:53 pm Reply with quote
sokpupet wrote:
One of, if not the only time that censoring profanities for broadcast didn't detract from the show.
I don't know who came up with the idea to use record scratches ([adult swim], Geneon, Manglobe, etc.), but it was brilliant.

Oh yes. I really wish the SCRITCHA-SCRITCHA track was an option on home video. Very Happy
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gacha



Joined: 03 Mar 2018
Posts: 74
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:14 pm Reply with quote
Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo... There truly was a time when Watanabe did something special. Now we can only get Carol & Tuesday.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1746
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:17 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Ian Condry, author of Hip-Hop Japan, is quoted saying, “It's not surprising that rappers and samurai go together. They both believe in honor and loyalty.


What songs are you listening to, Condry? I don't think Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Dre or any of the rappers from the 1990s were concerned about loyalty when they were talking about their tricks and Bs. It probably would have been better to have mentioned that the only loyalty that concerned rappers as far as music in that era was that of loyalty to your boys. A better sentence would have been that "both believe in honor and loyalty to their allies".

Anyways...the show felt very fragmented to me. You had the plot of Jin and Mugen constantly trying to one-up each other, and then you'd have an entire episode centered on the Dutch trading. I liked the infusion of hip hop into anime and on that specific front, it worked well and was very unique. But overall, I like Bebop more for the plot fluidity and music incorporation than Champloo.
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5516
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:59 pm Reply with quote
This show was really mixed for me. Overall I love it, but it felt a bit jumbled up too much for me. The music was great but not the perfect match a lot of people feel it is, to me. But after Bebop and this, I created a hope in my head that Watanabe would someday make a great music anime. Carole & Tuesday started off fulfilling that dream of mine but then it spoiler[had a talent show arc that was basically an anime version of American Idol] and I basically lost all hope. Really just feels like an advertisement for the dozen or so different western artists he has on the show. It seems like now days he loves the music more than the story he's supposed to be telling.
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TexZero



Joined: 25 Oct 2017
Posts: 581
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:42 am Reply with quote
Cutiebunny wrote:
Quote:
Ian Condry, author of Hip-Hop Japan, is quoted saying, “It's not surprising that rappers and samurai go together. They both believe in honor and loyalty.


What songs are you listening to, Condry? I don't think Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Dre or any of the rappers from the 1990s were concerned about loyalty when they were talking about their tricks and Bs. It probably would have been better to have mentioned that the only loyalty that concerned rappers as far as music in that era was that of loyalty to your boys. A better sentence would have been that "both believe in honor and loyalty to their allies".


Probably Biggie and Tupac etc....

You know the reason for two of the biggest and bloodiest gangs in US history that didn't involve the mafia.
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Snomaster1
Subscriber



Joined: 31 Aug 2011
Posts: 2791
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:47 am Reply with quote
Here's what I'm wondering,gridsleep. Did any of your invective in your post have anything at all to do with "Samurai Champloo?" For instance,what does Hollywood's version of "Ghost in the Shell" have anything to do with this show? I saw a little of this movie once. What I saw wasn't too bad,but it could have been better. The Japanese who saw this movie had few complaints.
I admit I haven't seen a whole lot of "Samurai Champloo." And,those episodes I did see were a mixed bag. Some were good,some weren't. The episode I liked the least was "Baseball Blues" There were those who liked it. I didn't. To me,it was just your typical collection of negative American stereotypes acting like jerks. And,as if to make the point,they threw in a Commodore Perry caricature in there for good measure.

Now,I've seen Perry condemned on this site a bunch of times,but nobody ever asked why he had to take the actions he did. Well,the story goes back a little ways before Perry ever set foot in Japan. The U.S. had wanted a trade agreement with Japan for years and had tried to get it. Long story short,those missions ended in failure. What's also overlooked here is that there were a number of incidents in which American ships had rescued Japanese fishermen who were lost or sailors from shipwrecks and returned them to their native land.
What often happened was that the returned sailors and fishermen were executed...along with their American rescuers. It was things like that were in the back of Perry's mind when he went to Japan. He felt that the only language the Japanese would understand was force and if that was what it took,that's what was needed to be done. And,it's not like this whole thing's a big secret,either. There are a bunch of books at the library that deal with this and also there are websites like Wikipedia that have the same information.

It's a shame that those like gridsleep just needlessly condemn the U.S. without learning the full history behind it. They don't try to learn the other side of the story. They just attack America for no good reason.


Last edited by Snomaster1 on Thu Jun 27, 2019 4:28 am; edited 3 times in total
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#895357



Joined: 27 Jun 2019
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:54 am Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:
Nice article indeed.

That said, I have the opposite opinion of the author; in my opinion Champloo is a much more groundbreaking title than Bebop was. Bebop, to me anyway, was a good but not stand-out title. It seemed like any of a hundred sci-fi themed Shonen anime. It's claim to fame was its accessibility to a western audience, not that it was anything special beyond that. Of course there are countless samurai-themed shonen anime as well, but Champloo really feels different from the norm.

Absolutely agreed . Champloo is the peak of Watanabe's anime career
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