Samurai Champloo, ep. 01-07

[oyceter]

I really adored Cowboy Bebop, so I wasn't quite sure what my reaction to Samurai Champloo would be. But after rachelmanija told me it was a deliberately anachronistic yet extremely accurate loosely-structured quest story set in late Edo Japan, complete with hip hop, I decided I'd definitely give it a try, if nothing else.

Fuu, a bouncy 15-year-old waitress with no family, manages to sort of rescue Jin, a stoic ronin, and Mugen, a convict from Ryuukyuu (Okinawa). In return, she makes them promise to a) not kill each other and b) help her find a samurai who smells of sunflowers. And off they go, a-questing.

It took a while for the characters to catch me, but right now, I really want to watch more! This is largely due to episodes 6 and 7. Episode 6 is extremely cracktastic and had me giggling so hard that I would have fallen off the bed, except rilina's laptop was on my knees and that would have been bad. So I just giggled nonstop through all of this episode and half of the next episode.

Episode 7 is more serious, and there's just some beautiful animation in the last parts.

To give you some sense of how the series works, the first episode starts with a statement that the series is set in Edo Japan (1600-1867) and that it is historically inaccurate. And then they add something like, "And if you can't deal with that, screw you!"

Another episode narration starts with a summation of the action done kabuki style, and yet another follows Fuu, Mugen and Jin's tracks across an ancient map of Japan, except their trail looks like a series of subway stops.

And now, episode six, which is currently my favorite episode ever! I'm cut-tagging, but seriously, anyone can read this. No spoilers except for the episode, and it was so utterly cracktastic and insane and funny and historically accurate yet anachronistic that it still makes me giggle!

Just like the crew of Cowboy Bebop, Fuu, Jin and Mugen are perpetually earning money in various not-quite-legal ways and then just as promptly losing it, due to unfortunate events. This time, they decide since they're broke, they'll enter an eating contest and get free food that way! But it's not free, like Fuu thinks, so they all ante up their weapons.

Poor Jin is extremely displeased by this, in his very stoic way, and mentions rather forlornly, "A sword is a samurai's soul..." just as Mugen yanks it out of his belt and hands it over.

Jin, of course, is first to quit in the eating contest, and decides to spend the time staring daggers at Mugen and muttering that he must get his sword back. Then it's just Fuu and some other guy.

The other guy ends up winning because Fuu stupidly quits by accident, and they end up following him around, trying to get their swords back (mostly Jin).

And then, we find out that this guy is actually... a European! And he speaks Japanese with a horrible accent! And it's the precise accent that half the people in my Japanese class had!

Usually I feel bad laughing at people for accented language, given that my Chinese is very badly accented, but... HEE!!!!!!! Every single time the guy opened his mouth, I would start giggling uncontrollably and whacking rilina and yelling, "OMG IT'S SO BAD!!!!!" But it was! It was so horrible and yet so absolutely accurate!

(I'm giggling just typing this out, which is really embarrassing)

And then! The poor guy gets this lovely flashback sequence, where he's sitting, shirtless, in a giant field of tulips with a picturesque windmill in the background, and musing that he came to Japan after he read Ihara Saikaku's The Great Mirror of Male Love.

He mused a great deal in the field of tulips, quite forlornly, about being a freak and deciding to come to Japan, where his attraction to the male sex would be in perfect keeping with the samurai tradition, just as Saikaku wrote!

At this point, I nearly fell of the bed and missed half the dialogue because I was giggling so hard.

But! The shirtless muscled guy! Holding a lone tulip! Dreaming of the chance to be gay in Japan!

There were also several horrible puns at the end regarding tight-assed countries. *giggles even more*

And the best thing was that despite the absolutely cracktastic picture of this hulking guy in a field of tulips dreaming of romance, it was also so historically accurate from what I know, to the Dutch ships trading at Nagasaki to the mention of Saikaku and his book, and the summation of the book (I had to read it for my thesis), and the onnagata kabuki player (guys who specialized in being women on stage), to Mugen and the Dutch guy's surprise to find that the woman on stage was played by a man, since they're both not Japanese.

And Jin! And his sad expression at losing the sword! And the commentary during the eating contest was exactly like Japanese TV game show commentary, down to the exaggeration about Fuu's bottomless stomach that could probably swallow a universe!

I can't say I haven't laughed this hard in a long time, since the last time was just last week with the parakeet/cockatiel of doom, but the best part about this was that it was immaculately planned out, and not because the animators were on crack. I mean, they were just to think of it, but it was so hilarious down to the last detail (OMG THE ACCENT!)! Now I want someone who knows Dutch to watch it so they can tell me if the Dutch in the episode was accurate or not, because I have no idea how they got the bad Japanese accent so well!

rachelmanija has some write-ups, as does kate_nepveu (here), and rilina (eps. 1-4 and 5-7).

(ETA: fixed links)

If anyone else has any, let me know!

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If you thought ep 6 was cracktastic, wait until The Two Episodes Near The End [tm], when the writers start smoking the really good stuff and lose what little grasp on reality they've had so far. :D

[oyceter]

Wow... things get more cracktastic than the lone Dutchman of man-love?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the two near the end are more cracktastic than actually good, in my opinion, although that may have been that I was annoyed at their existence since the episodes before those were so intense, and I was not in the mood for random wackiness.

Anyway, the episode coming up, where they try to pass a border crossing with fake IDs, is both cracktastic and hilarious.

Regarding Mugen, I started really liking him in "Misguided Miscreants," which involves his backstory, and fell madly in love with him during the nose-picking scene immortalized in the icon above, no, really-- you'll understand why when you get to it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The First Really Cracktastic Episode makes more sense when, as I think it was octopedingenue said, you realize it was originally supposed to be aired as the Halloween episode - it's a throwaway themed one-shot. The next one doesn't have any such excuse, although "He's got a very small strike zone!" will never not be funny, once you've seen it.


I'm usually a little nervous about using the nosepicking icon, because I can never tell if people really won't appreciate Mugen digging in his nose on thier page.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Poor Jin, he quit after only two bowls of unagi. I am sure I could have managed at least three. Jin has another traumatic unagi encounter in a later episode, by the way.

That episode rocked my world. Although I now worry that my Japanese sounds just like the gay Dutch guy's, only worse, because I can't put together long sentences like he does.

PS. Perhaps we should ask rilina if we can make an alternate icon, "Behold the parakeetcockatiel of DOOM."

[oyceter]

I'm going to try and make a parakeet/cockatiel/huh? icon. Along with the Sakura of DOOM icon, which I swear I haven't forgotten.

And I bet I could have eaten a lot more unagi than Jin.

He looked so sad! And I loved him staring at Mugen, telling Mugen to eat more just so he could get his sword back.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

PS. Perhaps we should ask [info]rilina if we can make an alternate icon, "Behold the parakeetcockatiel of DOOM."

You should!

Though I think the icon would be even better with some animation and the silhouetted birdcage against the red background.

[oyceter]

Oh, that would rock!

I need to dig up screencaps soon.

PS

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have a dedicated Samurai Champloo memory list, by the way.

PPS

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That "eats/fights/stares" icon is the best thing ever.

Re: PPS

[oyceter]

Eeeee yes!

I love Jin and Fuu. Mugen is growing on me.

[kate_nepveu]

Psst--try this for my _SC_ posts:

http://kate-nepveu.livejournal.com/tag/samurai+champloo

I should watch this episode with subtitles now and see if I can hear the bad accent.

[oyceter]

Thanks! Link has been fixed.

The accent is so funny!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I checked the VAs for that episode and I still can't believe what I found. The Dutch guy, Johji, was done by a Japanese. By the actor who voices Nii (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=2636), no less. Have found a couple of Japanese blogs that were highly amused by his accent.

There was only one foreigner listed in the credits, way down, a Dutch guy, and I figured him for the assistant who tells the Dutchman that he has to come home: cause that was for sure a real Dutchman speaking Dutch there.

For anyone who knows the schlock sword and samurai TV shows, the kabuki show they find themselves in was a riot too, because they show up in the middle of, and segue into, the 'reveal' scene from Mito Komon: Do you not know who this personage is? This is the former vice-Shogun, Mito Mitsuni-ko. Down on you knees! Bow your heads! Also the troop of basket-wearing monks, which in jidai-geki are always secret agents/ ninja/ assassins, and here are... Dutchmen. Love that episode.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice that! There's a Mito Komon reference waaaay later in the show (not saying what it is because it's a spoiler). That's so cool!

Speaking of Nii, I am still traumatized by harukami's post.

[oyceter]

Gaaaaah now it's in my head again too. rilina read it first this weekend, and I was brushing my teeth, and all I could hear her say was: "What. The. Fuck?!"

[rilina.livejournal.com]

And that still pretty much sums up my reaction to it. Ewww.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Back in the early days of the fandom- before either Kamisama or Burial- we didn't know what was in the bunny and certain of us were speculating that it contained Koumyou's soul. Vol 5 frontispiece was adduced as proof.

...I'll leave you alone now.

[oyceter]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww need to scrub brain out now.

[oyceter]

The Dutch guy was Japanese?!?! That is so awesome!!! It's Niii!!!

Needless to say, this tidbit of news makes me very happy.

[(Anonymous)]

The moustache guy spoke perfect dutch, however the gay guy was just a jap trying to speak dutch.