Samurai Champloo, ep. 01-07
Sun, Apr. 9th, 2006 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI really adored Cowboy Bebop, so I wasn't quite sure what my reaction to Samurai Champloo would be. But after ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
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 whackingrilina 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!
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!
Tags:
(no subject)
Mon, Apr. 10th, 2006 10:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Mon, Apr. 10th, 2006 11:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Mon, Apr. 10th, 2006 11:42 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Mon, Apr. 10th, 2006 11:47 pm (UTC)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.