Review of Samurai Champloo
-GODAMNIT ITS BORING- [review by a non fanboy] [contains early game of thrones spoilers] Samurai Champloo, the alleged little brother of the classic anime Cowboy Bebop. Both works rely heavily on music, are episodic and have a very similar feel to them but, if you ask me, Champloo is just Shinichiro Watanabe's bastard and not the good - Jon Snow type but the Tommen Baratheon overly-calm-and-boring type. I generally really like episodic shows; (1)they aren't addictive so you can do things between episodes besides biological functions, (2)the characters' personalitites are well-explored so you get to see many dimensions of their personality, (3)the interactions between the protagonists can belovingly repetitive without getting annoying and (4)the anime may span many many episodes, i like that. Well, Champloo only (over)does the first of these.
1-It's not addictive sure, but for me it was one of the few anime that i felt the need to drop (but i couldn't i'm a completionist); the story was so basic and advanced like a very slow snail. After getting to know the characters and what their adventure was about in the first few episodes, essentially nothing happened until the last 3 episodes or so, except very few episodes that gave some background story about the protagonists or had an interesting supporting character. I get that the show is supposed to be calm and chill but this got to the point of being a total bore.
2-The characters personalitites are extremely basic (check their entries they're tiny) to the point that they can be fully described with 2 words. Mugen - Impulsive, Irritable || Jin - Reverse Mugen || Fuu - Hungry, Determined (in that order). Also i have to add that they are all very stubborn. About their past, we learn very basic things, where-what-why leave. People from their past come for 1 episode and dissapear again.
3-Well just as the characters themselves, the interactions between them are also very one dimensional and annoyingly repetitive. Typical Interaction: Mugen does something, Fuu reacts to Mugen's action, Jin gives zero fucks.
4-Well i do like my anime bigger but this wasn't the case for Samurai Champloo thank god, I would've killed myself if this crap was even 1 episode longer. In this case actually, i think it would have been preferable if this series was shorter, since all those pointless filler episodes would have gone down the drain and the interesting stuff would have remained, making the watching experience actually bearable.
Overall an anime with great animation, sound and potential but terrible execution. Tons of filler, unexplored plotlines and a very weak and basic narrative. One of the most boring anime i've seen, only comparable to Gantz and some hentai. I don't recommend watching it but hearing the OST is a good option.