Review of Samurai Champloo

I promised to some friends that some day I would do a review on Samurai Champloo. And well, since the dough for the Nikuman is still rising, I might as well do this now. So, where to start? First of all, if you visit my profile you'll find out rather quickly that I'm not a big fan of Watanabe Shinichiro. Or his works. Still, I try to rate it as objective as possible. So, lets get started already. The first point on my list would be the story aspect, which I split up in three sections (something I'll do for every category, be prepared): The actual story, thesetting used, as well as the execution of said story.
Story 2/3: As you know from the synopsis, Fuu is searching for a 'samurai that smells like sunflowers'. Why she does that is left in the dark at first, but is a pretty promising start. It leaves a lot of options where to go with the story, and grabs your attention. On the other hand, this plot isn't anything special either, we have seen this plot before, and I can guarantee, we will see it again.
Setting 1/3: I am a weaboo. And I f'n love japan, I love the Sengoku era, I love the Meiji era, so what could possibly go wrong, right? To be honest, while I like this time setting, I never felt like Watanabe made much use of it. It might as well have played in renaissance europe, or in space, or in medieval america or parts-unknown. It wouldn't make any difference to the story except the samurai being a knight, panther warrior, astronaut or whatever.
Execution 1/3: Just like in Cowboy Bebop Watanabe nearly spends no time on developing his characters or story, but instead focusses on pointing out the differences between that time depicted and our own time, which he describes as better (Sidenote: Our time is not better than the past, each time has its own problems to tackle. But this is a discussion for some other time).
The story is mostly episodic, with moreoften than not episodes, which absolutely do nothing to the overaching plot. So overall, lots of episodes felt to me like a total waste of time.

So the overall story score is 5/10 (No, this is no error)

The Art. This section contains the character designs, the Backgrounds, as well as the fluency of animation (especially in battlescenes).
Character designs 1/3: To be honest, the character designs are the worst part of this anime, because quite frankly, they look unproportional. Especially Fuu's and Jin's heads.
I feel like Jins head is way too thin for his body, while Fuu on the other hand has a rather broad head. Your typical head would be like 1/3 of the shoulders, but Fuu's head is big enough to fill over half of her shoulders. Jins head on the other hand is thin enough to only take 1/4 to 1/5 of his shoulders. This looks really weird (for reference, I took ep 25 7:17 as example).
Also, in contrast to the background the characters are quite pale, with their skin being nearly white. The characters are (thats hard to describe, I hope I can get this across correctly) outlined pretty sharply, so they look like cut-out figures running over a paining. Which is a rather good transition...
Background 2/3: ...because the background seems like a drawn painting which uses oil colors. Well, I'm not much of an artist though. Why is it not full score? Because I miss some clear contures. Even on distances like 10 meters or so, most objects are depicted as rough outlinings.
Animation 2/3: This is probably the point I pondered on the most. So I will start the simple part. Outside of battlescenes the animation is just as good, as you'd expect. It isn't mindblowingly good, but it does it job. But now the fightingscenes... (again, I took ep 25 as reference) For some of the scenes I were pondering whether this is 2 or 3 points, and for some I were pondering whether I give 1 or 2 points... First of, the battle scenes are rather americanized. What does that mean, you wonder? The battleanimations certainly look flashy and all, but to a point where they sacrificed realism for action. Pretty much the same way as Hollywood does on a regular basis. As a kendoka myself, I obviously disliked that fact. Scenes I remember clearly are for example running on the sides of buildings, cutting whole stones with a kama, or single animated strikes with 3 or more after images of attacks. Don't get me wrong, other anime do this, too. But those aren't set in a (pseudo)realistic Meiji-era japan.

Thats not too shabby for the art works at least, 6/10.

The soundscore is pretty obvious. Voice acting (since I nearly never watch dubs, I'm just rating the japanese ones), BGM/OST, and OP/ED.
Voice acting 2/3: With Saber as one of my favorites one would think, that I throw all rationalism out of my window right now, but unfortunately I dislike Kawasumi Ayako in her role as 'Damsel in distress'. It doesn't really fit her image, but obviously she's a good enough voice actress to make it at least work. Nakai Kazuya on the other hand is just as great as always. I mainly remember him from Gintama (Hijikata), and well... there is absolutely nothing I could criticize here. He hits the role of Mugen perfectly. Period. Sato Ginpei on the other hand is rather unexperienced, and for his particular role he works pretty well. He doesn't seem to emotional, but I can't remember Jin having emotional lines to begin with... Same for the rest of the cast, they definitely do their job good enough to not drag down the anime, but they don't blow off my head either.
BGM/OST 0/3: I think I should mention this first - I.am.not.a.Hip-hop.Fan. Now it's out. Nonetheless. Anime like Peace Maker Kurogane prooved for me that Hiphop-Meiji is a viable combination, if used correctly. And as you already can guess from 'if used correcty' I don't think that Samurai Champloo did a good job with it's OST. Rather than supporting the themes or situations of the anime, the OST just went off and did its own thing. To put it simply, I felt like watching an anime, while at the same time having a random Hiphop CD in my CD Player. The music and the pictures were never in sync, at least thats what I feel like. Especially as fighting themes the BGM used felt really misplaced (I don't even need to write this anymore, but again ep 25).
OP/ED 1/3: As mentioned earlier, Hiphop and Meiji is viable. Unfortunately I seriously disliked the OP 'Battlecry'. So much, that at some point I started skipping it. However, even though it is not my taste, I feel like it fits the anime. The EDs on the other hand are more to my taste, even if just by a small margin. Still, I rarely listened to any of those, so I won't dwell to long on this.

Of course, the score went a bit down because music taste is subjective, but I think I tried my best to stay more on the objective side of things. Overall 4/10 for the Sound.

Next is the characters-section... Short spoiler, I never came to like any of those characters.
However. I rate for the initial character design, their development (both characters and relationships), as well as the relation/interaction between the characters.
Initial character design 2/3: The anime starts with a cast of three completely different characters. Ditzy Fuu, mysterious Jin, and wild Mugen. They all have their points of interest, vived backgrounds, and are overall well rounded. Again though, without blowing your head off of excitement. The same goes for the introduced side characters. the episodes in which they appear deliver adequate information on their backgrounds, as well as reasons etc.
Development 1/3: I... just wanted to write something witty, but I can't come up with anything! To be honest, if I compare the start and end traits of the characters and relations I reach just one conclusion: Next to nothing changed. Don't get me wrong, they definitely developed, but I don't feel like they would act different from before.
Relations 2/3: Well, I already mentioned that all of the maincharacters act and think completely different. This obviously ends up in pretty interesting interactions as well. Unfortunately those interactions are as old as anime. Or even older. None of the situations are new or groundbreaking, but they are not bad either.

So overall, its 6/10. (I don't want to compare the cast of Champloo and Bebop, which is pretty much identical)

Finally, my Enjoyment. This is the only section which is, and always will be, completely subjective. I decide on how much I liked what I saw, how much I want a continuition (or in ongoing anime how much I look forward to the next episode), whether or not I would recommend it to friends, and whether I would woatch it again (and how often i would watch it again).
So, much ado about nothing...
Did I like it? No.
Do I want a continuiton? No.
Do I recommend it? Depends on who asks me, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people I know at least.
Would I watch it again? Please.
So, Enjoyment ist pretty much 1/10. I can't remember myself even smiling once during this anime.

But here's the point. I don't really feel like rate something bad, just because I dislike it.
For the overall rating I won't use my own Enjoyment, but an average of 5 pts.
Just for reference, an enjoyment of 1 would result in an Overall score of 4.4, the maximum enjoyment would result in an Overall score of 6.2.
As usual I appreciate feedback to improve my reviews.
And now, my dough is done, time to eat.

Oh, tl;dr:

Story 5/10 - Mediocre story of a girl searching a certain person.
Art 6/10 - Fluent animation with unrealistic movement
Sound 4/10 - Good voiceacting, but no synergy of sound and picture
Char 6/10 - Well round cast, without much development.
Enjoy depends on watcher.