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2016 was almost ten years ago, which is a wild and scary thing to think about. In the United States of America, Barack Obama was still president, the awful David Ayer-directed Suicide Squad would be out in theaters that year, and 2016 would be one of the most unique years in Toonami’s history. For the action cartoon block, coming off 2015 was certainly an exciting time. After a year of the block having been shrunk down from six and a half hours to a more reasonable three and a half, Toonami had normalized, but I would make the case that 2016 was probably the last year where, at least for a good while, they picked up unique shows for the block. We of course got runs of popular show picks such as One Punch Man, but we also got shows such as Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, which marked the return of the Gundam franchise to Toonami, along with the very much forgotten Dimension W. However, 2016 would also be the start of the acquisitions of the so-called “long runners,” shows with 100+ episode counts that were heavily requested, such as Hunter X Hunter and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
To go back to the fiasco in 2015 that saw Toonami’s runtime cut, it caused a scare within the community that Toonami was on its last legs and that the loss of hours was a sign of that. Obviously, that did not happen. As cool as it is to have Toonami on for longer than a few hours, it was clear that they weren’t going to be wasting money acquiring new shows just to shove them in death slots, so it made sense to trim the fat of the block off and give that time back to Adult Swim itself. Looking back 9 years on, 2015 was, overall, a solid year for the block, with Aniplex showing up with Kill la Kill and Sword Art Online II, Deadman Wonderland returning for a repeat run along with Michiko and Hatchin coming in from Funimation, and block newcomer Sentai Filmworks delivering titles like Akame Ga Kill and Parasyte premiering on it. Plus, by the end of the year, we got Intruder II, which still stands as one of the best Total Immersion Events the block has ever made. We also got the news that Samurai Jack would be getting a revival, and during the last couple weeks of Intruder II, in which the bumps were just computer text, Toonami would announce their newest show, set to replace Michiko and Hatchin: Shinichiro Watanabe’s next work after Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo.
While this wouldn’t be Samurai Champloo’s debut on Adult Swim, as the show’s English dub was previously aired as part of Adult Swim Action in 2005, a year after the original Japanese debut, and then ran for a few years on Adult Swim in syndication, after some time, the license for it lapsed. However, they decided to rerun it on the now-revamped Toonami block, which at that point had been back on the air for about four years. These kinds of rebroadcasts have historically been a great way to show a potential new audience a classic series. Personally, I’d never seen Samurai Champloo before that point, although I had heard about it, so when Toonami brought it back, I watched it from episode one to the very end. I wish I still had my Twitter up to see if I was live tweeting it and what I was saying back then (probably something cringe worthy, regretful, or both.) I can somewhat recall enjoying it back when it ran on the action cartoon block in 2016 but how does it stack up now?
Coming from the sadly now defunct animation studio Manglobe, Champloo would be the first title produced by the studio. Samurai Champloo is a series about two ronin samurai, Mugen and Jin, accompanying a young girl by the name of Fuu on a journey to find a samurai who smells of sunflowers. It was licensed and distributed by the now-shuttered Genon Entertainment before being license rescued by Funimation, with a good English language dub produced by Bang Zoom! Studios.
I found when watching Samurai Champloo that this is Watanabe both showing and telling his audience who came from Cowboy Bebop that this isn’t more of that. From the opening moments, the hip-hop song “Battlecry” by Nujabes is a far departure from Bebop’s signature jazz opening “Tank!”.
Battlecry’s DJ scratches, rap flow of the lead singer, and heavy emphasis on bass pair with the visuals of the opening and combine to make it one of the best openings I have ever listened to. Much like you shouldn’t skip Tank!, Battlecry shouldn’t be missed either. Speaking of the opening visuals, the song and animation sync up perfectly, almost in the same way that Tank! complemented the opening visuals of Cowboy Bebop. Battlecry compliments Champloo from episode one to episode twenty five. I do suspect that a lot of the opening itself was a deliberate choice, especially in having one of the final moments be a goofy expression from Fuu. 
To me, it feels like Watanabe is saying to the Bebop fans that are watching that they shouldn’t expect this to be the same thing just set in a different setting. In fact, the name Samurai Champloo itself is also a clue to that as “chanpurū” in Japanese refers to being “mixed up.”
That aspect carries through with the main trio of Samurai Champloo, who are nothing like the crew of the Bebop. Mugen is the exact opposite of Spike: much more loud, aggressive, and very animal-like. Jin is reserved, soft toned, but stern and serious. Meanwhile, Fuu is not really a fighter and tends to get kidnapped a lot. The main trio stick out like a sore thumb, but they all work. Mugen and Jin have a never-ending rivalry of trying to kill each other, while Fuu exists as a funny character that has great interactions with the characters she encounters. However, I find that Fuu, out of all of Champloo, tends to suffer the most because she’s the character that needs saving the most. I think Fuu should’ve displayed some level of fight more than have her be an object to move the plot along.
The art direction and animation tends to be looser and more vibrant with imagery, and while there are a lot of off model cuts, plenty of them are very smooth and well animated action scenes. I found that the decision to mash up all these genres while still being an enjoyable romp does tend to drag in its back half more than its beginning portions and found that Samurai Champloo is more self-contained than Cowboy Bebop. You can watch Cowboy Bebop out of order, but after watching it fully, it’s very clear it really wants to focus in on the characters of the Bebop in the beginning and have the back half focus on exploring more unique one-off episodes, with a few episodes furthering the plot and story of the Bebop’s crew. Samurai Champloo is more like the second half of Bebop throughout the entirety of the series. There are a lot more self-contained episodes that don’t do much to further the main plot of Samurai Champloo, which can cause it to lose focus by the end, resulting in a second half not as strong as the first. Despite this, watching it again, I had a more enjoyable time watching Champloo because of it. One of my favorite episodes is Episode 23 “Baseball Blues”, an entire episode dedicated to a game of baseball against Americans. This episode was silly in seeing this fictional historic show tackle Japan’s beginning interest in the very popular American sport. It’s a fun episode overall where the tone is lighter and goofier rather than serious. Samurai Champloo has a great sense of humor about itself, and it never takes itself too seriously. It can do drama, but I find that a show that’s too serious doesn’t hold my attention for long. For example, Episode 11 “Gamblers and Gallantry”, is an episode that handles drama extremely well. The episode is about Jin falling in love with a debt-ridden suicidal woman who has to work at a brothel to pay off her debts and by the end Jin pays for her to escape and start life anew. The final moments of when this woman manages to get away was incredibly emotional and one of the highlights of how well it can balance silly one-off episodes and serious heavy scenes. Cowboy Bebop also tried to balance that line of silly and serious but for me, could never quite pull it off. It leaned far more into the dramatic side, while Samurai Champloo does not do that; instead, it finds a middle ground and meets you there.
Revisiting Samurai Champloo in 2024 is certainly a different feeling. It’s like having a wave of comfort washing over you after dealing with a lot of heavy shit. 2024 has not been an amazing year and I think we can all feel that with the next four years (let’s hope and brace for impact) but rewatching Samurai Champloo brought me comfort when I needed it, and I think it did the same for me back when it ran on Toonami as well. I wouldn’t say I love Samurai Champloo, but it’s a great series that if for whatever reason you haven’t given a watch, please do. Shinichiro Watanabe has proven that he can do more than sci-fi and break away from what made him a household name with Cowboy Bebop.
