anime: Samurai Champloo

[meganbmoore]

If the whole series had been more like eps 20+, this likely would have ended up hovering around my favorites list, but as it is, I had the same problems with it that I did with Cowboy Bebop...too much about the music, style and action scenes and not enough about the story or characterization.  I mean, I'm(obviously, if you read my anime posts) always good for a good action anime, but it's hard to care about the action if it's about the action instead of the who or why.  I was more attached to this one than Cowboy Bebop(which, incidentally, is far from being the worst case of "style over substance" and I did like...like Samurai Champloo...it's just that the popularity of both rests much more on how the story is told than the story that's being told or the people in the story, and that's not my thing)

But the last leg was really good(and 20-21 had Sara, the only female in the show besides Fuu who was remotely interesting) and I'd probably have a different opinion of it if the whole thing was more like the last episodes, because that's when the focus shifts to story and character...Cowboy Bebop did the same thing towards the tail end, and that was when I really started paying attention to it, too.)

Comments

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

Cowboy Bebop was one of the first anime series I saw. I think it appealed to Americans so much because it was more accessible (not to mention the English dub was pretty good). Americans aren't used to big involved plots with massive characterization and threads of things introduced in ep 1 and resolved in ep 26. Cowboy Bebop only had that one arc or so that was barely addressed in only a few eps. More standalones.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yay, I am not the only one not in love with Champloo...I like elements of it a lot but have yet to finish it...