He has to go back, go back to the past . His victory was taken from him without honor and he is now lost in a sinister and hostile future that only he can prevent from happening. Armed with his magic sword and carrying the promise he made to his father, this warrior out of time will meet deadly enemies and unexpected allies on his way to the only goal that pushes him forward: to end the evil he swore. destroy .
This is the main plot of Samurai Jack , an animated series created in 2001 by Genndy Tartakovsky that became one of Cartoon Network’s most popular headers and has persisted in the hearts of its fans despite the years. Samurai Jack offered a story of adventure and frenetic combat in a world full of strange creatures, places taken from science fiction and a lot of humor; all wrapped in a narrative tone and unique artistic finish . One servant, like many who lived through their childhood in the early 2000s, enjoyed Samurai Jack as a child and rediscovered it many years later as a more complex series than he could remember.
For those who want to revisit the good times lived with Samurai Jack or for those who are considering seeing it for the first time, these are our 11 reasons why Samurai Jack is a GREAT series and we love it .
1 His reinterpretation of the figure of the samurai
As the name of the series indicates, the protagonist is a samurai. A warrior from feudal Japan who abides by a strict code of conduct and gives his life to a fight in the name of honor and goodness . So far we could say that there is nothing new that differentiates good old Jack from so many other samurai from legends, movies or books. But Tartakovsky wanted to make his own version and therefore introduces the character into a completely bizarre world in which he should be out of tune but (surprise, surprise) he manages to fit in perfectly.
The series takes the discipline of the samurai, his philosophy of life, the relationship with the nature that surrounds him and with his historical legacy and takes it out of the box, relaxing the rules so that it works in his story without losing strength. In addition, certain chapters offer a look at more intimate aspects of Jack’s personality such as his fears and insecurities.
2 His humor-epicity balance
In the third episode of the series, Jack must help some friendly archaeologist dogs (yes, you read that correctly) whose excavations are being harassed by an army of gigantic robo-insects. Well, the inherent comedy of watching Jack newly arrived in the future adapt to the wonders of technology while talking to dogs wearing hats and monocles is followed by a colossal battle in which the samurai improvises armor and charges hundreds of enemies with the naked sword, showing his mastery and skill and overcoming, not without effort, the challenge imposed by his enemies. The battle would convince Akira Kurosawa himself, and even when one gapes at it when contemplating it for the first time, the situation is still comical.
This is a perfect example of how the series plays with its two favorite registers, humor and epicity , interspersing them in a balanced, fluid and very natural way.
3 The freestyle of his dystopian world
Time travel and dystopian futures offer great creative and narrative opportunities as they allow us to create altered (or completely different) versions of our reality. At the beginning of the series, we are shown Jack in a huge city with all kinds of impossible Blade Runner machines but we soon discover that in the future created by Tartakovsky there are many more things besides science fiction. Each chapter takes the elements it needs to tell its own story and this makes for a curious amalgamation of characters, technologies and styles, to say the least .
Samurai Jack presents mythological creatures, state-of-the-art robots, medieval villages and beings from other worlds in one place and makes it work.
4 Aku
Aku is the villain of this story : incarnation of all the evils of the world, responsible for the samurai has traveled in time and the destruction he finds in the future and counterpart of the noble Jack. He is also a liar, funny, sarcastic, bitter, a bit wed , sad and even pathetic at times. Aku has more of a failed trilero than an almighty tyrant and we love that, since he is a character who conquers from his first appearance and who gives the series some of his best scenes without ceasing to be an enemy to the height when he touch.
In an interview with Genndy Tartakovsky on the occasion of the launch of the video game Samurai Jack: Battle through time , the creator said that his favorite character (without any doubt) was Aku and from here we cannot agree more.
5 The mix of genres
Old samurai and martial arts movies are an obvious influence on this series, as is science fiction (from time travel and such) and more classic fantasy with its adaptation of the hero’s journey in the person of Jack. However, in the five seasons that Samurai Jack has, we find a mix of genres that goes beyond what one might expect . After a chapter in which Jack must liberate a village from Aku’s henchmen, we can continue with a noir cut story in which a mafia robot chases the samurai as if they were in The Maltese Falcon and the next we will be in the middle of a Wild West canteen waiting for the train to arrive. You never know what you are going to find and that keeps the series fresh.
6 The secondary characters
And if the star duo weren’t enough, the series is riddled with secondary characters who cross each other once or several times in Jack’s path, either to help him or to fight him . Among the wide variety of secondary characters are a burly Scotsman with a machine gun leg and many daughters, a monkey man who teaches Jack to “jump well”, an African-American samurai with a lot of flow , a demon that feeds on the souls of the fallen warriors, countless bounty hunting robots of all shapes and sizes, an alternate version of the 300 rocket launcher Spartans and the odd god from classical mythologies.
7 His covert violence
Samurai Jack is a series in which fighting and action are very common , but it is also a series that was aimed at a child audience whose parents might be upset if they saw the protagonist decapitating and cutting limbs left and right. How to solve it? The people in charge of the series turned almost all of Jack’s enemies into robots , machines that you could cut in half and in which only their internal circuits and a good jet of oil or fuel would be seen every now and then. Until the fifth season, which has a totally different tone, not a single drop of blood is seen but the violence is explicit enough to make the fighting interesting.
8 Originality in form
If before we pointed out how surprising the series was in terms of mix of genres or environments, it was not far behind in the way it had to tell the stories of each episode. Samurai Jack is one of the most creative animated series in both form and substance, and risk and originality always deserve recognition . From his use of silences and composition on camera with simultaneous shots to moments in which the image loses importance and what stands out is the noise of the environment , Genndy Tartakovsky’s series has offered us real gems .
For the avoidance of doubt, here is one of the best examples of how the series turned the traditional formulas around and grew from its own differentiating traits: during a fight against a shinobi, a ninja specialized in the handling of the shadows, Jack wears head to toe in white to hide in the light. The fight then becomes black and white, the outlines disappear and we only see the contrast between the objects in the environment and the characters themselves .
9 His unmistakable visual style
Anyone who was a fan of Cartoon Network in the early 2000s will know what we are talking about and, if its series were now reissued for new generations, it would not take a month to identify it. Samurai Jack’s aesthetic was simple but with many possibilities, with a fine line and flat colors that played with proportions and polygonal shapes to build the world and its characters. This style was adopted as a house brand on Cartoon Network and was visible in other series such as The Powerpuff Girls , Dexter’s Laboratory , The Clone Wars (all three had the participation of Tartakovsky) or Johnny Bravo .
10 He knew how to grow with his audience
The series began in 2001 and ceased production in 2004, offering four seasons full of action and comedy that, however, did not offer an ending to the story of the timeless samurai. In 2017, the Adult Swim platform premiered a fifth and final season in which it once again featured the creators and part of the original team . Thirteen years had passed since season four and those who had seen Samurai Jack were no longer children but young adults whose world had grown up with them.
Genndy Tartakovsky and his team knew how to respond to the needs of their audience and created a fifth season that kept the essence of the original series and paid tribute to it at various times, but also offered a more adult experience with more violent combats (here we did see blood ), deeper and more complex plots, and a darker tone.
11 He had an end to match
Yes, the fifth season was able to measure up and the criticism and comments from the media and fans were widely positive. It is true that the season itself suffered a change of register when it was already in the middle but it followed a causality related to Jack’s story arc. And what was the closing like? Well, simple, classic and satisfying . The last chapters of Samurai Jack offered us the great final battle against Aku that was owed to us for so long and Jack’s rest (with sentimental setback included) after having fulfilled his mission after so long.
The end of the series appealed to the viewer’s inner child , the one who had been left wanting to see what happened to the characters he liked so much. It was not an unexpected or groundbreaking ending, but it was the ending that Samurai Jack deserved.
