Samurai Champloo Part 3 Episodes 9-12

The road to the Sunflower Samurai continues to yield detours for Mugen, Jin and Fuu.  From warriors with supernatural skill to a cult of warrior monks posing as ninjas, Mugen might find he’s in for a helluva good time.  Meanwhile, a woman with a sorrowful tale attracts Jin’s attention but is it enough to sway him from his current promise?  And after traveling with two quick on the draw Samurai for so long, how does Fuu feel about her two traveling companions?

Contrary to what I might have been saying so far, I don’t hate Samurai Champloo.  I only think that some of its core elements are holding it back, mostly in regards to the main quest and the characters.  I want the show to be better and, case in point, I got most of that wish in todays set of episodes.  Two of them were centered around the true anti hero we should be following around while the failings of another were made up for by one of the most essential players in Samurai Champloo’s make up.  So yeah, this week I have more good than negative things to say, let’s get cracking.
 
The first half of this third set of episodes were Mugen based and man the quality of episodes does kick up when he is front and center.  Mugen’s always been hands down the most entertaining of the three leads and he deserves a series all his own.  These two episodes also split up Mugen’s exploits into a pretty hilarious one while the other found him facing an opponent that was almost out of his league.  Between the two, the former was my favorite.  It’s not everyday you see Mugen and a bunch of warrior priest ninjas getting so high on weed that they instigate a Feudal Japan Woodstock Event, Purple Haze and all.  Plus Mugen’s little drug trip went full trippy Gainax, it was beautiful.  As for the latter episode, not only was it good to see Mugen get properly challenged but also rise to the occasion and actually think his way to victory.  His wild man ways are front and center but Mugen does have a brain when it comes to combat.  These two episodes compliment each other so well, seriously we need more of these in Samurai Champloo.
 
Jin got his own central focus episode and…I’m a bit torn on it.  On the one hand, I sort of get why he’d be protective of a woman he just met but falling in love with her after pretty much one night?  Those romances are hard to pull off and I just don’t get why Jin is so invested in this one womans heart, her safety sure but love?  I didn’t think they had any real chemistry and just being so out of the blue, yeah for me it didn’t work.  However, what was working overtime was the soundtrack.  I don’t know what it was about the choice of music for this episode but that collaboration between the conglomerate of composers behind the scenes did something the dialogue and story couldn’t: make me think this episode could have worked without words.  This is one of those rare instances where the sounds and beats could tell this doomed love story so much better.  It’s reminiscent of something like Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, a dialogue-less feature with the music playing storyteller flawlessly.  Much like how I spoke highly of Mugen’s episodes, a wordless episode of Champloo handled by just the OST alone wouldn’t hurt the show at all.
 
Since I’ve basically structured each paragraph of this review around our core trio, might as well close it out with Fuu cause, well she continues to be one of the shows main problems.  Fuu is pure annoyance who is either whining about lack of food or money, getting kidnapped, or constantly reminding Mugen and Jin about their promise to find the Sunflower Samurai (you could make a drinking game out of all of those btw…would recommend it though).  Oh and we can add being jealous of every single woman who hits on Mugen and Jin to her list of annoying insecurities.  Mugen teasing Fuu about liking Jin is one thing but if I cant buy Jin’s romance with a random woman, I definitely cant buy him having any interest in the girl who causes him nothing but trouble just about every episode.  Now, all of that being said, if I’m someone who cant stand Fuu for even a second…WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT AN UNECESSARY CLIP SHOW EPISODE NARRARATED BY HER???!!!  Why do we even need a clip show at all?  Stall for time for better episodes?  Give Fuu something to do…which ends up being nothing at all like usual?
 
This weeks set of Samurai Champloo episodes was a step up from the previous entries thanks to some fun Mugen adventures and the soundtrack succeeding at conveying true emotion when Jin couldn’t.  Skip the recap episode cause recap episodes are pointless and so is Fuu and you can probably continue on with Samurai Champloo with nothing lost.  Which is exactly what we’re doing right back here Next Monday at the Gundam Anime Corner.