Samurai Champloo Part 4 Episodes 13-17

The search for the Sunflower Samurai comes to a halt when an unexpected reunion leads Mugen to some unfinished business he thought he’d left behind long ago.  Meanwhile, wanted terrorists seek revenge for a terrible deed and the discovery of gold in a river could lead to our trio losing their heads.  Blood, betrayal, rage, redemption and maybe even a little romance are waiting for Mugen, Jin and Fuu, if a petty argument between them doesn’t threaten to end their journey first.

Samurai Champloo enters its second half this week with two 2-Part adventures and one stand alone sandwiched in between them (hence why today we’re looking at 5 episodes).  The thing about two partners is that there has to be a very good reason for them to be two parts and not just one episode being stretched painfully thin to fill run time.  Samurai Champloo has good and bad examples of this with both of these stories.  Plus the stand alone episode is easily one of the best and most hilarious so it mostly balances things in the good column but let’s break it all down shall we?
 
Our first 2 Parter, “Misguided Miscreants” sees Mugen get his backstory with the reunion with his Ryuku…friends?...colleagues?...forced acquaintances?  Whatever you call them, Mukuro and Koza coming back into Mugen’s life shook him up in a way we haven’t seen before.  Through a beautifully animated and scored sequence in Part 2, we see Mugen was far more savage growing up.  But while Mukuro seemed to fuel that hatred, Koza seemed to quell it a bit.  To see all those forgotten memories and emotions come to the surface made for great storytelling and the ending, holy freaking crap the ending.  The second the track “The Million Way of Drum” kicks in, hold on to your butts.  Is the resolution a bit rushed, maybe.  But there’s plenty of goodness with the action, animation and that beautiful song that plays during Mugen’s extended flashback that more than makes up for it.
 
The second 2-Parter, “Lullabies of the Lost” fares way less better.  This is a prime example of what I said before: making a single episode into two for no reason at all.  The problem is the main story doesn’t advance through Mugen, Jin and Fuu’s pretty quick break up and it feels like it wants to be a deeper rehash of the last time they did this way back in “Hellhounds for Hire” aka Episodes 3&4.  Plus the three’s separate tales aren’t all that interesting, save for a little bit of the interactions between Okuru and Mugen.  The biggest crime of “Lullabies of the Lost” is that after Mugen got a pretty good 2 part episode for himself, I was hoping Jin would get his own pair to flesh out his ongoing feud with his fellow dojo classmates.  Instead, Jin’s showdown with Yukimaru is over before you know it, so much so it feels like an afterthought.  There are a lot of ideas for stories in “Lullabies of the Lost” but the episodes cant pick which one they want to settle on and trying to navigate all three only serves to make this 2 part outing one of the most boring pair of episodes in the entire show.  Also, I cant overstate how sick I am of Fuu’s complaining, especially when she’s holding out on Mugen and Jin about who the Sunflower Samurai is and why she wants to find him so badly.  The two parter does try to delve into a bit of Fuu’s abandonment issues but again it’s just more Fuu being annoying and uninteresting.
 
And in between these two stories of varying quality, we got another winner from the Mugen Comedy Gold Mine.  Not only did we get the return of “Big Fuu” and Jin getting a little lucky himself, we also got a sexy Kunoichi named Yatsuha and man what a woman.  The promise of a night with her would be well worth bulldozing your way through an illegal money printing operation.  The way she leads Mugen on is great, the dude is so easy to manipulate it’s great.  While I don’t think we’re gonna see more of Yatsuha in the show, her inner monologue of how she’s gonna find Mugen again one day and actually marry him is such a cold tease.  I want more of Yatsuha, heck can we trade Fuu for her?
 
It’s also kinda subtle but one thing I do like about a few episodes in this set is the evolving bond between Mugen and Jin.  The two are still rivals first and foremost and they haven’t forgotten their promise to kill each other in battle.  That hasn’t stopped them from doing solids for each other here and there, earning a small bit of respect and trust between them.  This is exemplified in two scenes.  The first is Jin slaying a man who he thought had Mugen killed.  Yes it’s about the fact that Jin didn’t get a chance to kill him but could it also be because he lost a comrade?  His look of relief when Mugen does turn up alive speaks volumes to the latter.  Then there’s the pair going to the Red Light District for a night of debauchery.  They quickly agree to the night out quietly (abandoning Fuu is just a bonus really) and I loved their Rock Paper Scissors throwdown for Yatsuha.  Mugen might score the hottest girl in the house but Jin still managed to please more than a few ladies, resulting in a bad back but worth it?  Idk, I like seeing these two bro out here and there even if their original promise is still intact.
 
This midset of Samurai Champloo episodes started strong with two solid Mugen stories (one serious and one hilarious), showing why Mugen front and center serves the show so well.  However, a boring second two parter highlights how Champloo tends to drag it’s feet, especially when it’s trying to advance its main plot very slowly and barely surely.  However, the show still continues to see the quality soar when the soundtrack is on fire, so there’s more to like than dislike in this set.  Hopefully there’s improvements and then some to come when we continue with Samurai Champloo Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.