Throughout time many legends have been told about the mighty samurai Warriors of honor loyally serving their masters as well as lone Ronin serving only to uphold the values they hold true whether they be religious or personal. Around these parts youll hear tales of one such Ronin a bad ass motherfucker whos as silent as the grave and twice as terrifying. This man knows no love no empathy and no tears. He invites no trouble and will offer no mercy to those stupid enough to give it to him. He knows few pleasures save for the warmth of a womans body the refreshing tang of a cool glass of lemonade and the sweet sweet flavor of revenge. Rumor has it he doesnt even need to eat That the blood of his enemies which constantly bathes the blade of his sword provides him all the nourishment he could ever need. I myself have no idea which rumors are true and which ones are just the product of fear but Ive got no intention of finding out but there is a bounty on his head Care to collect? Youll know this young Samurai when you see him as he sports an afro A rare hair style indeed and one that will surely become his sigul long after hes departed our world if he ever does. But dont worry traveler theres no need to fear this man Well unless you have what he wants. Otherwise hell be perfectly willing to live and let live. See youve probably heard tell about the headbands Trophies only the mightiest of samurai are able to carry and the only way to obtain one is to spill the blood of its previous owner. Well this Afro Samurai is carrying the 2 headband which If you cant guess Is the second most prestigious headband in the known world and the only one that grants its user the right to challenge the greatest samurai currently living the holder of the 1 headband. And you didnt hear this from me dear traveler but the Afro Samurais drive to challenge this man isnt based on mere ambition but something much more personal. He fights not for glory or for honor But for revenge. Unlike most anime Afro Samurai was the product of an international collaboration. Studio Gonzo was interested in adapting the deeply personal work of Takashi Okazaki a manga artist who had been influenced by his love of both samurai classics and African American culture particularly in regard to rap and RB. He was shy at first and probably wouldnt have signed over the rights if not for the encouragement and participation of American actor Samuel L Jackson who had gotten his hands on a rare action figure based on Okazakis illustrations and had become obsessed with seeing the project through. Jackson and Okazaki apparently connected instantly language barriers be damned and the project went ahead albeit with what Im told was a 1 million dollar budget. For an American cartoon that sort of budget for a five episode series is abysmal but its not that generous for an anime either despite the fact that anime is universally cheaper than its western counterparts. For Afro Samurai this meant that each episode could only cost less than twenty thousand dollars and that meant they had to cut a lot of corners Which they did brilliantly I might add by turning the cheapness theyd been cursed with into a highly appealing visual style that incorporates the absolute best out of all the budget saving tactics youve seen before. It never quite falls back on the time old talking heads at least not to the point that youd ever notice it but when movement is limited the beautifully detailed artwork is more than sufficient to keep your eyes glued to the screen. To be completely honest I dont think Ive ever seen an anime Well any animation really Get this much mileage out of such a limited color palette. There are occasional splashes of color throughout the series especially when it comes to the buckets full of red blood and the golden glow of our heros precious lemonade but for about 90 percent of the series the colors on screen are almost monochromatic playing with numerous shades of white black and gray as well as the occasional tan of the ground. At night the cloudy overcast sky is a captivating sight and during the day the lighting effects are beyond gorgeous. Other visual effects such as rain and fog filters are integrated smoothly with the celldrawn animation. The real triumph here are the action scenes which are fast fluid and dynamic even when the animators have to break a characters anatomical frame in order to keep the pace up. It only takes one real glance to see this kind of animation style in motion as Afros namesake blows in the wind like the reflection of the moon in a puddle and the animators are not shy about letting an occasional arm or leg move with exactly the same level of consistency. It winds up working out better than youd think not only because of sharp fast editing but because the sound design of every single sword movement is completely on point. I love all of the action scenes in this series but a few easy highlights are an early fight where Afro splits a bullet with his sword a huge bloodbath of a brawl from when he was a teenager that almost feels like Saving Private Ryan in the way its brutality is show to effect him and of course theres also a fight towards the end where he takes on a robot whos been designed to look and fight like he does but has no problem taking Afro to the sky with it when those tactics dont pan out. As you may have guessed from Okazaki and Jacksons connection that I mentioned earlier the music in Afro Samurai is made up mostly of hiphop full of vocal tracks whose headbanging beats fit the pace of the action in a way thats easily similar to The Boondocks. The vocal work was performed by RZA a former member of the WuTang clan a band that was in its own right influenced by Eastern culture. He also produced much of the music as he did for his former band. The instrumental tracks feature slightly more traditional orchestration but they fit more to the background humbly doing their job without standing out too much. Besides why bother making the instrumentals stand out when you have tracks featuring The Game Too Short Snoop Dogg and more which are guaranteed to leave an impression all by themselves? The soundtrack if youre lucky enough to have it features a small handful of tracks that werent from the show but inspired by it and I dont mean inspired by like all the bullshit tracks on the Pokemon Movie soundtrack These are songs that actually fit the series. The English dub is a very unique entity as its comprised almost entirely of actors who work in traditional animation. or Prelay. This is a term referring to the practice of recording a voice actor first and then animating a character around them afterwards as opposed to ADR voice acting which does the opposite. Thankfully they translate very well over to the more prevalent Anime recording style although there are minor lipflapping hiccups from time to time. The only anime regular who appears in this dub is Yuri Lowenthal who plays Afros childhood friend Ginno who was an idealistic young boy in Afros past but is even more compelling in the present day scenes due to certain spoiler reasons. He does an outstanding job probably the best performance in the dub but because of a certain other big name he was never the one I was going to get excited over. No matter how much hype went into the American airing of the series And yes the hype was palpable The truth was regardless of the shows success I was going to watch it either way because of one of the names attached to it. Hes one of the most underrated actors of our time in my opinion and as much as I enjoy his live action work I practically chomp at the bit when I get a chance to hear him in a cartoon or even in the rare video game and I couldnt resist the opportunity to hear him in an anime. Hes not only my favorite black actor or my favorite voice actor no hes my favorite ACTOR period. Ive been following him since BEFORE what many would consider his most memorable role in Pulp Fiction and his inclusion made this dub for me. Thats right Im talking about Phil Lamarr the original voice actor for Samurai Jack who once again returned to the genre as the young version of Afro as well as one of the Brothers a league of elderly assassins including such prolific actors as Jeff Bennet and John Dimaggio Oh you thought I was talking about Samuel L Jackson? He did a fine job. I wish I could say more but as a main character he had relatively little to do or say throughout the series. The titular character Afro is a very softspoken character choosing only to speak when necessary letting his actions do the speaking for him unless he has no other choice. Its not really Jacksons fault as its not really an actingheavy role but he still does an admirable job with it. Thankfully he has dual roles as he gets a lot more lines as the mysterious Ninja Ninja a loudmouthed tagalong who appears to Afro the minute he earns the 2 headband properly. The true identity of Ninja Ninja is never openly revealed nor is it stated until the final episode whether or not he exists at all. While his endless jabbering is welcome most of the time breaking up long periods of silence and questioning Afros motives he can become annoying with his knack for stating the obvious. Think of him like Ds hand from Vampire Hunter D. The other two highbilled names are Kelly Hu and Ron Perlman though neither one really appears enough to justify having featured names. Outside of flashbacks Kelly Hu only appears in one episode as a shrine maiden who takes Afro in when hes near death and nurses him back to health Using both medical AND sexual healing to see him through. Kelly exaggerates her accent with this character which I guess is fitting because shes one of the only definitelyasian characters in the cast. Ron Perlman is unrecognizable as the main villain Justice who only appears in the first and last episodes but thats mostly because he hisses his lines like a snake playing up how misanthropic and morally bankrupt this 1 samurai has allowed his time in the top to make him as well as highlighting his delusional godlike ambitions. If theres a problem with this dub its probably in the fact that some of the Brothers played by veteran voice actors though they may be are performed as though they were southern evangelical priests a bafflingly poor fit for the tone of the series. You wouldnt be unjustified in saying that Afro Samurai had a very weak story. Despite all that happens in its five episode run little to none of it seems to matter in the long run. Afro gets into fights that are resolved as easily as possible and then moves on afterward as if nothing had happened at all. This is because at its core Afro Samurai is the very simple story about a surprisingly simple man. While we do get generous doses of flashbacks to explain who he is and why hes doing what hes doing you really wouldnt lose anything important to the plot if you just told his backstory and then cut directly to Afro standing at the gates of his final enemy. Even at five episodes this anime could have been reduced to one or two at the most with nothing you would need to know lost in the process. The story does not see actual progress very often and neither does Afros journey as he himself sees little to no development at least if you dont count his childhood and teenage years in the flashbacks. This has become a major criticism of the series and its one I feel I should address. One of my favorite movies of 2013 was 2 Guns a moreorless by the numbers action film that featured both Denzel Washington and Mark Walberg as undercover agents from two separate factions pretending to be friends to investigate each other constantly fighting together and backstabbing each other as the story progresses. I say that but the story for the most part was an incoherent mess. There were so many betrayals and plot twists that Im not sure even the writers knew what was going on so why did I love it so much? The answer lies in the execution and what the movie brought to the table that worked. The insane story was made palatable by the sharp clever dialogue and the chemistry between the two leads and it ended in such a way that it was able to embrace its insanity Where else am I ever going to see a shootout between the Navy the CIA and a drug cartel that takes place in the middle of an honest to God cattle stampede? And thats exactly why I like Afro Samurai so much. There are plenty of samurai stories with depth and complexity to them Samurai Jack Seven Samurai Rurouni Kenshin But in how many of them do we get to see the main character ride a robot version of themselves into the stratosphere and then fight it all the way down? The only theme that Afro Samurai really tackles is the cost of revenge as you do get to feel the bodies of Afros friends and enemies pile up over time which forces you to wonder whether or not vengeance for his fathers death is really worth it in the first place and his past does come back to haunt him at numerous occasions as will often happen with the hunt for vengeance. Aside from this there are a lot of things that just kind of happen but the saving grace And what makes the execution here so good Is that its all done with so much sincerity that none of it ever feels forced or pointless. Every single fight is memorable no matter how easily theyre resolved and even no matter how forgettable or how generic the attackers themselves may be. Does this excuse the obvious problems with the series? Well yes and no. On the one hand while this series does make for good popcorn material it doesnt offer much in the way of a rewatch and much like your typical Superman story its kind of difficult to get invested in the story of an unstoppable man. Theres also quite a bit that doesnt make any sense The rules behind the headbands in particular are a head scratcher and Im not just talking about how easy it would be to fake a 2 headband but What happens when 2 kills 1? Do they choose who gets the 2? Apparently they do because Justice just hands it over to little Afro so that some bandits can pick it up. And why cant someone just break the rules and kill the 1 with a sniper rifle? Guns exist And while I had no problem with most of Afros enemies the writers never portended that they were supposed to be important Except for the Empty Seven who prove to be completely wasted by the end. And yet the series keeps a consistent tone that makes it really easy to get lost in. Shallow as the story may be one dimensional as adult Afro may be underdeveloped as several concepts may be its a dark gritty story thats taken completely seriously and steeped in the love of two very adult genres. Its definitely style over substance but with both a style and substance that feel more like a collaboration between Kanye West and Quentin Tarrantino than a collaboration between Sam Jackson and a Mangaka its worth at least a second look. Thats not to say the series is as much as the sum of its parts but theres something to be said for how much fun it is to watch a passion project thats creatively unhinged and held back only by budgetary limits. Its not trying to be art its trying to be grindhouse and to that end it does a pretty solid job. Afro Samurai is available from Funimation in an impressive foldout DVD case as well as your standard thin bluray release. A followup movie Afro Samurai Resurrection is also available from the same company and while you can buy them separately you can also get them as a bundle in a set called The Complete Murder Sessions. The original manga consists of only two volumes and it IS available stateside from Seven Seas Entertainment. A video game for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 is unfortunately out of print but its not that difficult to find a copy online. Afro Samurai isnt for everyone. I personally enjoy it but theres a good reason I can only watch this series about once a year tops. It has a definite cool factor but so did the first seasons of RWBY and Hellsing and I hated both of those. Granted Afro Samurai has quite a bit more to offer than those two didas much as it fails compared to their future incarnations mostly in regard to its great production values addictive music and engrossing adult tone but I have to admit that if it were even one episode longer Id probably hate it. I love Afro Samurai but like so many other guilty pleasures out there I have to be brutally honest about it This series works really well but only in small doses spaced out over time. Hell even as far as Samurai shows with heavy hiphop influences go Samurai Champloo did it first and better. I give Afro Samurai a 5/10