Damn you, Cartoon Network! I was all set to give cancel cable for another 8 years, then you had to go and start Samurai Jack. There I was, just flipping past random channels one Sunday and had to stop when I heard Mako (who, by the way, is simply a god). Now life comes to a grinding halt on Monday nights for a half-hour.
What a fantastic story! What intriguing animation! I love the look, sound, and all the little touches (a motorized inflatable dragon boat?? What are you smoking, Mr. Tartakovsky, and did you bring enough for everyone?) I’ll be first in line to buy the video/DVD of the 3-episode opener, hopefully with the “making of” segment they showed opening weekend.
Just generally cool, that someone is doing such good adult animation. Easily the best hero epic TV has managed yet.
I tell people I got cable again so my kids could watch Cartoon Network, but the truth is, I watch it almost as much as they do and Samurai Jack is one of the reasons.
This is by far the best adult oriented 'toon produced with English as it’s native language (I won’t drone on and on about all the cool Japanese stuff).
I am fascinated by the artwork on this show. The backgrounds sometimes remind me of picture-book illustrations. I also think it’s cool that there’s no black outline around anything. It softens the images and makes it less “cartoony” somehow.
Jack rocks. The background art is fantastic, I love that there is always a unique colour scheme. At first I was worried that the show was going to burn itself out by just having Jack fight huge hordes of bad guys. I was relieved when every episode wasn’t like that.
I love the look of this show and Mako’s voice talents are put to excellent use. I also like how no matter how weird things appear to Jack, he never loses his cool…or his manners
Awesome awesome show and have loved every single moment except for 1. When he put his dirty oily sword back in the scabard without cleaning it.
But the art in this series is absolutely fantastic. And all these wierd and amazing things. I love the episode where he has to assault the tower with the three guardians who can spew arrows like it’s nobody’s business. So he blinds himself (with a blindfold) and lets his ears guide him to victory. The chilling quite of the snowbound landscape was completely enthralling.
With that being said I see great difficulty with the scripts. It seems like once Jack beats Aku there’ll little left for him to do. Which would inevitably lead to them dragging out Jack’s quest to return to his own time. Personally I feel that stretching things like this out for more then 1 season weakens my enjoyment because I don’t feel like progress is being made. But that’s for Genndy to work out.
The backgrounds (at least the non-city ones) make me think of an old illustrated copy of Kipling’s Jungle Book I read as a child. It’s surreal, almost abstract at times, but at the same time very vibrant and alive.
Osiris, the blindfold scene is probably my favorite in the entire series so far. I’ve done some blind fighting in the IFGS, and that scene really strikes home–that’s very much what it’s like. The slight crunch of a foot on grass, the sssshhh of fabric, soft breathing all slide together to form an image–clear, but not entirely fixed in place.
Yup!
add two more votes for Samurai Jack…I personally LOATHE anime…but Jack is great and not FUCKING cute… god anime makes me puke but thats another thread…
Everybody saw Mr. Peabody, Droopy and Jock(my 5 yr old son found his copy of Lady and the Tramp to prove that WAS Jock) in the first episode?
Once again the Olethlings[sup]TM[/sup] have outdone me on the hipness meter. Its a good thing I have little kids to clue me in on what is cool. Mrs. ShibbOleth informed me the other day that this was their new favorite (along with Sagwa). So I finally caught a few minutes this evening to see what the deal was. It looks pretty good from what I saw, please tell me the violence is not too realistic or over the top so I can allow the wee ones to keep watching.
A lot of the violence appears to be of the animated X-Men type: lots of robots or mechanical limbs get hacked up, but no living things. At least, from what I’ve seen so far.
I concur with lucie and Arden that Cartoon Network is the only reason to shell out for cable.
Samurai Jack just proves it. A little something that grown-ups can appreciate. Not overly violent, compelling stories, noble hero, and a truly terrifying villain.
Cartoon Network is almost universal, too. We got this channel in Switzerland, Germany, and Thailand as well as back home here in the good ol’ USofA. Unfortunately in most other countries they don’t show the nighttime cartoons as the channel switches over to something else around 7 or 8 pm. IIRC, it was Turner Classic Movies in Switzerland.
