The latest in what seems to be a growing trend of cross-production between renowned Japanese anime makers and US companies is: Afro Samurai.
Gonzo, the Japanese company who is known for having high quality visuals, teamed up with Spike TV to bring this anime to the US first. It’s based on a dojinshi, a Japanese fan comic, and its buzz was mostly surrounding the fact that Samual L Jackson has a starring role in this anime.
I’ve managed to watch the first episode, and here are my brief thoughts.
The art style and animation is outstanding, which is to be expected from the likes of Gonzo studio. It actually reminds me of Samurai Champloo–the action scenes are quity gritty and are filmed as if the camera is shaking, and while in combat the fighters go through some very exaggerated poses. The black people (with a show called Afro Samurai, what do you expect?) seem to be drawn with a different kind of detail than how you usually see Japanese/White people drawn in anime, it’s quite interesting to see. Gonzo also did shows like Gantz and Basilisk, both of which had some very graphic scenes. Spurting blood, dismemberment, it’s all here as well.
So far the voices seem to be pretty adequate. This premiering in English probably helps, since I don’t have the Japanese version to bias my opinion on. In fact, the English version could probably be considered the ‘original’ (Afro Samurai will air in Japan later as well). I was surprised to find out that Sam Jackson isn’t actually the main character, but now seeing his role placement he would not have worked as the main character. Instead, he is the hyper, annoying sidekick to the Afro Samurai. It works for what he does with his voice, and I mean that in every possibly positive way I can.
The story so far hasn’t quite grasped me yet, but it doesn’t seem like anything out-of-the-ordinary. Basic plot premise is the old fallback revenge, and there are a few other elements in there to spice it up as well. There seems to be some kind of tournament, when the people have to wear a bandana with their rank on it. Anyone is open to challenge them, to kill them and take their rank. This is actually how the story begins–the main character seems to be the son of the Number 1 ranked fighter, who is killed by another enemy. Thus, the boy grows up to be Number Two, and is looking for that man who has remained Number 1 since that incident. Along the way he seems to be getting picked on by other people wanting to climb the ranks. So far i’ve seen derivative elements from several shows, but it doesn’t detract from the experience so far.
To be honest, my expectations were pretty low going into it. Spike TV doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation for high quality programming. I’ll say that I was suitably impressed by the first episode of Afro Samurai, though it was probably more for the production values than the actual content. I think the series is only going to run for 5 episodes, which would be a simple OVA in ‘normal’ anime.
Afro Samurai premiers at 11PM EST on Thursday January 4th on Spike TV.
Lazy Onion 