Samurai 7 - Vol. 1 (Animated) (Subtitled and Dubbed)

Advantages: Art, animation, fun to watch and never boring.
Disadvantages: Slow moving plot, odd mix of genres may not sit well with some.

...It's really rare that I find an anime that I like as much as Samurai Champloo. It's even rarer to find an entire series that I'm willing to fork out for the box set. If you like anime, you'll love Samurai Champloo. The art and animation is superb, with amazing fight scenes. The production values are almost as high as you would find in a major anime film. The anime has it's own distinct style of animation which really helps set the mood of the story and characters. The characters, "Mugen","Jin" and "Fuu" all have an extensive past that is slowly unraveled throughout the 26 episodes. Mugen and Jin are both rogue samurai wandering Japan without any real purpose until a chance encounter leads them to a waitress at a local tea house named Fuu. After several events the two samurai find themselves following Fuu around Japan. They all... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Unique Anime , Great music
Disadvantages: Lots of violence

...terminology; you will never hear me claim to be down with the hip-hop scene in any way). Cowboy Bebop fans are also in for a pleasant surprise. Many of the voice talent for the dubbed version of Samurai Champloo is lent by the same voice actors who voiced main characters in Cowboy Bebop. The voice of Spike is once again the rebellious main character in Mugen and there are special appearances from the voice talents of Jet and Faye. Samurai Champloo contains much profanity, violence, and adult situations. Normally I don't agree with the ratings on anime, but in this case I have to agree with the 16+ rating that Samurai Champloo earned. This one's for the big kids only. It's hard to judge a series based on one volume, but I can tell you this; it looks like Samurai Champloo is going to do for hip-hop/R&B what Cowboy Bebop did for jazz.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Character info and audio options, and chapter select
Disadvantages: not enough episodes on one disc

...on one side but both, giving me a view and feel to how two friends having to fight each other felt. The dvd contains 2 MPEG-2 discs with 6 episodes of the series from episodes 7 to 12 with a total length of 180 minutes, with bonus dvd character information on the character of Asuran. Other features are the 2 audio options on the dvd of english dub and original japanese dub. along with a series of subtitle options from english and a range of european languages. with 5.1 dolby digital surround sound.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful