My two favorite Anime series of all time are: Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin. Samurai Champloo manages to capture both of them quite nicely.

I’m not sure how to describe this show. It takes place in the mid-1700’s in Japan. The main protagonists are Mugen, Jin, and Foo. Mugen is a rather reckless swordsman who likes to test his skills against anyone with a sword. Jin is a more reserved samurai who doesn’t feel a need to prove himself. Fuu is a girl, looking for a samurai who smells like sunflowers. (I think that is Samurai Champloo).

Mugen and Jin first meet at Fuu’s restaurant. Mugen wants to face the governor’s highly skilled bodyguards, when Jin walks in and says he has already killed them. A fight commences, which ends when the restaurant burns down (caused by some of Mugen’s earlier activities.) Mugen and Jin are scheduled to be executed and Fuu gets their promise to help find her samurai, in exchange for her help to escape. They escape, wiping out the governor and his minions along the way. Fuu makes them delay their own duel until she finds her samurai. And the adventures begin.

The series is very humorous. Fuu keeps getting into awkward situations. Mugen and Jin keep rescuing her, unintentionally, since their personal problems always seem to involve the cause of Fuu’s problems.

The writers keep throwing current lingo and music into the show rather than trying to keep it all historical. It gives everything a slight edginess. The Rapping Samurai, with his home-boy back-up group, is going a bit over the top. In the opening they flashback 24 hours and you are looking at a modern-day-minus-one Tokyo street scene. Oops, jump back to feudal Japan.

There are 26 episodes in the series. I am on the second disk, up through Episode 8. I am enjoying the writing, the storyline, the production values, and the characters. I hope they can hold up throughout the series. And maybe, we’ll find out what the sunflowers are all about.

Maybe I should give some brief episode summaries to provide a flavor of the series.

First two episodes involve meeting, escaping execution and its aftermath.

Next two episodes: Mugen and Jin join opposite sides of a gang war, Fuu has to work off a debt (incurred by cheating) in a brothel.

Fifth episode – to get travelling money, Fuu works as a model only to be captured and delivered to the Western sailing ships in the harbor, Jin plays chess and Mugen mugs muggers (who are also the ones that captured Fuu). I almost forgot, the ukiyo-e artist Fuu models for is credited with inspiring Van Gogh to paint sunflowers.

Sixth Episode. – The group guides a gay Dutchman around Edo. He is so glad to find a place that doesn’t condemn his lifestyle. Unfortunately, Japanese don’t like foreigners.

Seventh Episode- Fuu’s wallet, with everyone’s money in it, gets picked. She finds the pickpocket’s mother and takes pity on him while the cops and yakusa are after him for another pickpocket job. He dies. Fuu’s sad.

Eighth Episode – A rapping Samurai, trying to make his reputation by killing the samurai with glasses (Jin), hits on Fuu. Jin has pawned his glasses for the the money and so isn’t easily picked out as a target (glasses are rare in 1700’s Japan). Samurai’s wife comes back to claim him after rolling Mugen and Jin following a night of drinking and empty promises.

8/10 for now.

I am up to Season 4 in Red Dwarf. RD was a BBC SF show that started in the late 80’s and it is hilarious.

The basic premise is that Lister, a complete slacker, is the last surviving human in the Universe. He was put in statis by the ship’s (Red Dwarf’s) captain for bringing a cat on board. He stayed in stasis for 3 million years after a radiation leak killed the ship’s crew and the ship’s AI didn’t let him out until the the radiation levels were back to normal. The cat was saved from the radiation by virtue of being in the protected ship’s hold at the time of the leak. The cat was pregnant. And three million years later, Lister’s only living companion is an evolved descendant of the Cat.

Lister’s other companions are: a hologram of his old roommate, Rimmer, a total git that Lister can’t abide; Kryten, an Android that the ship rescues along the way; and Holly, the Ship’s AI. (Holly thought that having Rimmer as a companion would help Lister keep his sanity by allowing Lister to plan all sorts of torments to inflict upon him. He/She might have been right.) Oh yes, all the other cats left the ship in a religious schism over what color hat they should wear at the sacred curry stand; and Lister is their God. The Cat left on board is apparently areligious and believes that if anyone is God, it is he.

Rimmer is one of those characters that believes he is intelligent and competent despite all evidence to the contrary. Rimmer is also the one who caused the radiation leak that killed the crew.

So far the Red Dwarf has visited parallel dimensions, been visited by evil aliens, stumbled across garbage pods and criminal transport vessels, found GELFs and left GELFS, and have found a number of ways to cross time. Holly, with an IQ of 6000, has tried to invent the Holly Hop Drive. He actually did invent something but there was a question as to whether it was a hop or a skip. Lister is the proud mother of twins and he witnessed Winnie the Pooh executed by a Fascist Firing Squad.

Not only are the weekly situations more than a little twisted, but the ongoing relationships between the characters makes the show so enjoyable. (The actor who plays Cat has captured the essence of cats.)

There are 8 seasons to the show, so far. Each season is 6 half- hour episodes. So far, only the first 6 seasons are on disk. The cast has added commentary to each disk. I guess that they hadn’t seen some of these episodes since they were broadcast the first time. The commentaries are quite interesting as well, especially choice comments about some fans who really need to get a life.

I understand a movie is on its way and if the movie is a success, the series may continue.

8/10 with touches of 9.

R.O.D The TV . Excellent Anime Series. I have been giving this one 8/10 for most of the disks. I have just finished disk 6, through episode 23. One more disk to go; it will be released next month. There is a problem with starting a series before all the disks are released. Good production values, great storyline, great characters, interesting situations and relationships, and books are the stars. One question about the title, does it stand for Read or Dream? or Read or Die?

R.O.D. the TV actually ties back into the original Read or Die OVA, where Agent Paper, a Paper Master, faces four cloned scientist/villians and works to save the world as an agent of the British National Library. In the TV series, three sisters become bodyguards for an child prodigy author (Nenene) who has had writer’s block since Yomiko Readman (Agent Paper), her mentor, disappeared five years earlier. Strange things start to happen around Nenene and the three sisters (who also happen to be Paper Masters; Nenene doesn’t seem to have any special powers other than a short temper.) Many thrilling adventures show the strong bonds between the sisters and Nenene becomes a part of their family as well (she might even be getting over her writer’s block).

The three sisters: Anita, Maggie, and Michelle, are from Hong Kong. The “Heroic Trio” is a classic Hong Kong film starring Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung, and Michelle Yeoh. Coincidence? I think not.

Possible Spoilers:
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As the series continues, we find Yomiko and the young lady she is protecting; we find that Nenene is an important component of the British National Library’s plan to take over the world; and we find that the three sisters have a secret past. But the exciting conclusion is in the next disk and I am eagerly awaiting its release.

Watched an interesting anime last night. GANTZ. The premise would appear to be that dead people are brought to an apartment with a great big black sphere in it. The sphere dispenses instructions and weapons and the dead people are given a chance to improve their karma by ridding the Earth of Aliens. Presumably, if they work out, they will go to a good place when the death process is completed; failure means the death process continues right then and there? Hard to extrapolate where they are going with this, since there are only two 30-minute episodes on the disk and they all just finished dying and are in the process of facing their first alien. Maybe Yu Yu Hakusho with better production values? and more of an SF than magic motif?

The main problem with it (other than only 2 episodes per disk) is that the main protagonist is a whiny teenager who doesn’t understand why the world is always against him, and, he has learned you can’t trust anyone. The POV listens in on the thoughts of most of the characters, so that whining really drags on. But, they don’t listen in on the thoughts of the two secondary protagonists (Thank God) so you get a rather lobsided POV of what is happening.

It is a bit gory. The main and secondary protagonists died after the secondary P went down on the subway tracks to get a drunk who fell onto the tracks back to safety. The Primary P felt shamed by his former friend and went down to help. They got the drunk to safety but an express train came through before they could get out of the track well, so, they were smashed and their heads went flying, torn from their bodies, and then they were suddenly in the apartment. A flashback to the station indicates that their bodies disappeared. (And, of course, the primary is mentally whining that it all the secondary’s fault that this happened. He could have just left the drunk lying on the tracks and everyone would be happy; really wearing after a while.)

The third protagonist shows up naked shortly afterward. Evidently, she had just committed suicide in the tub. The nakedness causes some problems with the others in the apartment. Basically, most of the deaders are not nice people. I think there are about nine deaders in the apartment before the orb starts issuing incoherent instructions.

I will start this one off with a 7/10 rating for interesting storyline ( I am interested to see what happens next) and good production values. The artwork is crisp and edgy. But it is borderline on 6 because of the whining. I don’t know that I will care for these characters. I know some people might think it is a little too gory, with exploding bodies and the like, but it isn’t t over the top.