Samurai Champloo (26 Episodes 2 Seasons) 8.35 out of ten
There's something that's to me that's so openly nostalgic about Samuria Champloo, it's something about it's relatively conservative film grammar, emphasizing diegetic continuity, in addition to a comical spin on it - With plenty of dry gags, jump cuts and a character first priority on scriptwriting. 13 years later, Shinichiro Watanabe's Samurai Champloo, while still decently popular, I feel is one of Watanabe's most slept on works along with Sakemichi No Appollon (Kids on The Slope), being that for a 2004 T.v animation, in terms of character animation & art direction, Samurai Champloo is a production at a fine eye point, the apex of it's era - A masterpiece given the time of production and circumstances. In other regards though, Champloo is an episodic classic, set in a comically idealized version of the Edo period within Japan, where characters such as Jin & Mugen are the last generation of the declining Age of The Samurai, where they randomly stumble into a restaurant & meet Fuu, a waitress - From there on, the dysfunctional bunch set out on a seemingly aimless and coincidental journey, in Fuu's search for a Samurai who smells of sunflowers, slowly realizing that Fuu's ambitions to find him are more dangerous and involved than they actually realize...
