Samurai Jack

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Title card to Samurai Jack, also providing the most ass-kicking gaze since Kenshiro

"Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that. Is. Aku!" - Aku, in the best damn intro to any show ever

If this sounds familiar to you, that's because it was the inspiration for everyone's favorite Grey Knight.

One of the golden age of American cartoons from Cartoon Network, and officially on the Approved Television list for /tg/. A super badass samurai warrior wielding a holy sword (created by Odin, Ra, and Vishnu) attempts to destroy a shapeshifting space demon called Aku, but the monster sends him into a distant future where Aku has taken control of the Earth. Samurai Jack now explores the world (he never leaves Earth, it just changed dramatically), helping those oppressed by Aku's evil minions and seeking a portal to return him to his own time, that he may slay Aku and undo his evil future.

Samurai Jack ("Jack" being a nickname the protagonist got form three jive-talking ambiguously-human passersby soon after arriving in the future; we never learn what his actual Japanese name was), is a melting pot of everything awesome and so many things /tg/ loves. It's art, first off, takes influence from old 1960s and 70s Japanese anime (most notably classic Toei Animation) and Bruce Lee-era Kung Fu movies. It is also inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, Blade Runner, and even Frank Miller's 300 (having a surge of popularity after the movie too). Actually the battle of Thermopylae more than the comic 300. While cyberpunk is a major theme of the show, it draws influence from many other sources, such as Ancient Greece, the Volsunga Saga, feudal Japan, and even fucking 1920s Chicago. Yup. robot gangsters (and they look like the T-800 Terminator from the films). In fact the very first episode, taking place before "Jack" actually gets launched into the future, is basically thirty minutes of straight Wuxia.

Samurai Jack is one of those rare shows where there is not much skub about it (until a certain relationship went canon and the fandom split apart in a violent schism), even among fans. Literally every episode is good enough for you to call it your favorite and no one would accuse your taste of being shit. Most are the same though; either mercenaries or bounty hunters come after Jack, Jack learns some sort of valuable lesson, or he has a run-in with Aku. Still, each episode is a work of art figuratively and literally and are really enjoyable.

Characters

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

Jack: One badass motherfucker. However, as a character he doesn't have too much personality, being the basic stoic hero that we usually see. Still has enough to stay interesting though. While a standard good guy who proves too nice for his own good he is by no means stupid. He makes a lot of friends but rarely meets up with them again. However, in the final season, he has become a depressed, nihilistic shell of a man, constantly beset by bouts of PTSD and extreme thoughts of suicide (in true samurai fashion, he even attempts seppuku in his most desperate moments). The realization has finally set in that everyone he knows and loves is not only dead, but they died believing Jack failed or abandoned them when Aku threw him in time, made worse by the fact that his enchanted sword, the only thing that can kill Aku, is missing. And not only that, but apparently, Aku has found and destroyed most, if not all, of the time portals, leaving Jack stuck in the future. Even old age will no longer claim him, as Jack has ceased aging as a side effect of initial time travel (this is debatable as to whether it really is something scientific or a result of the Gods basically saying "Your ass doesn't get to rejoin your family until you kill that sorry son of a bitch"). Eventually takes Ashi as a lover. Finally goes back to the past and kills Aku, but in doing so erases Ashi from existence. Unless you played Battle Through Time and collected everything.

Aku: THA SHAPESHIFTING MASTA OV MASTAS, THE DELIVERAH OV DAHKNESS, DA SHOGUN OV SORROW, equal parts hilarious and fucking evil. Speaks in ultra engrish (but this is intentional on his first voice actor's part, the glorious and the late Mako Iwamatsu. Greg Baldwin stuck with that style to voice Aku in the final season after Mako died.) His driving goal is to take over the world maintain control of the world, having already taken it over centuries past by the time Jack comes out of the time portal, and is even more stupid evil than the love child of Skeletor, Megatron and the Marines Malevolent. Well, maybe not entirely stupid-evil. He once disguised himself as a woman that got close to Jack, and now the poor bastard has had trust issues ever since (he later tried to disguise himself to lure Jack into a trap a second time but this Jack saw through it and played along to lure Aku into a trap). He also nearly killed Jack by luring him into a giant graveyard, raising an army of zombies and ghosts to kill Jack then getting a ghost to steal Jack's sword and give to Aku (which only failed because of a divine mandate that the sword can't be used for evil thus it literally stopped when Aku tried to stab Jack). Still, Aku is about as hammy as Skeletor, but won't bat an eye at wiping out innocent civilians without a second thought. In the final season, he has basically become a neurotic, depressed shut-in, having completely lost interest in actively watching or trying to kill Jack, or even doing much of anything outside his lair. After so many failed attempts to kill Jack he gave up and destroyed all the time portals on Earth in hopes he would eventually DIE after growing old (he's unaware that Jackio has lost his sword, aka the one thing that can kill him). Aku now spends his time having therapy sessions with himself over the fact that he could be stuck with a now-immortal Jack forever, and occasionally roflestomping attacking armies in the hope that it might get him out of his slump (it doesn't). However, what DOES lift him out of his depression is the discovery of the existence of his daughter, who just happens to be Jack's girlfriend. (Being Aku, though, it just means that he now has a way to emotionally torture Jack, via controlling his daughter like a puppet on strings). He meets his end in the series finale.

Aku is notable amongst BBEGs in that his backstory is quite unlike any other. See, in the primordial past there was this vast, unintelligent black mass of pure evil that was going around eating entire solar systems. The Chief gods of three separate pantheons (Odin, Ra, and Vishnu) had to show up at the same time to put a stop to it, but even then two were nearly corrupted by it. They managed to completely destroy it, save for one small fragment that escaped their notice. This fragment drifted through space for untold stretches of time, before crashing on Earth and obliterating the dinosaurs. For the next sixty-five million years it basically amounted to an evil tar pit, growing a little bigger (and sprouting another weird black tree for some reason) with each victim it took. Cut to Feudal Japan, where it's started eating the Emperor's (Jack's dad) peasants. Realizing that the thing will probably eat the whole world if allowed to, the Emperor is given a jar of... something that may be poison... with which to kill it. However, it instead granted the puddle sapience; Aku was born. It's never actually explained just what the poison was or why it didn't have the intended effect, nor is the question of whether Aku remembers his time as a mindless space blob ever addressed.

Given all that, you may be wondering whether Aku is supposed to be a god or not. Well, kinda-sorta. In his current sapient state, he can be treated as a god for most purposes, and definitely wants to be viewed as one. But over the course of the show there are several times where he has to go up against an actual god, and he always gets curbstomped just as badly as any mortal would going up against Aku.

Ashi: One of the 'Seven Daughters of Aku', which is an assassin cult dedicated to hunting down Jack. Initially did extremely well during their first fight with Jack. Even having the honor of being the few beings in the show that were very, very close to killing Jack (the only others that came close at that point are Aku himself, the semi-divine Minions of Set, the Guardian and a creepy soul-eating wolf demon in a haunted house), as he barely escaped and was bleeding out from a gut-shot. Though after Jack gets his second wind, he kills them off one by one, with Ashi being the only confirmed survivor. At first, she utterly hates Jack and believes him to be the one responsible for ravaging the Earth, but soon comes to learn that this isn't the case at all. Oh, and that's not a black bodysuit she's wearing. She's actually ass-naked the first few episodes - because that's actually red-hot ash seared onto her skin. Being set up to become one of the main protagonists of the final season. Loves the beauty of Mother Nature, and this is reflected in her new choice of dress, which is basically a sexy Tinkerbell outfit made of leaves and flowers. In the seventh episode, she proves she is definitely not -4 Str, when she obliterates an entire army of Orcs ugly man that were mistaken as orc in a blood-drenched frenzy that probably made Khorne get a hard on. Now officially Jack's lover, much to the chagrin of /pol/acks (/pol/ doesn't watch cartoons and why would they care for that matter?) and tumblrinas, both. Dean Martin fans however got a surprise shoutout. Oh, and remember that bit about her being a daughter of Aku? Well, it kind of turns out, she actually is his daughter. To make a long story thankfully short, Ashi's bitch of a mom drinks Aku's dark energy-semen and gets pregnant by it. This actually enables Aku to control her. At will. Yeah... Ashi's existence proves that ancient eldritch abominations can get lonely, this gives frightening credence to some neckbeard's theories on Khorne and Slaanesh's.....relationship with each other..... As Ashi was the daughter of Aku, she incidentally get's erased from the timeline; right as she and Jack were about to get married after they defeated Aku. She seemed aware of this fact from the get-go meaning that she sacrificed herself so that her beloved could save the universe...For those we cherish we die in glory ;_;. Unfortunately, waifu sacrifice gag was used by Gurren Lagann already so it was not as dramatic as it is. Can finally earn her happy ending in Battle Through Time if you collect everything.

Minor Characters

DA SA-MOO-RAH: Imagine Black Dynamite if he dressed like MC Hammer, was an arrogant and ineffectual blowhard (well, ineffectual compared to the other characters on the show, he at least proves that he has some genuine combat prowess), challenges Jack to a fight, gets his ass handed to him, saves Jack's life, learns some motherfucking humility, everyone leaves happy. Oh and he listens to Parliament apparently. It was fanon that he would become a badass later on due to getting a lesson in humility from Jack but it turned out he instead became a shit eating old bartender in the final season, resigned to listening to has-been bounty hunters whine about how Jack kicked their pathetic, robot asses. While there was a gap of at least fifty years between their first meeting, it's revealed that Da Samurai laid down his sword because he thought he wasn't cut out for that life rather than rising to the challenge and becoming a badass. It seems he finally learned his lesson in Battle Through Time as he joins in the final battle to fight Aku's army.

X9: Remember those Terminator-looking robot gangsters we mentioned? Well, this guy is kinda like that.....expect he was a robot assassin who was given emotion, decided he wanted to settle down with a little dog he named Lulu, sweet thing, instead of kill people, and just play music. Life was good....until Aku kidnapped Lulu, sweet thing, and forced X9 to go fight and kill Jack for Lulu, sweet thing's, release. X9 went out to find him, knowing he was outclassed completely. It went as well as you would expect for the poor guy (even Jack was sad about defeating him after hearing his dying words, despite the fact he'd have no clue who Lulu is). Grown men still cry over this episode.

The Scotsman: The name says it all. Jack's best friend (whom tried to kill him when they first met), and is one of the more frequent characters in the series thanks to his popularity. Has a fucking machine gun for a leg, a bounty on his head almost as huge as Jack's, and is the only non-supernatural character in the entire series that can evenly match Jack in a straight-up swordfight. Can also pull a 20-second long insult. He died in battle, but not before having about a hundred daughters that served as his army and roasting Aku. He comes back as a ghost later a la Obi-Wan Kenobi thanks to the CHELTHICC MAGICK on his sword.

Jack's Father: The EMPRAH of Japan at the beginning of the story. He defeated Aku around the time Jack was born, and when he get's himself captured and enslaved by the space demon when Aku returns from being banished to the Warp, he makes sure his son is safe and away, and arranges for Jack to be put through Space Marine levels of training on a round-the-world trip in order to return and kick Aku's sorry ass back to Hell, though it's taking Jack a WEE bit longer than any of them intended.

The Guardian: A Morpheus-looking brotherfucker stuck to guard a working time portal Jack wanted to use - and failed. In fact he's just about the only guy in the future capable of taking on Jack in a fight and completely and utterly handing him his ass. That's supposed to change in the future, though, as Jack was simply not destined to defeat him just yet. However, that got shitcanned when Aku was confirmed to have destroyed the portal and killed the Guardian. Despite Battle Through Time being the perfect plot opportunity for him to come back, he doesn't.

Scaramouche the Merciless: The Pied-Piper of Ruination, the Crooner of Carnage, the Ambassador of Annihilation, the Eradicator of All, baby! A musical robot assassin, equal parts hilarious and sadistic. His first act in the new and last season is to destroy an entire village, just to get Jack's attention. This backfires horribly, and he ends up getting blown up. Now just a talking head, he has made it his mission to tell Aku that Jack has lost his sword. (He succeeds, but he has an incredibly poor sense of timing and gets his head blown up by Aku for his misinformation) His preferred method of attack is, of course, through jazz, or an awesome dagger that destroys things through amplifying the wavelengths. Most of Aku's goons tend to be one-trick ponies, but much like DA SA-MOO-RAH, Scaramouche is quite memorable for his sardonic Sammy Davis Jr. persona. Curiously enough Scaramouche may be an elegan/tg/entleman given his intense and inspiring hatred of anthropomorphic animals.

Status

Sadly Samurai jack has been effectively cancelled (including the planned movie) for quite some time although old episodes have started airing again. Aku's voice actor dying of throat cancer may have had something to do with it. no more Jack. Just as Aku planned WACHAAA JACK IS BACK BABY 2016 MARCH 11th 2017. 11PM EST. ON ADULT SWIM.

Season 5 has much of what made the original series great, between its gorgeous visuals and well choreographed fight scenes. However, it also represents a major shift in tone as well, if the Grimdark intro didn't tell you already (see below). Whereas the more kid-friendly early seasons were relatively light-hearted and had Jack only ever fight robots and monsters, this time there's blood aplenty - from both foes and Jack himself - as well as heavy psychological themes between Jack's PTSD and Ashi's traumatic childhood flashbacks. But perhaps the most shocking moment is when Scaramouche points out that another character's head looks like a penis. Really. It's surreal to see coming from a former kids' show (then again, the Scotsman got away with a racial slur in his 20-seconds-long insult of Jack when they first met - one of the insults was "soy-faced", which is a slur against asian people).

WHAT FOOLISH SAMURAI HAS NOT YET ADDED THE NEW TRAILER TO THIS PAGE???

Get Hype.

the series has recently ended with the 10th episode of the 5th season.

SPOILERS: Jack comes back to the past.