Intro to Samurai Champloo

More religious feeling and espousing nowadays may be found in such a medium as television than texts like the Christian bible, or Zen Buddhist writings, etc. This is a main point of my website. A well done television anime or movie can be just as moving or inspirational to a modern audience as 2000 year old writings.

Perhaps even more so. So in an age defined by technology and a burgeoning global connectivity, how relevant to a youthful generation born and raised on TV, movies, and videogames are the old religions? Loaded question, yes, but if you ask a teenager where he looks to for divine inspiration does he go to Ezekiel 25:17 or Kill Bill Vo.1, Chapter 5? It?s all perception anyhow; just there?s something to these funny moving pictures that can advance ideas and philosophies through visual animation and set to some stellar soundtracks that make the transmission of ideas absorbed easier to the general populace than an old man behind a pulpit rattling off verses that even he?s just guessing at.

I was first introduced to Shinichiro Watanabe's style in the two animated short stories within the who's who compilation of anime in The Animatrix, a film featuring different spin off stories from the popular cinematic trilogy known as The Matrix. A Kid's Story and A Detective's Story were quite moving to me, in ways I'll go into in more detail later. I later came across Cowboy Bebop while researching psychedelic references in modern art. I was inspired and blown away... it is a series that I will in time cover thoroughly. But above all, Samurai Champloo stands as Watanabe's masterpiece, in my opinion the best anime to ever transmit into a television screen. Few chances are ever afforded to the mainstream viewing public to watch and absorb such a brilliant fusion of art, philosophy and spirituality such as this, and none near Samurai Champloo's caliber; a flawless animated interpretation of Zen Buddhism. Champloo (the word roughly translates into 'mix-up') delivers a epic quest story with a amalgamated mixture of Confucian, Taoist and Shinto styles, in a backdrop of 1600's feudal Japan coming to terms with Western and Christian ideologies and influences, with a refreshing blend of hip-hop sampling to root the tales with modernity and well-placed humor.

The opening scene of the animated series of Samurai Champloo is very stark and raw. Two young men in the Edo Era of Japan (roughly set in the 1600s) are bound and being read a death sentence of beheading.

Their captor addresses them as different people in the social status of the time, near polar opposites, yet their mutual circumstance temporarily unites them.

When faced with death, Mugen shows his character mettle and resolve by a defiant rejection of the clemency haughtily offered by the Lord.

It is not only a rejection of the kneelism, but a statement of rebellion towards the whole feudal system. I would rather die than submit to tyranny. Very, very out of place in the Japanese hierarchal mind and society.

But what else would you expect from a pirate, a criminal, an outcast?

More shocking is the character turn of Jin with his allying with Mugen.

Jin, a former samurai, had received the best his society had to offer for his caste. The best schools dojos taught by the nations top masters of martial arts, spiritual teachings in the Confucian/Buddhist style. His strict devotion to the code of Honor known as Bushido put him at odds against the very society that nurtured him to greatness. He chooses Honor in a world that is increasing becoming devoid of it, so he makes his stand and walks the path of a ronin, a samurai who's only master is his own sword and wit.

For their rejection of status quo and prevailing social morals, Mugen and Jin have wandered aimlessly through the countryside as exiles. Indeed, their fate worsens as their applications of actions in life severely contradicts the set order of societal corruption.

The series flashes back to the day before, to show how the two got themselves into this situation:

Jin defends the common worker from murder by the corrupt system of greed that is the lifestyle of the local magistrate by confronting he and his underlings.

Mugen saves a local tea-house waitress from violence and perhaps rape from the bored bourgeois son of said magistrate and his cronies.

Father like son, both are corrupt pig-like individuals who show vulgar dominance to the commoners by displays of tyranny and utter disregard of value of life.

For their willingness to fight back with swords against such hegemony? and also each other?

Mugen and Jin are made to suffer and are sentenced to death.

And then Fuu, a local tea-house waitress, enters their lives.

Part fairy, part angel in her manners (I'm sure there must be a Shinto archetype for her), Fuu breezes in unexpectedly with an offer of deliverance from the pair's dilemma.

Just before being beheaded the next day, Fuu fufills her promise in dramatic fashion, and helps Mugen and Jin escape, but not before they get some well earned revenge.

...

What the series captures so magnificently is three social outcasts from diverse backgrounds coming together (albeit hesitantly and begrudgingly) to hit the open road on a quest to find the Sunflower Samurai. This journey is a veiled metaphor for the rejection of status quo, of coming to terms with father figures, various strife in the countryside and cites, abandonment, hypocrisy.

Fuu leaves behind her old life of menial servitude as a teahouse waitress for adventure. No longer content with dealing with rude and at times degrading customers under orders from patronizing elders, Fuu chooses to take her chances by living by her own rules and ethics to become more fully connected to the developing human spiritual experience. This is an experience that cannot be felt in the monotonous stagnation of a work-a-day life, only knowing obedience and never making your own decisions.

Jin and Mugen throughout this journey make similar confrontations. An orphan, Jin was fostered by the best the Empire could give him, matching his talents and strengths with frequently surpassed the training he received with the country's top martial arts experts, also learning Buddhism and Bushido. But Jin's code of honor was too strong, and it ceded the corruption of his master's imposed orders of turning the honorable warriors into hired assassins of the Kougi (imperial government). For refusing to obey his master, Jin was betrayed and forced to kill him, after which he went forth alone in the world as a ronin (master-less samurai). He wandered; no longer apart of the Imperial dojo machine producing unquestioning warriors, Jin searched for his humanity.

Mugen, also an orphan, had near a polar opposite childhood compared to Jin. He grew up on an island of prisoners and outcasts, pirates and criminals, where every day was a fight for survival amidst the chaos. He had no respect for authority, rightly so, for what institution would consign a child to such a hell? He grew up relying on only his strength and skill to persevere, for every time he tried to make friends or trust another he was betrayed. It was Mugen's quest to find a reason, a better life, or principle in this world other than the constant insanity of his upbringing. He, after much wandering alone, found this by chance in Fuu, and her childlike innocent loving nature, and slowly he finds his worth and esteem protecting her as a yojimbo (bodyguard).

If you'd like to learn more about Samurai Champloo: watch it! In Japanese, with the subtitles, for best results. But if you don't have 13 hours to watch the best animated series ever (gods help you), than check out this excellent fansite with loads of info: AMALGAM: A Samurai Champloo Fansite

Shinichiro Watanabe is a Japanese National Treasure. His portrayal of diverse arrays of individuals outside the status quo, freelancers, iconoclasts, non-conformists, eccentrics, criminals, fugitives, revolutionaries, and just all around loners are what separates his art from the gamut of modern animation. It's the humanizing qualities that he attributes to these personas that make them rich and real and not cliché. His themes of these characters set in scenarios where their own struggle for individual independence is tested against the needs and weights of societies demand; in seemingly paradoxical situations where it is shown the outsider has the necessary differences and perspective to heal the disruption and chaos that can arise within the masses.