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| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:58 AM |
| On the Viewer: Afro Samurai |
 by Fëanor |
Afro Samurai was a short-lived anime TV show adapted from a manga. It aired on Spike last year. You can watch all five episodes on one DVD in about 2 hours, and I did just that last night (I also happened to see the first episode at kung fu/poker night this past weekend). According to Wikipedia, a new season of the show is planned for this year, but I'm not sure where else you could go with the concept. After all, said concept is pretty simple: an African American samurai with a huge afro - who also has the deadly expertise, namelessness, and quiet growl of Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name character - stalks a post-apocalyptic world seeking vengeance for his murdered father. He wears a headband with the number two on it, indicating that he is the second greatest swordsman in the world. The greatest is the man who killed his father, taking the number one headband from him in the process. Anyone can challenge the number two swordsman to a duel and claim the headband if he wins, but only the guy with the number two headband can challenge number one. Supposedly gaining the number one headband also grants you the powers of a God.
Samuel L. Jackson is a co-producer on the show, and provides the voice of the titular character, as well the voice of his babbling, comic relief sidekick. Ron Perlman does the voice of the Afro Samurai's ultimate enemy, and RZA does the soundtrack of the show. Each episode apparently cost about a million dollars to produce, which translates into lots of ridiculously flashy animation.
The voice work is quite good, but the dialogue often has the clumsy, melodramatic feel of poorly translated Japanese. Still, Jackson makes the most of his lines, especially as the sidekick character, who is often quite funny. The action is fun, exciting, and extremely bloody. The story and the world the characters inhabit, though generally engaging, are both pretty odd, ridiculous, and unbelievable. Part of the problem is the strange and unlikely mixture of incredibly advanced future technology (cellphones, for instance, and the nigh indestructible robot killing machine that perfectly simulates a human being - a terminator, essentially), and incredibly primitive technology (swords and many other indicators of a feudal, medieval society). But that I'm willing to swallow to a certain extent, because it's kind of cool and funny. It's the melodrama, the clunky dialogue, and the thing with the headbands that bother me more. I mean, the idea of a headband giving you God-like powers is pretty silly, but I'd be willing to accept it, as well, if it weren't for the fact that they don't even really mention it or prepare you for it at all until it suddenly shows up during the final battle in the last episode. And then there's (spoiler warning) the thing with the third arm. What? And the very end of the show just leaves you with a lot of annoying questions. How did bear-headed dude survive, again? How did Afro lose all the headbands? What did Afro do with his God powers, which I assume he had for at least a little while? Why is the endless battling still going on? Why should I care?
As for the characters, many are introduced that have the potential to be fascinating, but their backgrounds and motivations aren't even explained before they're summarily murdered. Others are just dull stereotypes.
Overall, despite some fun and amusing action sequences, good voice acting, and some cool animation, the show is pretty disappointing. Only worth a rental if you're really bored and desperate for some bloody animated samurai action. I don't expect to be seeking out season two, if it ever materializes. |
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