Better By Nightfall

I've been watching the ripped copies of Samurai Champloo that I purchased a week ago and I have to say that I'm impressed with the anime so far. The animation style isn't stunning and the story thus far (I'm only on episode six) isn't amazing either; the action and the motion, however, are astounding. The battle/fighting scenes, in particular, showcase the action and motion in their best form and are the most enjoyable part of the anime.

Unfortunately, because the DVDs are ripped, the dialogue is entirely in Japanese with English subtitles. And while I understand Japanese, I am unable to comprehend all of it in each episode because it either goes too fast or consists of words and grammar structures that I do not know or understand very well. Moreover, the subtitles weren't translated over very well on these DVDs, so it's kind of hard to understand what's going on in dialogue. I get the story, though, it's just a little hard every now and then.

Samurai Champloo is about three "misfits" of Japanese society (in an unspecified time during the past) and how their paths come together in search of the samurai that smells of sunflowers. Mugen is a skilled warrior with a bad attitude. He has wicked style in his technique, but he is also inconsiderate and a bit ruthless in his actions. Jin is a very astute warrior skilled in the "traditional" samurai style and appears to take on a "good light" through out the episodes except when it comes to confrontations with Mugen. Fuu is a young and carefree woman who is, in a nutshell, the moving action behind the trio. She is the one who, after saving Mugen and Jin, asks them to help her find the "sunflower samurai" and somehow manages to keep them together (even though Mugen and Jin split on her in the third episode). She also has a flying squirrel named Momo (Peach, in Japanese) that sometimes appears out of the blue to help her out.

Thus far, each episode is a different story on their journey. With hints at each characters past and random snippets of the future. The mixing style of the anime, that is, how it jumps around from scene to scene, is cool. It'll go from one character to another and so forth with the sounds from a mixing table.

All in all, I like it right now. I am expecting it to pick up some momentum soon, though.