Samurai Champloo

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To preface, I haven't actually watched the Samurai Champloo anime yet, but the manga seemed interesting and quite bite sized, so I decided to use it as an appetizer. After finishing it, I definitely enjoyed it, but it's not the most mindblowing experience.

Overall, the strength lies in the characters and their excellent chemistry. All of their interactions are fun and engaging and each character has sufficient depth to them to make them intriguing. When fights break out, they tend to be very fun too. The story is simple and remains unresolved, intentionally so, but there is enough motivation and things move along at a very ... good pace. The humour is pretty enjoyable too.

One of the weakpoints I would say is the art. It's...alright. That's about the most flattering word I can mention. It's fine, clear enough and very energetic and fun, but it's very simplistic and the quality drops at times. Dunno what kind of schedule the artist was on but he even mentions struggling with some faces and designs in some of the liner notes, which I find quite odd. I have seen plenty of weekly manga with vastly superior art, so it's strange to me that this was such an issue. So much so, a different person had to finish the last two chapters. Even the very meme'd on Kagurabachi has vastly superior art on its tight weekly schedule. But I digress, the visuals are ok, but are simplistic and won't leave you too impressed.

The other odd thing is the dialogue. It's very tight and dynamic, I definitely enjoy it, but there is soooo many quips and remarks that in the end, half the page is full of text. It can get kind of overwhelming and even a bit jarring as to what order you are supposed to read things in. Still though, dialogue is a big part of this story, so it makes sense that there is a lot of it.

To conclude, the Samurai Champloo manga isn't anything to right home about, but it's fun, entertaining and interesting. Also, it's very short and you can easily read the whole thing in an afternoon. If you like some good action and comedy and especially if you're a fan of the anime, I see no reason not to give this a read.

I read this series before watching the anime; to this day, it is one of my favourites. It differs from the anime in many ways, but as a standalone manga it is one of the best (even at only 2 novels) in my opinion.

A good story premise, a solid quest with three mismatched characters in a fun setting and snappy dialogue. The artwork is really something else; I've not found a match for the artists ability to capture movement quite like he does here, yet still make it easy to read and fast-paced without any obviously "slow-mo" shots which I find really take from the ... pacing.

The characters designs are basic, but effective; they are expressive, with clear characters in their mannerisms and a sense of movement unique to each character which is clever for a manga. The three characters are not stereotypical tropes, which is refreshing, and they have obvious backstory which is hinted at but not revealed in full which leaves a lot of tension to drive the plot.

The story obviously leaves something to be desired (as it ends after 2 volumes and is never resolved) but even so, each chapter can be enjoyed as an individual tale with a new cast of extras and a new location for mischief.

One of the most important things about Samurai Champloo (the manga) is the humour. These two books will make you laugh out loud, even now when I return to them after rereading them countless times. The humour is subtle and witty, with some slapstick thrown in for relief, but clever and truly amusing in a way so many mangas fall flat at.

There are problems with this manga; the story never progresses (for obvious reasons) and some of the artwork could be considered simplistic for one more adjusted to popular big name artists. In this way, I like how the story never gets dragged out or overdone; it doesn't suffer the fate of so many wonderful premises which get massively popular and extended beyond their natural lifetime.

All in all a truly enjoyable read with wit, action, gore, slice-of-life and most importantly sword-fights!

For me, it's just fair enough, but nothing more. The casual story with casual features, which didn't leave me too impressed. You know, while reading I had that impression I had seen something (too) similar so many times.

Its plot seemed very, very simple. Boring, not catchy, didn't even bring me any emotions, and it was even hard to get to the last chapter. And I'm really sorry to say that, I really thought I was going to be amazed as I've never been.

Characters were nice, but not outstanding (the standard cast of characters to release some series). They didn't even feed me with ... some memorable speeches to get excited about, so I don't have any mercy, sorry.

Art was quite okay, maybe a bit above that; I liked it. Obviously, that's too little unless I overlooked something really great, doubting the quality of that manga too early.

Probably both the small number of chapters and the lack of the final resolution killed the mood. I suppose so, but am I too optimistic? Well, having heard as people went into raptures over the series, I'll probably have to check the anime version. I hope it's better, when it comes to... managing the plot. And I hope to see some kind of the end. Any kind, actually.

At least I will listen to some jazz music.