First of all, these two are not something I would let my son watch -- both are way too violent and at least Saiyuke had way too many cuss-words to make it even palatable for me. However, I got to view both almost side-by-side and my vote is with
Samurai Champloo.
Saiyuke, based on the popular manga by Kazuya Minekura, tells a reconstituted tale of the Monkey King saga but puts more emphasis on a journey to defeat the demon controlling all of the other demons in the alternate-earth that this story inhabits. In the story humans and demons have lived together in harmony for generations but suddenly the demons have decided to revolt and try to take over the world. The main character is Genjo Sanzo, a priest, who sets out to India to stop the resurrection of Gyumaoh, a demon bad-ass who is apparently behind the demon revolt. He is aided by three demons who have kept their cool and are allied with the humans.
It is an interesting story line that incorporates elements of the Monkey King story (priest on a quest, staff-wielding "Monkey Boy") but ultimately is its own creation. I got kind of bored because it seems like the same demon attacks take place over and over and the plot seems to bog down in the endless fighting. Maybe I'll try again -- why not? I've got mucho animeo in the Netflix queue, already.
Samurai Champloo, however, I took an immediate liking to even though I was skeptical about the hip-hop and pop influences. Also, the main girl character in the movie, Fuu, is running a close second in my list of favorite
shojo (let's not forget
Misty!). It's another "alternate Japan" story and takes its cues from the Samurai slice-and-dice films. I like the fact that it takes a lot of scenes from historic Japan (primarily the Edo period) and plays around with concepts of Japanese culture and takes a few swipes at American culture, as well. The only thing that gets my paranoid up is that I like this anime
too much, which makes me suspect that it's being marketed to my western sensibilities. Ah well -- Feed me, Seymour!
Sadly, I haven't seen
Cowboy Bebop, which is the first break-through hit for director
Shinichiro Watanabe, but have it in the Netflix queue. Thank you, Netflix, and thank
you Wikipedia, for without you both I would be sadly in the dark and this blog would probably not exist.
Okay, I totally didn't blog about watching the entire run of Cowboy Bebop this summer, including the movie. It was totally freakin' awesome. That said, there were a couple of times while watching Bebop where I was like, "is that...? Could that be a reference to...?" After watching Samurai Champloo I sussed that Watanabe is referencing many other classics of Japanese media culture. I caught only a few of them, however, being the dreadfully clueless gaijin that I am. However, there was an episode around halfway through the 26-ep run -- dang it, and I wish I had a screenshot of it to put up -- where Spike and Faye are in space gear ready fly out of the Bebop in their ships, and they TOTALLY look like Ken and Jun from Gatchaman! You heard it here first, folks! I googled this reference and I am totally the ONLY ONE who caught it! Nyeh! I am so going to get a screenshot and post about it at a later date.
