« Super Doll Licca-Chan 1&2 | Main | Me want Samurai 7 DVD »

July 11, 2004

Samurai 7 1-2


Inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and produced with the blessing of Kurosawa's son, Samurai 7 ambitiously sets out to "update" the classic movie with a few giant robots. The series follows the bare bones of the movie plot - farmers decide to revolt against rice-raiding marauders by hiring hungry samurai. Here the marauders are - yes, giant robots, and the task of gathering the samurai falls to young priestess Kirara, accompanied by her little sister Komachi and stolid farmboy Rikichi who is both rice-carrier and and comic relief.


As for the samurai, clearly none is meant to be a direct parallel to one of the original Shichinin - that way lies madness. Young Katsushirou is the first to enlist (likely he's besotted by the fetching Kirara), followed by the robot samurai Kikuchiyo. However, Kirara's eye is on the much more capable Kanbei, a reluctant hero glimpsed briefly in the opening scenes, and by the end of episode 2 she's resorted to some pretty drastic measures to get him to sign on.


Animation quality is high - the characters are distinctive without being alien to one another, and frames flow at ones and twos compared to the threes and fours of most anime. CG animation is smoothly integrated for the most part (Kirara's dowser crystal is a bit TOO slick). The BGM is unobstrusive, and fans of Kurosawa films will recognize samples of the distinctive brass from Seven Samurai and the Yojimbo duology stealthily placed in the soundtrack.

But does it work? Well, the first few seconds looked like Last Exile and Sakura Taisen collided in mid-air and landed on the Princess Mononoke set. At first glance it's obvious that Gonzo's trying hard - maybe too hard - to create an epic. However, Kirara's quest is noble, and the samurai so far are all colorful and interesting. Kanbei - a cross between Qui-Gon Jinn and Han Solo - is clearly meant to be the lead, and Katsushirou's endearing in a puppyish kind of way, but the crotchety robot Kikuchiyo is by far the most fascinating. In a way he's symbolic of the entire universe that the series is set in. So, yes, it's worth following - just to see what else they come up with. (There's presumably loads of info on the official Samurai 7 site but it's all in Japanese.)

So with an impeccable pedigree, lush production values, and a strong start, the only thing that could hurt Samurai 7 is its insane broadcast schedule - depending on who you talk to, it's two episodes every other Saturday, or alternating two and four weeks between 2-episode blocks. And I thought Chrno Crusade's broadcast schedule was random. In any case, this show will have its work cut out for it just to hold on to an audience.

But despite all the hallmarks of a quality series, I think that the major R1 studios will take a while to decide if they will licence it - at a rumored $300k per episode, it's going to be an expensive investment.
--------

Posted by Innocent Sidekick of Evil at July 11, 2004 10:52 AM | Posted to Samurai 7

Comments