Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray

Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series

 (TV) (2004-2005)

Action | Adventure | Anime



Mugen is a fierce animal-like warrior with a unique Bboying (break-dance) inspired fighting style. Jin has a more traditional style but don’t think of this as a weakness because his skills are amazing. The two contrasting samurai warriors are far from friends, yet their separate paths seem to cross anyways. Mugen is wandering aimlessly through the city when he stumbles upon a teahouse where he meets Jin and Fuu (A ditzy waitress, but don‘t think she doesn‘t have anything hidden up her sleeves). Fuu convinces them both to come with her in search of a mysterious samurai that smells like sunflowers and their journey begins. This modernized hip-hop tale breaks the barriers of the common, historical, samurai anime.

For more details about Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series on Blu-ray, see the Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Review

Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


Presented in 1080p utilizing the AVC codec (at an average bitrate of 19Mbps), Samurai Champloo looks every bit as good as I was hoping for. It’s been quite some time since I’ve watched the full series, so I can’t offer an in-depth opinion regarding the improvements in the transition to high-definition. However, stacked up next to other anime offerings from Funimation, this transfer maintains the same noticeable rise in quality that you’d expect from a production that wasn’t originally created in 1080p. I’ve heard some rumblings regarding minimal improvements over the standard definition version, but I find it hard to believe the 480p resolution of DVD is capable of looking this smooth or appealing. That’s not to say everything is on the up and up, since I still detected the presence of artifacts from time to time, but when you’re viewing the image as a whole, there are rarely any glaring distractions worth reporting. Aside from the smoothing of the image that accompanies the transition to 1080p resolution, I’m also confident we’re witnessing a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of the color palette, which appears much brighter than I recall on prior viewings. Likewise, black levels offer abundant depth in all but a handful of scenes, allowing contrast the opportunity to deliver variations in shade depth that surpass expectations from a two-dimensional hand-drawn production.

If you’re at all concerned about the visual upgrade on this release, let me be the first to calm your fears and assure you this is the best Samurai Champloo will likely ever look. The limitations of the source material hold it back from earning top marks, but I can’t imagine many fans will be disappointed with the quality of the transfer.

Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


Breaking from their recent trend of offering a Dolby Digital 2.0 track in the native language of Japanese, Samurai Champloo has been given the royal treatment, in the form of a lossless Japanese mix. As always, I’m a big fan of the native language offering on any foreign release, so the inclusion of a highly competent lossless track on one of my favorite anime series was a tremendous value-added aspect of this edition. Switching back and forth between both tracks, I was a little surprised to find the Japanese dialogue a notch higher than its English counterpart (since it typically seems to be the other way around on Funimation titles). The rest of the elements in each mix sound almost identical; meaning the recording of the dubbed track was likely sampled at a lower volume than the original voice recording. Getting down to the raw elements of the audio presentation, I was slightly less impressed with the incorporation of surround activity in comparison with other anime television productions. There’s plenty of activity when the action kicks into gear, but I hardly noticed environmental sound effects during the softer moments of the series. I’m not entirely sure if this was an intended artistic move (to add intensity during the many fight sequences), but the missed opportunities during the emotional sections of the show are a bit disappointing. Getting back to the positive aspects of the audio presentation, you can expect a twelve round workout for your subwoofer, since the hip-hop infused soundtrack provides plenty of bass beats in the sound design. If you’re like me, you’ll probably wind up bothering your wife or significant other when you spend the rest of the day walking around the house humming the opening theme song (which I still can’t bring myself to skip).

Similar to the visual quality of the show, the audio presentation isn’t going to earn a spot in the upper echelon of anime productions, but the competent English track coupled with the inclusion of a comparable Japanese offering make this a worthy upgrade over prior editions.

Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray, News and Updates

• Five Blu-ray Titles from FUNimation - August 10, 2009

Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series Blu-ray, Forum Discussions

Topic

Replies

Last post