Bored? Check.
Internet access? Check.
Mild interest in samurai or samurai robots? Check.
If you’ve passed the above test then let me recommend Samurai 7, a 26 episode series currently available to watch instantly on Netflix. Produced by Gonzo back in 2004 Samurai 7 is a retelling of the epic film Seven Samurai (which is also available for streaming on Netflix). Now, if you haven't seen Seven Samurai yet then you absolutely need to watch that first.
A lot of what makes Samurai 7 a decent watch is pulled directly from the film. Samurai 7 is the story of seven samurai hired by a village of farmers to protect themselves and their crops from marauding bandits. Following the great war, many out of work samurai found a new living raiding defenseless farmers for their yield of rice. Raids which not only resulted in depleting the villagers much needed rice but often resulted in a loss of life and kidnapped women. Deciding to take a stand, the elder of Kanna comes up with a plan to hire samurai for defense. Having no money they decide to bargain with what precious rice they have left. With these grains in hand three villagers set off for the big city in an attempt to persuade some honorable warriors. Eventually a ragtag team of samurai is assembled and they set off to protect the village.
Much of the series is spent developing the farmers and samurai. As the episodes progress I found myself slowly becoming more and more attached to them. It's hard to give the show too much credit as the premise and a lot of the elements come straight from the film. Though, to the show's credit, added and altered character elements flesh rather well. There are also several new characters representing the merchant class of this feudal world. At first they feel weak and tacked on but receive some sudden (and welcome) development for the series' second ending. Yes, that's right, a second ending. The promised clash between the samurai/farmers doesn't close out the series as it did in the film. More on that below in the spoilers section.
Unfortunately the character development is about the end of my positive criticism for the series.
Gonzo, perhaps best known for it's random integration of CGI (before it became as inexpensive as Korean labor), decided what Seven Samurai really needed was giant robots. For this they brought in legendary desigern Makoto Kobayashi who's fantastic designs are creativity similar to The O from Zeta Gundam but more fanciful and impressive. In the world of Samurai 7 samurai have the ability to leave their fleshy prison and upgrade to a mechanical body. It's explained that the larger the mechanical shell the higher the rank. None of the technical details behind them are even touched on. Despite it appearing relatively easy to do we only see three different levels of fully mechanized samurai with the largest refereed to as a Benigumo. Oddly enough these new bodies do little enhance their fighting abilities. Worse yet is that traditional swords seem to have no problem slicing and dicing their metal armor. Why would you want to upgrade to a mechanical body that is not only slower and at most equal in strength but does nothing to aid in defense? The series is painfully inconsistent with how it handles fights. For example some cuts result in a clean slice while others result in a shower of sparks, oil, or fire or a mere flesh wound. Toward the end of the series hundreds of Benigumo perish like kerosene soaked cannon fodder. Even more puzzling is that throughout the series the same samurai attacks encounter more resistance from flesh and we never see anyone cleaved into meat cubes.
While the CGI has aged well (all things considered) the cel animation is actually weaker. As the series progresses it's easy to spot the lazy and inconsistent animation. During the series are a few random animation shifts (akin to Osamu Kobayashi's infamous work on Gurren Lagann's fourth episode) from Hisashi Mori and Hiroyuki Okuno.
The music is best described as generic and unmemorable.It's your quasi-traditional Japanese fare.
For all my griping these are all easily overcome issues when watching the series. The dub forced upon us by Netflix... that won't be so easy.
FUNimation's "talent" took a day off for for this project. It's painfully obvious that most of the VAs were simply reading their lines off a sheet, not bothering to actually act them out.
Bruce Elliott's delivery for the hardened samurai leader Kanbei comes off monotone and dry while Chris Sabat voices the ever outspoken robotic Kikuchiyo. If you ever wanted to enjoy 26 episodes of Kuwabara shouting into a tin can, your dream has come true. Sean Michael Teague tries his best at the immature Katsushiro, only to succeed destroying any sympathy for the character. It's painful in comparison to his Japanese counterpart, Romi Paku.
The other samurai aren't nearly as awful. Duncan Brannan and Bob Carter do very respectful jobs and I actually like Greg Ayres' energetic portrayal of Heihachi. Unfortunately Sonny Strait mumbles through the mysterious Rikichi's very few lines.
J. Michael Tatum, Colleen Clickenbeard, and Luci Christian do fair a good job as the three accompanying villages. Anthony Bowling's Ukyo is oddly fitting but does a great job as the Emperor later in the series.
I'm fairly forgiving when it comes to dubs. I'm sure Penguin Truth's review of the voice acting won't might not be as pleasent.
So, in quick review before I get into some spoilers... Samurai 7 is a decent series by most measuring sticks. Its major downfall is that it takes from a classic piece of cinema and doesn't living up Seven Samurai's production values or storytelling. Samurai 7 is worth watching, but only if you've exhausted your catalog options.
**Spoilers!**
Samurai 7 decided to do away with the ending from Seven Samurai and replace it with, "Wait, what the hell?"
Those familiar with the movie will remember that several of the heroic samurai fall and die noble deaths during their battle to protect the village. In the series all of the samurai survive and the show takes a turn toward new material. This change is apparent early on when you realize the final battle against the bandits is roughly ten episodes ahead of the actual series' end.
The second arc focuses on Ukyo as the leading antagonist (which is actually a positive shift from the 'why should we really care' faceless bandits) who, through a series of impressively improbable events, becomes emperor. Meanwhile several of the samurai break off and begin hunting for Rikichi's wife who was kidnapped by bandits before the story begun.
This eventually leads to a final confrontation between the samurai and Ukyo's forces. A confrontation that features an incredible loss of cannon fodder and little drama. I'm sorry, but it wasn't really that riveting. A few of the samurai finally lose their life but do so in almost laughable ways. After the course of the series it's a shame to see some of the most memorable characters cut down by sloppy writing.
The series finally closes out much like Seven Samurai as Kambei and the village elder remark that this was a battle lost by the samurai, yet won by the villagers. The original impact is completely lost coming after this second battle to save the village. In the first battle the farmers trained hard and fought well against the bandits. The second battle was fought almost entirely by the samurai and the villagers did little to help. What's the point in picking some of the most memorable elements of the original story if you can't provide the same sufficient background which made them impactful in the first place?
