Anime [David Anime] Samurai Champloo 16

Just as pointed out in Kabitzin's review, this episode is chock-full with superb plot development, great fight scenes, and an exceptional musical score. If anything, this solidifies Champloo's standing as one of the best titles of the year.

The last few episodes of Champloo have focused on giving viewers a closer look at Mugen, Jin, and Fuu. In a quick reversal, this episode forgoes character development in favor of fleshing out Fuu's underlying quest for the sunflower samurai. It's interesting to note that Fuu's quest and the group dynamic are almost mutually exclusive -- the moment Fuu decides to focus on finding the elusive samurai by herself, the group dissolves into its disparate units. While it's initially disappointing to see our protagonists split up, this separation only illustrates just *how much* our heroes depend upon each other. Just like a dysfunctional family, Mugen gets the hives soon after he leaves, while Fuu falls off a cliff, and, in homage to Sherlock Holmes, Jin plunges into a waterfall.

While the plot development is emphasized in this episode, the real star of the show is the music, which is simply superlative. Apart from the disconcerting pseudo-hip-hop, this episode was crammed with excellent musical vignettes, ranging from a traditional wind flute melody to an ethereal trance chorus. As a last word of caution, suffice it to say that Okuru's introduction piece is viciously addictive: phat bass, a wicked ska theme -- heck, the backbeat alone could get a corpse bouncing.

In any case, this title is pure gold - as Momotato alludes, it'll be interesting to see how this series turns out and, of course, whether chibi-Fuu will ever find her samurai. Let's get some more of this, stat! (^_^)

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