

This means "Samurai Jack" finally gets to have a real plot with heightened stakes, rising action, and deep emotions. Almost everything can be streamed online, and long story arcs are standard. Most of these stories were silly in order to engage a childhood audience.Ģ017 is a very different era in terms of television. Each new episode held a new conflict with different side characters and villains.


Because of this, most of "Samurai Jack" was episodic. This was understandable since back then you couldn’t catch up what you missed through the Internet.
#SAMURAI JACK THEMES SERIES#
Most people expected to just tune in to any episode without any prior knowledge of the series and get what was going on. With voice acting from the guy who plays Spongebob, Scaramouch is hilarious even though he’s murdered a village in cold blood.īack during its original run, there was no real way for "Samurai Jack" to have story arcs spanning multiple episodes. In addition, the first episode gives us Scaramouch, a flamboyant-yet-creepy musical themed robot working as an assassin for Aku.

Sure, they are action chicks meant to be taken down by the series' hero, but they’re definitely real characters as well. When they see two deer nuzzling in the forest, their reaction is confusion and anger because all they know is fighting. However, they are also very sad characters who have zero understanding of how the world works. Although they are new characters, they are definitely one of the highlights of the new "Samurai Jack." These girls work extremely effectively as a team and are so skilled that Jack can’t even see them the first time he fights them. These seven sisters were raised in a cult and trained as children to be killing machines whose only purpose is to destroy Jack. Season Five of "Samurai Jack" introduces the Daughters of Aku. Ironically, the new gadgets only showcase further the way Jack uses a wide range of skills and critical thinking while in battle, instead of just slashing at stuff. For instance, the tuning fork knife Jack gets from a robot in the first episode gets used later on to explode an exit. Jack takes the weapons of foes he has felled and uses them to his advantage. The spears and arrows of his past are now tasers and guns. He rides a heavily-armed motorcycle like a knight on a horse, trampling enemies and then leaping down for close combat. By the start of Season Five, however, Jack’s sword has been missing for decades.Īs a result, Jack has had to adapt to the futuristic tech that was once incomprehensible to him. Plus, as an item blessed by ancient deities and passed down from Jack’s father, the sword represented the old world that Jack was used to. Jack depended on this sword and used it to handle many conflicts. Season Five gets to dig into this since it’s on Adult Swim and exists during a time where mental health is a national topic.įor the entire original run of "Samurai Jack," our hero held a magical sword that was the only thing capable of stopping Aku’s power. Although the original series did take on some dark stuff (for instance, getting stranded), there’s no way a children’s show was going anywhere near such an honest depiction of suicidal thoughts. In the same way, the hallucination of Jack becomes more and more twisted each time he appears. These visions resemble common thoughts people have while going through depression and the way depression can take on a life of its own. In fact, he constantly has visions of his former self encouraging him to commit suicide. In samurai code, if you lose your home or master, the only respectable action is suicide, since ronin status is worse than death. Plus, with no purpose or human connection, he is now a ronin, a masterless samurai, seen as a disgrace. Still, he is haunted daily by the guilt of leaving his family and homeland to suffer. All the time portals are gone and Jack has given up looking for a way home. It’s been 50 years since Jack entered the future.
