Samurai Jack universe
Conan The Barbarian, The
Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Seven Samurai were a
couple of films that inspired Genndy Tartakovsky to develop and create the
series of Samurai Jack. It’s a show full of energy, action, and a lot of
stylized fighting. It tells a story, about a young Japanese Samurai, who lived
a long time ago in a peaceful village, until one day, Aku the evil shape
shifting demon kidnaps his father and enslaves everyone. Samurai Jack is sent
on a journey, to come back and defeat Aku. However, before Samurai Jack is
about to defeat him, Aku uses his demonic powers and sends him thousands of
years into the future, where Aku’s powers has flourished and he has taken over
the world. Samurai Jack’s quest is still unchanged; however he has to learn
about the future and try to find Aku to defeat him and return back to his time.
The T.V. series is full
of actions and characters that defy reality, aside from time travelling; the
main character can run very quickly and jump really high. His Katana is so
powerful it cuts through all his obstacles. And his mortal enemy is a
shape-shifting demon, who shoots laser beams out of his eyes, and follows no
physical laws at all.
Speed and umping abilities:
Young Samurai Jack goes on a journey learning
his different skills from masters all over the world like India, Africa, Egypt,
Greece, Robin Hood, Russia, the Vikings, Mongolian Masters, and China. He
learns different types of martial arts, fighting skills, and becomes quick in
his movements.
Jack
learned from masters around the world to prepare both physically and mentally
for his confrontation with Aku. He is able to jump higher than what’s expected,
crosses long distances with a couple of running steps, his fight moves are too
quick, and he can hold himself up in the air for extra time, as if gravity
isn’t affecting him. In one scene he is able to defeat 5 monsters, but he was
too quick that we only see him sipping his hot drink and the monsters drop
suddenly.
In
episode 14 Samurai Jack finds the portal that will take him back to his time,
but Aku appears, grabbing the portal and holding it too high, that even with
Jack’s high jumping abilities he can’t reach it.
Later in the episode, he meets
a big fat jungle man, who jumps really high, almost as if flying, but lands so
gracefully on the ground with no impact what so ever, either on the man or the
ground. Samurai Jack is impressed by his abilities and asks him if he could
teach him. So Jack learns how to jump high by the blue monkeys in exchange of
teaching them how to defend themselves.
To
teach him, he is weighed down by enormous amount of rocks, looks as if he will
be crushed by them, however, when the weight is taken down, Jack’s first jump
felt like he was floating into the sky. The push off time of Samurai Jack’s
jump was really long compared to how high he jumped. The jump time was also
long. Then he becomes able to jump hundreds of feet with small anticipation. At
the end of the episode, Samurai Jack surprises Aku and able to reach him. Jack’s
fighting skills have progressed even more, as he defeats most of his opponents
using his abilities to jump high.
The enchanted Katana:
Samurai Jack’s katana follows the generic
shape of a traditional Japanese Katana. It is characterized by its distinctive
appearance: a curved, slender, single-edged blade with squared guard and long
grip to accommodate two hands. It cuts through everything, including all different kinds of
metal. It doesn’t seem that Samurai Jack needs to put any kind of extra force
when he’s cutting through thicker robots. Most of the time, for a dramatic
effect and to show how sharp the blade is, Jack would cut his enemies, but they
explode, or fall apart, a moment later than they should. Sometimes they don’t
even notice that they’ve been cut in half until it’s too late. However, in
episode 30, Samurai Jack fights zombies, when he cuts them, they turn into dust
clouds; the rotten flesh is nonexistent.
On
a side note, all the other creatures were turned into robots, so they leak oil or electricity, to avoid censorship for blood and
violence.
Jack’s Katana also deflects
all different kinds of bullets, but doesn’t follow the action reaction law, an
example of that is at the beginning of episode 8. Also when Jack fights his
evil mirror image, the evil self’s Katana, doesn’t follow action reaction
either when being hit by Jack’s Katana. He holds the katana in a very stiff
way, and it doesn’t have recoil after deflecting something. Jack’s katana is so
strong that when clashes with his evil self; they end up causing a mini nuclear
explosion, burning all the trees around them.
In episode 30, an evil
spirit takes over Samurai Jack’s katana. That’s when he thinks it’s the end of
him. Samurai Jack has to use the dust disintegrating swords from the zombies to
fight Aku, however, the hits he’s getting from Aku doesn’t seem to turn Samurai
Jack’s blade into dust like it was doing moments ago, when being used by
Samurai Jack himself. The katana is still cutting through rocks and walls when
used by Aku. However, the katana was forged in purity so it will only harm bad
guys, when used on people who are pure at heart, and it will not cut. The
katana makes a metallic sound when it hits Samurai Jack’s chest and doesn’t
pierce through.
Aku the shape shifting
demon:
Aku’s
origin started by a formless evil matter that ended up falling to earth. The
force of impact caused all the dinosaurs to die. After the matter started
growing and destroying everything around it, an emperor decided to kill it with
a magical arrow. The matter transformed into a dead tree stump, until one
ellipse day it came to life. The tree transformed into Aku. Aku uses this
ability to shape shift almost all the time. When he’s just casually talking or
if he’s fighting, he would also shift shapes, to help confuse his enemies, and
to indicate that his mind is changing between serious
and chaotic all the time. The amount of mass is not consistent; he seems to lose weight and gain
depending on what shape he wants to take. A good example of these quick
transformation done in a short time is when Samurai Jack has first encounter
with Aku, he shoots up from the abyss forming into a tall slender creature with
no arms or legs. By what is shown on the screen he’s five and half Samurai Jack
figure. However, we don’t really know how deep the hole he’s coming out from is.
Once the fight starts, Aku transforms into a monkey/bat creature. He shrinks so much in size, but he still has the volume almost consistent by adding arms, and legs to his body. He’s four Samurai Jack figures.
Aku
then transforms into a very thin scorpion with arms and mini legs. He loses a
lot of weight in this shape, but the transition between the two creatures is so
smooth and well done, that we don’t notice the size difference. He is now seven
and a half Samurai Jack figures.
After
falling into the abyss from getting hit by Samurai Jack, Aku climbs his way up,
transforming into an octopus, with really long arms. Here the mass increases
again to make up for his eight long arms. He is around five samurai figures
now, but he can still elongate and shorten his arms at will without losing mass
from his main body.
He transforms into a goat, and a bird creature, before finally getting
hit by Samurai Jack several times, and ending up losing all his energy. He lies
on the ground, waiting for Samurai Jack to kill him. This scene has a major
change in the mass and size of Aku. He is almost smaller than Samurai Jack
himself. This helps indicate that he has lost energy and shows his defeat.
When
Aku is almost beaten and he lost all his powers, his size is almost as big as a
human, although he lies flat on the floor with no volume at all.
Even though this show is
impossible to happen in real life, and the use of stylized flat figures, which
can do unrealistic jumps and has unnatural speed, people still enjoy it. The unrealistic
elements of this universe have made it into a unique show. Actually that’s what
makes the show great. The TV series has a charmed lightness, with great visual
components and simple story. It’s magical mood and fight choreography has
created an appeal that would interest people to watch it for a long time.
