The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

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.