After the release of the game Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, the ageless bushi Jack is back wielding his katana once more. Let us remember one of the more famous time travelers of the cartoons…
The birth of a Legend
There was a time when the famous cable television channel Cartoon Network was approaching to its first decade. Its original series were so successful that became worldwide symbols of the eastern cartoon world, the American animation studio in charge was Hanna-Barbera. One of the best animator of this studio was Genndy Tartakovsky, who after his triumph with the series Dexter’s Laboratory, started a new project involving a samurai… In this brand new cartoon, Tartakovsky puts his fascination for the samurai culture and the bushido code, influenced also by Akira Kurosawa movies and the manga Lone Wolf and Cub. The result was one of the most beloved western cartoons of the new millennium: Samurai Jack.
The story of a Samurai
The cartoon series Samurai Jack tells the story of a feudal Japanese prince that received a magical katana in order to defeat the shape-shifting demon Aku and avenge the death of his father. After a long training the prince turned a warrior and faced the evil entity. The beast, before being defeated, manage to create a time portal and teleporting the samurai into the future. After the time travel, the samurai landed in a retro-futuristic world ruled by his enemy Aku and inhabited by robots, extraterrestrials and monsters. The warrior will wander 50 years long before manage to go back home. The five seasons of Samurai Jack talk about this period.
50 years of battles
From the very first episode (in which he received the name Jack by three alien teenagers) until the last episode (in which Jack defeats Aku and manage to go back home in his original timeline), the vagabond samurai will spend 50 years fighting without grow old as counter effect of the time travel. The unlucky Jack will face an uncountable number of enemy, the majority affected by Aku’s influence or loyal Aku’s soldiers.
Meeting some friends during the path
But during these long travels, Jack will also get along with some of futuristic inhabitants of the planet, like The Scotsman, a loud and vibrant human, who like Jack wanders around the world. Or Ashi, one of the human/demon daughters of Aku, who was raised up to kill Jack, but after facing him, she falls in love with him and help the samurai to defeat once for all Aku.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time
As mentioned in the intro, the videogame Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time launched only one week ago, bringing back the character of Tartakovsky once more for a last new original adventure. Don’t miss the chance to play as Jack and fight through a lot of Samurai Jack stages.
Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is the second samurai game that I presented this month, if I continue to talk about samurai videogames I can set up a new category ahahahah. By the way, there is not only the videogame and the cartoon of the Samurai Jack franchise, you can find it also in a comic book series and in a board game. As you can see, even if the story is concluded, the saga of the ageless bushi Jack is back and his adventure are still told. Also, what are your Samurai Jack favorite adventure?