is a 2004 Japanese anime television series.
The debut television production of studio Manglobe, the 26-episode series aired between May 2004 and March 2005.
It was first partially broadcast on Fuji TV, then had a complete airing on Fuji Network System.
It was licensed for Western broadcast on Adult Swim, and for commercial release first by Geneon Entertainment and later by Funimation.
It was also licensed for English releases in the United Kingdom by MVM Films, and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment.
A manga adaptation was serialised in Monthly Shōnen Ace during 2004, later released in North America by Tokyopop the following year.
The series is set in a fictionalized version of Edo period Japan, blending traditional elements with anachronistic cultural references including hip hop.
The series follows the exploits of tea waitress Fuu, vagrant outlaw Mugen, and ronin Jin.
Fuu saves Mugen and Jin from execution, then forces the pair to aid in her quest to find a samurai who smells of sunflowers.
Structured similar to a road movie, the series focused on tolerance and acceptance of minorities contrasting against its setting, with a central theme being the portrayal and acceptance of death.
Director Shinichirō Watanabe conceived the series in 1999, creating the characters and premise during his work on Cowboy Bebop: The Movie and The Animatrix, and beginning pre-production in 2002.
The staff included character designer and animation director Kazuto Nakazawa, writers Shinji Obara and Yukihiko Tsutsumi of Office Crescendo, and multiple hip hop artists including Nujabes and FORCE OF NATURE to contribute to the music.
The production was unstructured, with the scenario going through multiple revisions, and Watanabe bringing in multiple guest creators to ensure a high animation quality.
Reception of the series has been positive in both Japan and the West, and proved a commercial success in the West.
Plot
Samurai Champloo opens in a town where Fuu is working as a tea waitress, ending up being molested by the son of the town's corrupt prefect.
The outlaw Mugen arrives in town, and Fuu begs him for protection, which he gives in exchange for food.
Meanwhile the ronin Jin, also a new arrival, kills the prefect's bodyguards when they abuse a peasant, ending up in conflict with Mugen when the latter mistakes him for one of the prefect's men.
The two's fight ends up destroying the teahouse.
The pair are captured and sentenced to death, but Fuu saves them.
The pair attempt to restart their battle, but Fuu tosses a coin, saying whether if it lands on heads then the pair can continue their battle, but if it lands on tails they postpone their battle to help her find a samurai who smells of sunflowers, whom she has sought for years.
During the closing stories, they finally arrive on Ikitsuki, with each ending up in conflict with a trio of assassins sent by the government to kill Fuu's father, the "sunflower samurai".
Fuu meets her father, having wanted revenge for him abandoning her and her mother, but she relents as he is already dying from an illness.
One of the assassins kills Fuu's father before he is defeated by Jin.
Mugen and Jin then have their duel, their swords shattering, but choose not to kill each other as they now consider each other friends.
Fuu learns her father played a part in the Shimabara Rebellion and abandoned her to protect her.
Fuu also reveals she lied about the coin coming up tails, which briefly annoys Mugen and Jin.
Recovered from their final fight, the three part ways grateful for their shared adventure.
Setting and themes
Series director Shinichirō Watanabe defined the central theme of Samurai Champloo as the portrayal and acceptance around death, themes he had previously explored in Cowboy Bebop and Macross Plus.
Another theme outlined in the series pitch was individuality and finding one's unique identity.
The series is set during the Edo period, roughly sixty years after the end of the Sengoku period.
While a historical time period, the anime does not focus on historical detail beyond minor inclusions and references, mainly using contemporary-style dialogue and behaviour.
A conscious inclusion was emphasising cultural acceptance and tolerance of minorities including the indigenous Ainu people, foreigners, LGBT, and Christians; the historical Edo period was a time when Japan was highly structured, conformist and isolationist.
Due to its Edo setting and incorporation of samurai culture and honor codes, Watanabe was worried the anime would be seen as nationalistic in tone, prompting its focus on minorities and tolerance.
Watanabe put in as much as he could manage of these themes and subjects, challenging earlier limitations imposed by a lack of historical information from the time and Japanese television codes restricting the portrayal of Japanese minorities in the period.
The main cultural influence on the anime is the music and associated subculture of hip hop.
Watanabe had been a fan of hip hop music from his high school years, citing his first exposure as "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
He compared the samurai culture to hip hop through a similar philosophy of self-identity.
The use of hip hop, which is strongly associated with black culture, also reinforced the series' focus on a group of minority and counter-cultural protagonists, creating a cultural meaning by using one with the other.
Alongside his liking of hip hop, Watanabe attributed a large amount of the series' inspiration in the works of actor Shintaro Katsu, particularly his historical dramas.
The narrative approach of the final series was inspired by Katsu's notorious habit of directing projects without a set story structure.
The word "Champloo" in the series title was derived from the Okinawan term chanpurū, with Watanabe comparing the blending of elements in the anime with the meaning of chanpurū.
The show's food was originally true to the Edo period, but eventually they included anachronistic dishes such as okonomiyaki.
The plot structure is that of a road movie, with little connection between stories until the final three-part story, contrasting against the serial structure of many anime series of the time.
Watanabe particularly cited the movies about the blind samurai Zatoichi.
Other influences on the series included Enter the Dragon and Dirty Harry.
One episode was based around the Chinese concept of Qi, which he learned about during a visit to a Chinese chiropracter.
During early planning, the series tone was far more serious, but after the first four episodes had been written it was skewed towards including more comedic episodes.
Several episodes incorporate references and homages to or parodies of notable movies and media.
The Japanese episode titles used four-character idioms referencing the theme of that episode's story.
They drew from multiple sources, including Japanese and Western sayings (the first episode's title "Shippu Doto" is a Japanese rendering of the German saying "Sturm und Drang"), philosophical concepts ("Inga Oho" references a proverb about the workings of karma), and pieces of classic media (the episode title "Anya Koro" references the novel of the same name by Naoya Shiga).
The English episode titles were created by translator Ryan Morris.
Morris did not directly translate the Japanese titles, instead using alliteration to preserve the rhythm and meaning.
Characters
The series follows the exploits of three characters−Fuu, Mugen and Jin−when they are drawn together by circumstance and end up travelling together to find the sunflower samurai.
The main cast was created by Watanabe.
He wanted a cast of heroes who were silly, immature in manner, dangerous to meet, and with "a touch of insanity".
He described Mugen and Jin as unconventional people not bound by the rules of the period.
The characters were designed by Kazuto Nakazawa, who had worked as both an artist and director on multiple projects including Ashita no Nadja and the anime segments of Kill Bill: Volume 1.
The early character drafts were more to Nakazawa's tastes than the wishes of the production team, resulting in numerous redrafts based on requests.
The voice recording included sessions with all three leads together, which caused occasional tensions due to their different work backgrounds.
thumb|left|The main cast from left to right: Jin, Mugen and Fuu
is a vagrant outlaw from the Ryukyu Islands who uses self-taught sword techniques.
Having lived a harsh and solitary life since childhood, he has a deep mistrust and disdain of authority and lives to fight strong opponents.
Watanabe thought of Mugen as young and a little stupid, putting him in stark contrast with Cowboy Bebop protagonist Spike Spiegel.
He also described Mugen as symbolising "a rapper's ideal" of self-expression.
Mugen's Ryukyuen origins formed part of Watanabe's focus on inclusivity and tolerance within the narrative.
He is voiced in Japanese by Kazuya Nakai.
His performance changed little from the audition, someone on the edge who did not follow rules.
Watanabe told him that his performances improved with the soundchecks, which had a more relaxed atmosphere and emphasis on timing.
In English, the character is voiced by Steve Blum.
is Mugen's antithesis, a calm and stoic ronin, wandering Japan after being forced to kill his master and consequently wearing glasses to disguise himself.
He is the best at sensing danger, and prone to risking his life to prove his worth.
He is a master of mujushinken, a style of kenjutsu created in the early Edo period by Harigaya Sekiun.
Jin was created as a foil for Mugen to stop the story becoming one-dimensional.
During his early design phase, Watanabe created Jin to be an anarchist, but otherwise his personality and design changed little during production.
Jin was voiced in Japanese by Ginpei Sato, at the time a stage actor for whom Samurai Champloo was his first voice role after failing auditions for two other projects; his failed audition for Wolf's Rain prompted staff member Noriko Nobumoto, who had worked on Cowboy Bebop, to recommend him to Watanabe.
He had to learn about voice acting on the job, including timing and getting into character, and during recording for later episodes got into trouble due to wanting to shift his portrayal of the character.
In English, he is voiced by Kirk Thornton.
is the one who brings Mugen and Jin together to help her.
She is a cheerful and spirited young woman and a jack of all trades due to her constant changing between part-time jobs, starting the series working as a tea waitress; she has a pet flying squirrel called Momo.
A recurring gag is Fuu temporarily becoming fat after eating a lot of food.
Out of the three characters, Fuu's personality changed the least from Watanabe's original series concept, though her character design underwent major revisions to become more conventionally beautiful.
She is voiced in Japanese by Ayako Kawasumi.
Compared to her other roles, Kawasumi was asked not to overact her effort sounds outside scenes where her character was very expressive, making her more realistic.
It was the first time she did not create a separate character to voice Fuu, being asked to be herself as far as possible.
Her favorite episode was "Stranger Searching" when the fat Fuu first appeared, as she found voicing this version a challenge.
In English, she is voiced by Kari Wahlgren.
In the original plan, there were three semi-regular characters that would appear through the series.
They were Rekku, a Dutchman claiming to be Japanese; Koku, a travelling priest acquainted with Jin's past; and a kunoichi called Sara who falls in love with Mugen.
While their roles were reduced to one-off appearances, versions of the characters survived.
Rekku became the character Joji in "Stranger Searching", the priest appeared in "Lethal Lunacy", while Sara was a central character in "Elegy of Entrapment".
An early antagonist is Ryujiro, the son of a corrupt government official who loses his arm to Mugen and later plots revenge against them.
Historical figures or character homages also appear.
Notable examples are painter Hishikawa Moronobu, Joji who was a fictionalized version of Isaac Titsingh, a version of noted American baseball player Alexander Cartwright, and the character Ando Ouhori who was a direct reference to Andy Warhol.
Production
Samurai Champloo was the debut television production of animation studio Manglobe, which was started in 2002 by Sunrise veteran Shinichirō Kobayashi.
The opening animation was contributed to by Madhouse.
A production committee to support the project was formed by Victor Entertainment's Shirō Sasaki.
The committee was composed of Victor Entertainment, Tokuma Shoten, and North American company Geneon Entertainment.
Watanabe acted as the series director, in addition to creating the project.
Kobayashi, Sasaki, Sanae Mitsugi and Hideki Goto were credited as planners and executive producers.
The producers were Takatoshi Hamano, Takashi Kochiyama and Tetsuro Satomi.
The series story was composed by Shinji Obara and Yukihiko Tsutsumi of Office Crescendo.
The scripts were written by Obara, Dai Satō, Touko Machida, Keiko Nobumoto, Seiko Takagi, and Watanabe.
Nakazawa acted as both character designer and chief animation director.
The art director was Takeshi Waki, the storyboard director was Kazuki Akane, and coloring was led by Eri Suzuki.
Additional characters were created by Hideto Komori.
Weapon designs were co-created by Mahiro Maeda and Manglobe managing director Hidero Okamoto.
The cinematographer was Kazuhiro Yamada, with Syuichi Kakesu as lead editor.
Numerous guest creators were also brought in for different episodes as artists or animation directors, including Shūkō Murase Takeshi Yoshimoto, Naoko Nakamoto, Hiroyuki Imaishi and Tensai Okamura.
Concept and development
The series was first conceived in 1999 by Watanabe, then known for this work on the science fiction anime series Cowboy Bebop.
He wanted to create a series antithetical to the largely calm and mature atmosphere of Cowboy Bebop, wanting a complete change due to fatigue after working on one project for such a long period.
The success of Cowboy Bebop meant he was permitted to develop whatever he wanted for his next project.
As with his other projects, he drew inspiration from music, then matched a narrative to it.
His approach was combining two of his favorite things, classic samurai adventure films and series and hip hop music, into a single series.
He created the concept for Samurai Champloo during this period, but work on it was delayed due to his work on Cowboy Bebop: The Movie and his segments of The Animatrix at Studio 4°C. Kobayashi had invited Wanatabe to work on an original project at Manglobe when it was founded in February 2002, and Watanabe sent the Samurai Champloo pitch in May of that year.
The pitch included the central concepts for the series, and draft designs for the lead characters.
Watanabe invited Nakazawa on board as he was a fan of his work and wanted the opportunity to work with him.
Obara, known more for his work on live-action movies and television dramas, was brought in through his friendship with Mastsunmoto.
The eventual unstructured production style was unheard of in anime, and at the outset Obara created a series structure.
The three-episode finale was not planned ahead, emerging naturally as part of the design approach.
As the project evolved, Watanabe pushed for this structured approach to be discarded aside from the lead characters and premise, and Obara agreed to the new approach.
The lack of a structure meant that the series narrative was constructed piece by piece, with few plot details being decided in advance.
The fates of the three characters were also undecided during this stage.
Watanabe originally planned for all three to survive, but at one point the team considered Jin and Mugen dying respectively in the final two episodes.
Even the identity of the sunflower samurai was unknown to Watanabe during the early stages.
Due to this approach, pre-production on the series lasted a year.
Watanabe had a great deal of creative control and input, including on music selection and editing.
The first episode took a long time to polish, being completed around the beginning of 2004, but it and subsequent episodes had an animation quality notably higher than other series of the time.
This was attributed to the working environment of Manglobe allowing for easy communication between staff members, and Watanabe's passion for the project prompting famous staff from other notable anime projects to come on board.
The non-standard style of production left some members of staff including Sasaki skeptical that the series would be finished.
For the sound mixing, Watanabe wanted the same approach and quality as Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, bringing in sound engineer Masashi Yabuhara who had worked with Yoko Kanno on the sound design of Cowboy Bebop.
The fight scenes were choreographed to appear more realistic than other period dramas, which featured a clashing of swords which in reality would chip them.
Unique eyecatch artwork was created for each episode based on its themes and content.
Woodblock prints portraying the characters, designed by former shojo manga creator Tsubaki Anna, were shown at various points through the series.
Nakazawa created the illustration use for sponsor announcements.
Scenario and art design
The series was Obara's first time working on an anime series, and Watanabe attributed him with bringing a new style of narrative and pacing to the series.
Sato had worked with Watanabe before on Macross Plus.
He described the process of talking over plot concepts with Watanabe and building upon voiced ideas, treating his own contributions like sample discs that might be accepted or rejected.
The script meetings were notably long, beginning with the synopsis and ending up with the final form, alongside off-topic conversation that was sometimes incorporated into that episode's plot.
Due to Watanabe's reputation and the success of his projects in the West, the anime was created with a Western audience in mind with the expectation that it would be more successful outside Japan.
This resulted in more overt references to Western culture being included.
An assassin character who appeared in the second episode was intended to appear during the finale, but he was cut due to time constraints and a general lack of people remembering his earlier appearance.
Nakazawa had trouble getting a feel for the characters, with Mugen's design still going through adjustments when production on the first episode began.
For the animation of Mugen's fighting style, the team used gymnastic footage, despite Mugen's fighting style incorporating breakdancing.
For Jin, Nakazawa "ignored all of the conventions" for sword fighting, meaning Jin's fighting style remained inconsistent throughout the series, basing his reactions and tactics on fighting sports techniques.
His breaking of animation conventions to make these techniques work confused the animation team.
While the other episodes had a team for storyboards, Nakazawa storyboarded Episode 15 alone.
For his work as art director after joining during production of the first episode, Waki was instructed to create extremes of light and darkness in scenes, creating a realistic impression of the period when artificial light sources were scarce and expensive.
The variety and more contemporary elements prevented Waki from growing bored with the Edo setting.
The approach to the animation, lacking an overarching plan, was a reflection of the lead characters' non-conformist personalities.
Nakazawa designed the male character's kimonos to resemble contemporary jackets, including symbol homages to sports designs such as Adidas and Puma.
Many secondary characters were designed based both on the voice actors cast for the roles and staff members.
When the second half of the series was being crafted, it became increasingly difficult for Nakazawa to design all the guest characters, resulting in Komori being brought in.
Due to most of these characters being older men, when the early plan was for a young cast with several female characters, Komori  felt disappointed by his work.
Maeda was brought on for weapon designs when the plan was to have strong antagonists with unique weapons for each episode, but the plan never came about, and when Maeda moved to working on Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, the design work shifted to Okamoto.
The incorporation of graffiti was suggested by Sato to further enhance the hip hop aesthetic and tone.
He also suggested the inclusion of references to Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Music
When deciding on the music, Watanabe wanted to incorporate hip hop, fitting in with the series' original goals and themes.
While several staff members wanted him to bring back Cowboy Bebop composer Kanno, Watanabe was reluctant as he wanted professional hip hop artists to create the soundtrack.
The soundtrack was collaboratively composed by Nujabes, Fat Jon, FORCE OF NATURE, and Shinji "Tsutchie" Tsuchida of Shakkazombie.
Watanabe was friends with Tsutchie and had worked with him on the final episode of Cowboy Bebop, and Nujabes was the first name which came to mind when he was thinking about the series music.
Tsutchie was on board from the beginning, being intrigued by the mixing of hip hop music and samurai culture.
As with the rest of production, Watanabe was heavily involved in choosing and using pieces of music.
The non-standard sound design and dubbing approach, together with the improvised style of the production as a whole, meant that the composers had a harder time than expected finding suitable samples for their work.
The soundtrack included original work and sampling from pre-existing tracks.
Watanabe wanted the music to be on an equal artistic and quality level to the animation, though he later noted his choice of hip hop limited its audience and aliented many traditional anime fans in Japan.
The music was not always used either in intended scenes, or in its entirety.
One example was Watanabe only using the opening section of a theme for the opening of the first episode, which was motivated by the track's unsatisfactory sound on large speakers.
During production on the later episodes, there was some "chaotic" scheduling to edit and compose tracks.
When asked to collaborate, Fat Jon almost cried with joy as he was a fan of Watanabe's other work.
It was his first time working on an anime soundtrack.
Fat Jon's approach of fading tracks into each other frustrated Watanabe as he wanted the tracks to have abrupt endings and transitions.
FORCE OF NATURE were brought on board through Tsutchie, who provided samples to Watanabe.
They described their contribution to the soundtrack as even more heavily influenced by hip hop than their standard work, with several of their tracks being used for battle scenes.
For the eyecatchs, Watanabe hired a professional DJ to record scratches.
The opening theme "Battlecry" was composed by Nujabes and performed by Shing02, who also wrote the lyrics.
The lyrics, written in English, made use of work play and referenced the series' themes and period.
In addition to the English version, Shing2 created a Japanese translation which was included in a series guidebook.
Multiple ending themes were created, mostly performed by Minmi.
The main ending theme was "Shiki no Uta", with Minmi writing the lyrics and melody.
Episode 12 used the theme "Who's There", again with lyrics and melody by Minmi.
For Episode 17, the final episode in the series' original television broadcast, Tsutchie created the original track "You" without consulting the other staff, featuring singing by Kazami to contrast against the rapping vocals dominating the series.
Tsutchie had originally been asked for a rap track, but ignored this request.
For the episode "Baseball Blues", Tsukioka created the ending theme "Fly", with lyrics and vocals by Azuma Riki.
The final episode's ending theme was "San Francisco", licensed from the rapper band Midicronica.
Several other guest artists contributed to the soundtrack.
These included Umeko Ando, an Ainu musician who performed ubobo singing and the mukkuri for the two-part story "Lullabies of the Lost"; Yano Yuki, who performed tracks on a theremin for the episode "Cosmic Collision"; Yukiko Tsukioka, who sang the folk song performed by the character Sara in the story "Elegy of Entrapment"; and rapper duo Suiken & Sword for "War of the Words".
The fourteenth episode included a long uninterrupted piece of Okinawan music, which was in Watanabe's mind before the animation was created.
This track was performed by singer Ikue Asazaki.
The music of Samurai Champloo was released across four CDs during 2004 by Victor Entertainment under their JVC label.
The first two "Masta" and "Departure" were released on June 23.
"Departure" focused on tracks by Nujabes and Fat Jon alongside Minmi's main ending theme, while "Masta" included work from FORCE OF NATURE and Tsukioka including "You".
The next two "Playlist" and "Impression" released on September 22.
"Playlist" was dedicated entirely to work by Tsukioka, including "Fly".
"Impression" bundled tracks by Nujabes, Fat Jon and FORCE OF NATURE, alongside the song "Who's There".
A limited vinyl collection of tracks, titled Samurai Champloo: The Way of the Samurai, was released in 2007 by Ample Soul.
Broadcast and release
The series was first revealed in 2003, receiving a magazine spread in the September issue of Newtype.
Samurai Champloo premiered on Fuji Television on May 20, 2004.
The series ran for seventeen episodes on the network until September 23, 2004, when they decided to cancel its broadcast.
The series resumed airing on BS Fuji; the remaining 18th–26th episodes aired from January 22 to March 19, 2005.
Geneon licensed the show for distribution in North America almost a year prior to the show's airing in Japan.
An English dub of the series premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on May 14, 2005.
The version aired was edited and had foul language replaced with sound effects, in addition to cutting out blood and nudity.
The final first run of the episodes concluded on March 8, 2006.
Samurai Champloo debuted in Canada on December 24, 2006, on the digital station Razer.
The series has also aired in the United Kingdom, France, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Germany.
Funimation has distributed Samurai Champloo for Geneon since they ceased in-house distribution of their titles in 2007.
Geneon, in association with Funimation, re-released the entire 26-episode anime series in a box set in June 2009 and on Blu-ray in November 2009.
As of November 26, 2010, Funimation has fully licensed the series and once again released the series under the Classics line on May 24, 2011.
The anime series made its return to US television on Funimation Channel starting March 21, 2011.
The series returned to Adult Swim on January 2, 2016, this time part of the revived Toonami programming block, replacing Michiko & Hatchin.
Related media
A manga adaptation was written by Masaru Gotsubo.
It began serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace on January 26, 2004.
Gotsubo decided not to follow the series narrative, calling that approach both boring and "impossible".
Instead, aside from the opening section, he created an original narrative using the central cast.
Its chapters were collected in two tankōbon volumes, released on July 28 and October 26, 2004.
A compilation of two volumes was released on January 28, 2011.
It was licensed for a North American release by Tokyopop.
The volumes were released on November 8, 2005, and March 7, 2006.
The volumes were released in Australia on February 15 and March 15, 2006.
A companion book featuring artwork and interviews, Samurai Champloo Roman Album, was published by Tokuma Shoten on June 6, 2005.
It was reissued in May 2014.
An English edition was published by Dark Horse Comics on February 21, 2007.
A film comic adaptation of the opening episodes, intended to be the start of a series, was co-published in 2006 by Bandai Entertainment and Diamond Comics.
American company Triad Toys licensed toy rights from Geneon in 2008, releasing figures of Mugen and Jin.
An action video game adaptation, Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Bandai Namco Games in Japan and North America in 2006.
It tells a storyline separate from the series, described by the publisher as a "lost episode".
Company founder Goichi Suda acted as its director and writer, with Grasshopper's mandate being to preserve the series' original tone and style.
The music was composed by Masafumi Takada, inspired by the anime's music.
A social card battle game for mobiles was developed by Cybird released in Japan on August 28, 2011.
Reception
The North American DVD release of the series was a commercial success.
Samurai Champloo has been praised for its unique blend of genres and influence of music within the series.
The ambient soundtrack recorded by artists Fat Jon, Force of Nature, Tsutchie and the late Nujabes was ranked by IGN at #10 among their Top Ten Anime Themes and Soundtracks of All Time.
James Beckett from Anime News Network states "the mixture of hip-hop aesthetics and classic samurai tropes seems like a more awkward fit than Bebop's effortless fusion of jazz and science fiction, but Watanabe and Studio's confidence keeps the whole ship afloat with ease".
He further criticizes the show by saying "it lacks the deeper emotional resonance it seems to be aiming for."
It has a 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
A scholastic essay was penned by writer Jiwon Ahn about the series and its relationship to western culture, as well as various television and film genres.
The essay was published in the textbook How to Watch Television, and is currently used at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
In her essay, Ahn refers to the series as "a rich text to examine within the analytical framework of auteurism and genre theory".
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Official Adult Swim website
Official Madman Entertainment Samurai Champloo web site (Archive)
