Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Samurai Jack season 1 ::
by Thunderdude
Have you ever felt that some
action cartoons just don't have enough action? I have felt this way about
certain cartoons, however, the Cartoon Network premiered a new kind of action
cartoon a few years back titled Samurai Jack.
The story begins in ancient Japan. When exactly? We don't know. We just know
that it's a long time ago. The evil shape shifting master of darkness Aku,
escapes from a prison he was placed into by the Japan's warrior emperor with the
help of a mystical sword. He attacks the emperor and enslaves the country, with
only his wife and son escaping. The emperor's son is sent across the world to
learn from many different warriors and cultures, including Shaolin Monks and
Robin Hood-like thieves.
This continues for a long
montage. Finally Jack returns to a remote spot, a grown warrior, where he is
given the mystical sword by his aged mother, who has kept guard of it over many
years. Jack frees his father from Aku and narrowly defeats the shape shifter
before being tricked and sent to the far distant future, once again we're not
told what year he's sent to.
Once in this future, a few crazy homies call him "Jack", which he takes as his
name in the future. In this future, Aku is the overlord of the planet, with all
inhabitants never knowing of any other ruler other than Aku. In fact Jack's age
is revealed as 25 years old by placing him at 25 BA (before Aku) by a talking
dog.
Jack's mission is clear to him. Defeat Aku and/or find a way back to his own
time to defeat Aku there. Throughout the first season we see Jack befriend many
different species and people on earth who have also been negatively affected by
Aku, some being aliens from other worlds that have been nearly wiped out by
Aku's plundering.
The Good: The action is intense and fun to watch. Lot's of crazy martial arts
fighting with the sword and other weapons Jack might use. There's lot's of "kung
fu" like mysticism here too. The animation borders on goofy to beautifully fluid
depending on what creatures and what actions are occurring. Jack rarely speaks,
with little dialogue intruding on the crazy fun action that occurs. The show
takes itself seriously at some moments, while being quite goofy in others,
making for a well balanced cartoon that can be enjoyed by all. Even while I
relished leaning on the edge of my seat during some crazy action sequences, I
also laughed quite a bit as well. What also pleased me was that no one story was
just like another. Some very cool adventures are catalogued in Jack's quest.
The Bad: One of my few complaints is the inconsistency of some creatures. When
we first deal with dogs in the future, they have evolved into upright walking
creatures that speak well, however one of the last episodes in the season has an
old man with a bunch of cats and dogs in them like a kennel. These dogs aren't
walking upright or talking, so that kinda annoyed me. The other thing is the
differences in how so many humans look. Very few are like Jack, some look more
like midgets than anything else, but maybe that was a point I was missing.
Overall: Fantastic animated series! This kinda stuff is right up my alley. Love
the martial arts battles and the animation floats on the edge of anime,
Batman: The Animated Series and Ren & Stimpy. I highly recommend this
for any cartoon action junkie.
Solid A
