When I caught this episode (at a guest house in Thailand of all places), I had never seen or even heard of Samarai Jack before. I was absolutely in awe. The style, the sound design, the story, the humor, the music. It's all great. As soon as I got home, I bought the Season One DVD. I really like the other episodes, but this one is hands down the greatest of them.
My favorite sequence: To overcome the blind super-archers, Jack must learn to to fight as they do. So he blindfolds himself, and meditates in the middle of a snow-covered forest. At first, the screen goes black and it goes totally silent. Then you start to hear a subtle sound, like a scratching, and then the source of that sound is gradually revealed to be a deer digging up the snow to find a shoot. The sounds and images continue to literally paint the world for Jack, culminating with the sound of each individual snowflake falling, like tiny shards of glass breaking in slow motion. Spellbinding.
My four-year-old daughter and I completely fell in love with Jack and Aku, The Shapeshifting Master of Darkness (he with flaming eyebrows). I was a little hesitant about the violence factor at first; but the cool thing is that only robots get killed!
My favorite sequence: To overcome the blind super-archers, Jack must learn to to fight as they do. So he blindfolds himself, and meditates in the middle of a snow-covered forest. At first, the screen goes black and it goes totally silent. Then you start to hear a subtle sound, like a scratching, and then the source of that sound is gradually revealed to be a deer digging up the snow to find a shoot. The sounds and images continue to literally paint the world for Jack, culminating with the sound of each individual snowflake falling, like tiny shards of glass breaking in slow motion. Spellbinding.
My four-year-old daughter and I completely fell in love with Jack and Aku, The Shapeshifting Master of Darkness (he with flaming eyebrows). I was a little hesitant about the violence factor at first; but the cool thing is that only robots get killed!
