Anime: Afro Samurai Resurrection 5l3n1l

Let’s face it, a movie starring a Black African samurai in Japan cannot possibly be judged with a straight face. If the setting made any attempt to reproduce historic fact, it would clash horribly with the characters and appear extremely out of place. As long as its elements are detached from reality, the viewer has a chance to observe the movie from a distance and actually enjoy it.

The skeleton of the setting is a barebones version of feudal Japan; the similarities go as far as the landscapes, clothing, buildings and some minor cultural elements. From there, the camp factor increases exponentially. The main plot of the movie revolves around using a dead man’s remains to make a clone of himself and reprogram their brain, effectively “raising them from the dead”. There are veterans of war who have fitted sword blades, grenades, jet packs and flame throwers in their amputated bodies. And let’s not forget the mazochistic arachnoid mad scientist cyborg. It all actually seems very fun, as long as it doesn’t take itself seriously.

The main villains are very one-dimensional, and some flashbacks introduced to flesh them out do them more harm than good. Afro, Jinnosuke and Sio are all played straight throughout the flashbacks; it feels like the movie is taking itself seriously there, which would be a terrible mistake. ittedly the flashbacks are necessary in order to explain the characters’ actions towards the end, but even so they should have come up with something equally riduculous with the rest of the movie.

The rest of the cast are not much better off, of course. Afro continues to be a stoic character completely predictable in his motivations and feelings (or lack thereof). He also seems to adhere to a moronic kind of warrior code which probably wouldn’t hold water in any more serious setting; even in this movie, it stretches credibility to go forth issuing formal challenges in order to reclaim something that he rightfully owned and was stolen from him.

To be honest, it is difficult to understand why first-rate Hollywood actors were chosen to voice the characters in Afro Samurai Resurrection, other than accepting it as a marketing trick. Most of the action goes by in silence, and the dialogues that take place are too short and restricted to make use of the actors’ talents.

Other than my gripe with the voice actors, I think that the attention on high-quality production values was well spent and well deserved. The character designs are suitably over the top to match their ridiculous origins, and their movements and actions are extremely detailed, both when engaged in duels and when resting and talking. I particularly like the various camera angles used, during combat and elsewhere, as it allows the viewer to watch the same characters and environment in different ways and appreciate the details spread all around. This attention to detail is also apparent in the backdrops; from the cyberpunk labs to the traditional japanese parade, there is something to catch one’s eye.

The awesome graphics are nicely completented with appropriate sound effects and ambient sounds. The soundtrack is also noteworthy; although mostly unusual for anime, having a rapper create the score sounds strangely fitting in this case.

Don’t mistake Afro Samurai Resurrection for an anime set into any kind of historic japanese era. Instead, it is choke full of gory battles, over-the-top environs and ridiculous characters. And as far as those are concerned, it handles itself very well.

plot summary and review in my blog,
http://animouliasma.blogspot.com/2009/02/afro-samurai-resurrection.html

I'll try my best not to spoil everyone.

At first, I thought it was really cool to have a black samurai concept made into anime. But that's not the only thing needed to conceptualized a samurai anime. From the title itself is kinda a catchy but let's explore in details...

ANIMATION 7/10
Animation is good and well done. It is kinda cartoony-fantasy-like concept (samurai-chicks-cyborg-gory blood scene have not properly mixed-up in afro samurai). It is not in that of futuristic-realistic category like in Ghost in the Shell series.
Mood:
The director, i think, was trying to achieve a dark atmosphere and kinda hit the target by an inch. Set in a futuristic, dark mood concept where samurai meets cyborgs, chicks, blood-spilling actions etc that you've imagine as a shallow minded individual. You can feel a very heavy & dark setting which is very suited for this title. It was in kinda "sunset" atmosphere & in nighttime settings.
Background:
Detailed background especially at the parade & thus far, the parade scene is the memorable one in the movie. Overall, it is literally "dark" if you watch it in a well lighted room. I'll recommend to watch it in a dark room to appreciate the visual animation effects better.
Animation style:
The animation style is not uniquely done especially the fighting scene at the parade. There's a fighting scene similarly done like in Cowboy Bebop movie, Sword of the Stranger. The blood-spilled action is not unique either. As far as I (senile memories) Elfen Lied, Ninja scroll movie, & Hellsing Ultimate are more bloody & brutal.
Animation Quality
There are a few repeated frame, i think, some from the first afro samurai (not the recall one). The "tube" where afro's father being genetically resurrected are overly used by many anime. They should have redone the look of it & the color. Green & red one are overly done. The looked of cyborgs feels kinda dirty & like about to throw up. It's too generic.
Lastly, the afro & afro's father versus scene at the end part is not artistically executed as they thought/ conceptualized it.
The Overall animation kinda generic, forgettable, & not surprising. No new futuristic concept seen that could' have separate it from other futuristic anime. The best so far in futuristic concept introducing fresh animation is from Ghost in the Shell titles.

SOUND 1/10 (dubbed only)
I'm not a very fond of English dubbed. That's a major factor for me. The dubbed are not in sync with the mouth movements & characters' action execution. A lot of waste, unimportant extra dialogues.
Voice actor:
I like some Samuel L. Jackson & Lucy Liu movies, they're a good actors, you can feel the emotion through their faces & actions, but this one (Afro samurai) has kinda overly done voicing that resulted in mediocre synchronization with the characters. The voice sounded differently from the character visualized. One particular that are not totally in sync with the voice actor is the sidekick Ninja Ninja. He is too loud too energetic (and annoying) than the character appears, plus the dialogue executed doesn't properly match with his mouth movements & acting execution.
NOTE: The difference in anime & cartoons are in anime, they draw first then voice follows while in cartoons, they do voice first then draw later on. Although, it is difficult to achieve to dubbed this way but it goes that they're not versatile enough for anime dubbing.
OST:
The soundtrack is good separately but once they've been incorporated in anime, it is horrible. The insert soundtrack upsets some of the moods in the movie. Insert sound/music should enhance the mood of a scene but in Afro samurai kinda remove you from the intended mood.
Overall, the English dubbed version is a mediocre. The OST is good but tend to break/crack your mood in watching Afro samurai. I haven't seen the Japanese version yet. Hopefully it has better script & seiyu.

STORY & PLOT 1/10
Have you seen the first Afro Samurai? Do you think the first one is just plain shallow? Well, Afro Samurai Resurrection is shallower than the first.
The concept of headband is uniquely used in afro samurai but for broader sense, it is just shallow. You can tell that there's no other purpose of it but being the number one samurai (honor? & pride). It is shallow & narrow-mindedly used in the movie. Speaking of headband, Naruto series portrayed better the deeper concept & meaning of having a headband (just watch it).
Afro samurai, in my own opinion, wrongly used the word "samurai", i kinda feel that they just used the term "samurai" because the character used a katana & slashing people around. A true samurai should have bushido - the way of the warrior discipline. This is poorly researched, stereotypical, westerner's view of a samurai, an insult to samurai. Plus the two titles, Afro samurai & Afro samurai: resurrection plainly played by revenge, a shallow concept for a samurai title.
After seeing the first afro samurai, i was really disappointed by the ending. He achieved his revenge back then, and one way to end the first Afro samurai is that he should have destroy the headband & commit seppuku at least he will die in honor & end the bloody murderous & pointless fighting over a headband. But it turns out disappointingly. And here's another sequel. It is rightful to defend from those who disgrace your father's grave but yet again the ending is a disappointment. He didn't learn. Again, it should have end it with seppuku. But if the producers have another sequel agenda in mind, they should have a deeper & interesting plot for the sequel.
And the most unrealistic & most hilarious part of Afro samurai resurrection movie is the "resurrection" of Afro back from the dead when a little electrical surge brings him back to life. I was kinda confused about the title who's who the Afro Samurai Resurrection, either the father (quite possible to resurrect from a body part with the aide of future technology) or the hero Afro (which even impossible with just a little electrical surge as portrayed with no modern tech).
Overall, a shallow disappointing samurai movie driven only by revenge. No honor nor discipline seen as the title (samurai) implies.

CHARACTER 3/10
A black samurai is a good character concept. But it's development throughout the movie is a disappointment. The characters are well drawn, but poorly executed as characters in the movie. The portrayal of samurai in this movie are stereotypical, being a character as just holding a sword, swinging his sword without a warriors way & discipline. If you know about samurai, you can tell that they view samurai is a person just holding a sword, but the real meaning of a samurai is not executed in the movie. In short, Afro Samurai, is not a samurai movie but a sword fighting movie.

VALUE 1/10
The movie is plague with revenge & pointless fighting. The concept of samurai are not found on this movie, a stereotypical used of the term samurai. If you like pointless fighting, this is to your liking, but for me, a greater meaningful movie is much appreciated.
If you'd ask how many times I've watch this movie, I'll say once, and it sickens me. I barely watch it, at least Ive finished it and didn't die from watching it. Although, before writing a review, it is a must that you have to watch it several times, but in this case, just no. I don't want & intend to watch it again.
Is it a value for your money, if you may ask me. Well, i'm pretty sure no. I'll recommend to rent, or meet with your peers & buy one dvd for your group and save money to buy much worthy anime out there. If you're a anime collector, just buy it and watch it once.
Is it memorable? Oh yeah it is memorable. The worst samurai anime movie i've ever seen, how can i forget that. And the most hilarious, ridiculous & dumbest scene in Afro Samurai is when afro was resurrected from an electrical surge is memorable enough.
Is there an anime similar to it? No, whatsoever. But i'd recommend to watch Samurai Champloo, Samurai X, & Sword of the Stranger for samurai anime genre, & tons of really good anime out there better than Afro samurai.

ENJOYMENT 1/10
Oh yeah I enjoy the banging scene in one of the alley near the parade. That's it only. I enjoy blood-spilling action, but in this case, not. For enjoyment pleasure, Elfen Lied & Hellsing Ultimate executed better in blood-spilling action. For fighting scenes, I've seen a lot of excellent anime fighting action than Afro Samurai. If you level Afro Samurai action, there's a "mother of all action scene", there's "junior", & there's "an egg and the sperm", Afro samurai action scenes are "an egg and the sperm" compare to those anime with really good action scenes.
Clearly I didn't enjoy the two titles Afro Samurai & Afro Samurai resurrection, obviously, it is a disappointment. Normally, I just sit in the corner silently exploring ANIDB posting small comments but this just hit me hard, SO HORRIBLE, so thus this review is born.


These are just my personal opinions & scores. I judge it to my own liking.

Don't be deceive that it has "SAMURAI" on the title means it is a truly samurai movie but it's not.
Don't glorify it just because Samuel L. Jackson & Lucy Liu in it. Trust me, they're good actors in live-acting but in anime-dubbing they're amateur & not versatile enough.

Afro samurai & Afro samurai Resurrection are forgettable & partly memorable. Memorable because it is, for me, the WORST ANIME SAMURAI I've ever seen.


PS: My vote for my own review is 5/10 for being bias & a lot of hatred towards Afro samurai & Afro samurai Resurrection.

Afro Samurai Resurrection - An apt title, in more ways than one

Afro Samurai Resurrection is definitely a perfect choice for this anime, as not is the main story about a literal resurrection, the series comes back just as strong as before, with more of the same, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on how you felt about the first series.

Animation - 10/10
This movie is visually stunning. It is incredibly detailed animation through out the entire run, with not only the action sequences, but with great mood and scene establishing shots, and even the talking head scenes are great looking, as there's always something to keep your eye's attention going on.

Add the fact that you've got a fair number of different backgrounds poping up, from medieval-style Japanese castles in cherry blossom season, to seedy gambling parlors, to a bright neon parade that gets dowsed in tear gas, the visual are always interesting.

Considering that the first series cost $1 million an episode to animate alone (a record for the company), they definitely keep their standards to the same level and brought their A-game to the table.

Sound - 8/10
Both the voice overs and the music were top notch.

Samuel L Jackson does great double duty as the sullen silent bad-ass hero Afro and his loud mouth annoying (and possibly imaginary) sidekick Ninja Ninja. Lucy Liu does a great job as the main villain Sio, although she is confined to only displaying sultriness and rage by the writing, which is a bit of a waste, as she is capable of more. I also kinda felt a bit cheated with Mark Hamill, being listed as a major headliner after the previous two, but only gets to produce a monotonic voice that gets put through some computer effect before we hear it in the last third of the movie, which is an absolute shame because he is so much more talented than that, having become one of the best voice actors in the industry. The voice did sound appropriate to character however, as did all the others ranging from mid to minor characters, so I'll take it that the casting agents knew what they were doing.

The music, provided by artist RZA, is wonderful and great for the mood setting and the action scenes. My only complaint is that it never gets that memorable, at least for me, but given how rarely background music does become memorable in any media, I'm not going to hold it against anyone.

Story - 6/10
The story is, well, kinda mediocre. But that's not really why anybody tuned in to watch this. It's the spectacularly bloody fight scenes that people wanted to see, and they do deliver, but this doesn't increase the score for story.

The story is stable and clear, and there aren't any plot holes, leaps of logic or anything like that, but the story never goes to far beyond the basics. Ninja Ninja basically says it all from the start when he lists what Afro has to do to defeat Sio, and it never gets much more complicated than that. The majority of the movie goes from one action sequence to another, but I don't think anyone was ever expecting anything else from this. The one deviation from the basic that is worth mentioning is story involving Number 2's kid, but you can tell where it's going once they set it up. I just wonder if they set it up like that to intentionally leave room for a sequel, or if they were trying to make the statement that "violence only begets violence", which seems to be the underlying theme of the movie.

Value - 7/10
There isn't much long term value to ASR, as most of it is grandiose action scenes, although the effort to include the underlying tone of "violence only begets violence" does help give it a bit more legitimacy, even if Afro doesn't seem to learn this in the end.

Enjoyment - 7/10
This movie is meant to be pure mindless enjoyment. The main reason to watch this is for amazingly well done action sequences. That's basically it. If you like Samuel L Jackson being a bad-ass motherf*cker, classic samurai exploitation films, blood action sequences, or all of the above, than this is a film you will want to watch at least once.