Samurai Jack (TV Series)

Samurai Jack is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network. The series follows Jack, a time-displaced samurai warrior prince, in his singular quest to travel back in time and defeat the tyrannical demonic wizard Aku. The series is known for its cinematic atmosphere, masking-based animation style, and battle scenes which pay homage to samurai films. Tartakovsky drew from a number of influences when creating the series, including the 1970s series Kung Fu, classic anime, and the works of directors Akira Kurosawa and David Lean. The series aired on August 10, 2001 to September 25, 2004. It won 4 Primetime Emmy Awards, 6 Annie Awards, and 1 OIAF Award, along with earning eight nominations awards. The show tells about a Japanese samurai embarks on a mission to defeat the evil wizard Aku. But before he can complete his task though, he is catapulted into a portal to a modern future. He finds himself in a world where Aku now has complete power over every living thing. Naming himself "Jack," he sets out on a new quest to right the wrongs that have been done by his enemy. Including to find a way back to his own time so he can destroy the evil for good.

Plot
Samurai Jack tells the story of a young prince (voiced by Phil LaMarr) from Feudal Japan, whose father's empire is destroyed by the shape shifting demon Aku (Mako Iwamatsu). As a child, the prince escapes destruction and travels the Earth training his mind and his body for years until he reaches adulthood, becoming a legendary samurai. After taking his father's magic katana, the prince challenges Aku to a duel and defeats him. However, before the prince can deal the killing blow, Aku creates a time portal and sends his opponent into the distant future, anticipating that he would be able to amass sufficient power to deal with the samurai later.

The prince arrives in a dystopian, retro-futuristic Earth ruled by Aku and filled with his robot minions and a large number of alien immigrant races of various appearances. The first people he encounters in the future call him "Jack" as a form of slang, which he adopts as his name (his true given name is never mentioned in the series).[1] Standard episodes follow Jack's search for a way to travel back to his own time, where he hopes to stop Aku before these events come to pass. The cartoon depicts Jack's quest to find a time portal, while constantly facing obstacles set by Aku in a classic battle of good vs. evil. Typically, each time Jack believes he has reached the end of his quest, something causes him to miss his chance.

In one attempt, Jack locates a stable portal to the past, but the guardian of the portal (Kevin Michael Richardson) defeats him after a long but noticeably mismatched battle. The guardian is about to crush Jack when the portal starts to flicker and glow, seemingly giving the guardian a message: the guardian has a giant pterodactyl take the unconscious Jack away. After Jack leaves, the guardian states that it is not yet time for him to return to the past and an image of what is implied to be an older Jack is seen in the portal: indicating that Jack is predestined to succeed, but it will take years for him to do so.

Episodes range from dark and epic to lighthearted and comic, but often contain little dialogue. Stories instead rely on the series' highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as its cinematic style and pacing. Many battle scenes in the series are reminiscent of samurai films, and since Jack's robot enemies bleed out oil or electricity and his monster and alien foes bleed out slime or goo, the action of these films can be exhibited while avoiding censorship for blood and violence.

Production

 * Setting

Samurai Jack takes place in a future Earth where science and technology have developed far beyond what is available in the present day and in some ways resembles magic on its own. However, despite scientific advances, the future is decidedly dystopian—for example, in one episode the mafia profits greatly from the sale of simple water. The distribution of technology is also very uneven with some areas having advanced megacities while others resemble ancient to industrial conditions such as ancient Greece, middle ages Europe or the Middle East, Victorian era England, 1920's Chicago and more. Aliens, bounty hunters, as well as robots are plentiful and always ready for a fight. The leader of this society is Aku.

While the setting is distinctly retro-futuristic and technological, instances of mythology and supernatural events do occur. Mythologies, like Valhalla, as well as even supernatural forces, such as demonic enemies, make regular appearances, yet do not seem to stand out amongst the technologically advanced inhabitants. Aku himself is supernatural, as is Jack's sword.

Stories take place in a variety of locations. Ranging from beautiful wilderness to futuristic or even dystopian cities, there is often a stark contrast made between the industrial world and the natural world.
 * Development

Samurai Jack was created by Genndy Tartakovsky as a follow-up to his successful series Dexter's Laboratory. He intended to develop a series "that is cinematic in scope and that incorporates action, humor and intricate artistry".[7] Prior to Samurai Jack, Tartakovsky had complaints with action cartoons, which is why he decided to create his own series in the genre. He based his new project on the samurai character, one of his favorites, as well as the works of Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa and Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago director David Lean. Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo recalled Tartakovsky pitching him the series: "He said, 'Hey, remember David Carradine in Kung Fu? Wasn't that cool?' and I was like, 'Yeah, that's really cool.' That was literally the pitch."


 * Influences

Samurai Jack frequently features appearances from deities of varying pantheons and creatures of legend. Tartakovsky was influenced by many different sources. The series overall was designed to look like a Japanese epic, with individual episodes taking on their own styles. Action in Samurai Jack borrows liberally from old martial arts and samurai films, as well as action films of the 1970s and Japanese anime. Like 1963's Toei Animation studio release entitled The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon (originally Wanpaku Ōji no Orochi Taiji), it uses multiple angle and split screen shots to display action from multiple angles. The plot is frequently stopped to allow for the building of tension before combat or for the sake of humor: it is also not uncommon for episodes to be almost entirely free of dialogue. Regardless of the setting, the simple, minimalistic art style employed resembles ukiyo-e paintings.

Tartakovsky has also acknowledged taking some of his thematic inspiration from Frank Miller's comic book series Ronin, including the premise of a master-less samurai warrior thrown into a dystopic future in order to battle a shape-shifting Demon. Similarly, the episode "Jack and the Spartans" was specifically inspired by Miller's graphic novel 300 that retold the Battle of Thermopylae.

In the episode "Jack Remembers the Past", Tartakovsky included a cameo of a samurai with a young child in a baby carriage. This character has a strong resemblance to Ogami Itto of Lone Wolf and Cub.

In addition to occasionally borrowing from ancient sources as well as current ones, Samurai Jack has referenced Tartakovsky's previous work as well. When Jack first meets the canine archaeologists, one of the dogs is "Big Dog" from 2 Stupid Dogs, a show on which Tartakovsky worked in 1993.

In the episode "The Birth of Evil", Odin, Ra and Vishnu are shown to join forces to battle the dark power that would one day spawn Aku. In another episode, Jack shows he is familiar with the chronology of the Greek pantheon, such as the Olympian Zeus and the Titan Cronus.

The premise of the entire series—a solitary man from the Orient wandering in a foreign society—is adapted directly from the early 1970s television drama Kung Fu, which starred David Carradine as the Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine. While their individual adventures do not correspond to each other, the ongoing dynamic of solitary wanderer learning, sometimes through pain and sometimes bemusedly, his new surroundings, while simultaneously teaching his own sense of ethics to those he meets, is consistent. At the conclusion of season 2 of Kung Fu, Kwai Chang meets a burly, somewhat crazy Scotsman who is transporting his wife in a gigantic casket. In this case, it turns out that the wife is a stone statue.
 * Broadcast

The network announced the series' launch at a press conference on February 21, 2001. Weeks leading up to the series were accompanied by a sweepstakes giveaway sponsored by AOL in which the grand prize was a trip for four to Japan. The promotion also included sneak peeks of Samurai Jack, behind-the-scenes model sheets, as well as exclusive Cartoon Orbit cToons. Samurai Jack officially debuted on Cartoon Network on August 10, 2001, with the three-part special "The Beginning". The premiere received high praise, including four award nominations, as well as was released as a standalone VHS and DVD on March 19, 2002. Cartoon Network ordered 52 episodes of Samurai Jack, which were aired as 4 seasons of 13 episodes each, as a primetime member of the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays programming block. The final episode aired on September 25, 2004.

Theme Songs

 * Opening


 * Samurai Jack
 * Closing


 * Samurai Jack

Episodes

 * 52

Voice Cast

 * English


 * Phil LaMarr as Samurai Jack, Mad Jack & Mantoid
 * Mako Iwamatsu as Aku & Hermit
 * John-DiMaggio as the Scottsman
 * Sab Shimono as the Emperor
 * Keone Young as the Emperor (Young)
 * Rob Paulsen as Rothchild
 * Daran Norris as Ra, Rama, Spartok & X-49
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as African Chief, Demongo, Evil Chief & Guardian
 * Adrian Diamond as African Prince
 * Jennifer Hale as Technician
 * Tom Kenny as Analyst & Idealist
 * Jeff-Bennett as Frederick & Sergei
 * Lauren Tom as Samurai Jack's Mom & Samurai Jack's Mom (Young)
 * Jonathan Osser as Samurai Jack (Young)
 * Ruth Williamson as the Scottsman's Wife
 * Richard McGonagle as Odin
 * Brian George as Brotok
 * Danny Mann as Kurtok

Trivia
all information on the Samurai Jack (TV Series) came from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Jack
 * The word "Aku" in Japanese means "Evil".
 * In Brazil, the name Aku was changed to Abu due to the original name's unfortunate similarity to a Portuguese swear word meaning anus.
 * The mines the dogs are excavating in the pilot movie used to be the city of Townsville from the The Powerpuff Girls (1998). This is evident from a billboard which has a picture of the Talking Dog which appeared in The Powerpuff Girls: Uh Oh Dynamo (1999).
 * In Samurai Jack: Jack Versus Mad Jack (2001), one of the bounty hunters in the woods that is riding a robotic elephant is a character from "Dial M for Monkey" from "Dexter's Laboratory (1996)". "Dexter's Laboratory (1996)" is also created by Genndy Tartakovsky.
 * Tartakovsky has acknowledged taking some of his inspiration from the Frank Miller graphic novel Ronin, including the premise of a master-less samurai warrior thrown into a dystopic future ahead of our present.
 * In the pilot movie, one of the dogs working in the mines is Big Dog from the shortly lived cartoon 2 Stupid Dogs (1993), another show worked on by Genndy Tartakovsky.
 * The cartoon is influenced by "The New Adventures of He-Man (1990)": Like He-Man, Samurai Jack is a warrior who travels to the future.
 * This show is most famous for being able to tell the story of each episode visually and with little to no dialogue.