Anime Review: Samurai 7, Vol. 1

Samurai 7, Vol. 1

Distributed by FUNimation
105 minutes (4 episodes)

I hate writing an unfavorable review for a FUNimation title, because FUNimation is, in my humble opinion, the hands-down best importer of anime this continent has ever had. Top quality English voice acting, impressive packaging, and release schedules that don’t keep audiences waiting for too long are just some of the reasons FUNimation is the best.

So, when you read this review of Samurai 7, don’t take this as a slight towards FUNimation. Rather, read this as my distaste for the re-envisioning of some old thing about seven samurais that Gonzo has created.

Synopsis
Welcome to the sermon of mechas and samurai.

In the beginning, there were mechas. Big mechas. Shiny mechas. The mechas were piloted by those who pilot mechas. And it was good.

The people who pilot the mechas and fly in the big ships of steel fought other people, clashed mecha with mecha, and they fought, and they died, or they won. And it was good.

Then the war ended and the bad people in the mechas that won the war took control, and the evils of capitalism engulfed the land. And it was good.

The samurai, some so mighty that they could cleave the mechas in two with a sword and a big jump and still not look sweaty after doing it felt disenfranchised, and hid in the shadows, or did mercenary work. And it was good.

A small village is overrun yearly by bandits who pilot the mechas and steal the village’s rice, and now the villagers have had enough. They send a young water priestess into the dangerous city, accompanied by some nobody who’s supposed to protect her, who despite himself bringing up the dangers of the city also takes the priestess’s little sister with them for some reason. And it was good.

The trio search for samurai, and the offering they make is only that of rice. And so this is the tale of the people who gathered samurai for a mission with only rice as payment. And it was good.

… No, no. It was NOT good.

Storytelling/Characters
Samurai 7 is the sort of show that takes a rather long time to get started. The first disc feels like a prologue. A very long, tedious, cornball prologue, with plot manipulation galore. Whenever the plot needs something to happen, it happens, no matter how unrealistic it is for that something to happen in the context of whatever it is Kirara or her slowly growing entourage of samurai are doing at the time. Take, for instance, Kirara’s little sister, Komachi. The villager who is the first to suggest making a stand, Rikichi, talks endlessly of how Kirara shouldn’t go to the city, because she’s a woman and it’s dangerous. Yet, when she resolves to go, Rikichi has no problem bringing along little Komachi. Idiocy, or would thinking realistically have been a snag in the producer’s desire to have a little girl as part of the crew? Unfortunately, it’s both.

I would say that the plot is simply a means to an end, a way to get all the unimportant details of the how and why over with and out of sight, but if that were true I would have seen samurai defending the village already. Samurai 7 is frustrating to watch, because instead of getting to the fighting, which, from the few snippets of action I’ve seen in this first volume, is the series’ strong point, it plods along slowly, trying very hard to make you fall in love with characters that are just not interesting. Except the robot samurai. He’s cool.

Working with a contrived plot is bad enough. Add a dash of unconvincing characters and a sprinkle of ridiculousness, and you’re left with a heaping helping of fluff. That Samurai 7 takes four hundred years to get started (it might be longer; for all I know the second volume is more of the same) doesn’t help matters. First impressions are important. Starting by jumping ahead into the more action-oriented part of the show, and then showing abridged flashbacks to bring the audience up to speed, would have been the superior approach.

Animation/Visuals
While Samurai 7 fails in the storytelling department, it shines when it comes to looks. The whole world has a darkish overtone present in every setting, from the simple village to the metal metropolis where the majority of the story so far takes place. Of particular note is the robot samurai, Kikuchiyo, who is animated beautifully; all of his movements are decidedly and convincingly mechanical.

The character design in general is quite good. If only the characters were as interesting as the outfits they don.

Voices/Music
Samurai 7’s dub is perfect; each character’s English portrayal is dead on. Kambei, the leader of the samurai, sounds very much like the wise and clever man that he is. Back to the robot: Kikuchiyo’s voice gets all messed up whenever he is damaged, going from high to low to normal repeatedly. Though a relatively easy effect to achieve with the right software, it just shows the kind of care and attention FUNimation puts into the English language versions of the anime they license.

Overall
But alas, for obvious reasons, it is beyond FUNimation’s power to take bad source material and somehow make it good. Actually, that’s not entirely fair; Samurai 7 might just be really good later down the line. But no story should require its target audience to be bored for hours before giving up the good stuff.

If samurai and robots are what you seek in an anime, look up Afro Samurai, also by Gonzo and FUNimation. It knows how to pace itself, playing to its strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. Samurai 7 does the exact opposite, and that’s a shame.