Western and Eastern pop-culture collide in this bloody, action packed tale of vengeance and the shonen placed importance of numerical rankings. After young Afro's dad is killed by a pistol toting baddie(delightfully played by a snarling Ron Peralman) in order to obtain his fathers number one ranked bandanna, the stoic Afro dedicates his life to cutting his way to the top of the bandanna chain and eventually slay his fathers killer. First of all, let me state that the production values on this thing are incredible, blowing countless other titles out of the water. Obviously an ish load of money was available for this production, and it shows; from the eye-poppingly fluid animation to the Rza soundtrack to the presence of Samuel Jackson proving the vocal talent for the near mute Afro and the relentless chatterbox that is his sidekick of sorts, Ninja-Ninja. Afro Samurai is a triumph of style over substance, the plot, besides the rather involving, exciting flashbacks to Afro's childhood, is completely throwaway, serving as a link to one evisceration to the next, the characters follow the same route ranging from completely badass, but still rather cardboard to horribly annoying. The show also makes the sin of wasting an awesome villain(Pealman's gunslinger), he gets maybe several minutes or so screen time, most of it in a disappointing final battle, the show creators instead thought it would be wise to introduce a pointless shadowy organization led by one of the most obnoxious characters I had the displeasure of seeing,What a missed opportunity. In conclusion, Afro Samurai is like many a mega budget Hollywood f/x blockbusters; unparalleled eyecandy and kick-ass wall to wall action,but that's all your getting, which, especially in Afro's case isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Grade: B-/B
Reviewed: episodes 1-5(complete) Format: DVD
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