Samurai Champloo: Notes through disc five

[rachelmanija]

Here be spoilers. For a road trip story, this has a surprising amount of plot.

If you haven't seen this yet, I note that if you liked Cowboy Bebop, this has some similar virtues: unusual, carefully thought-out, and witty worldbuilding, pretty animation, and well-chosen music; if you didn't like Cowboy Bebop (and I am one of about three people in the world who didn't), this has characters who are likable and not annoying, and the plot and world are much more appealing to me.



Note that disc 5 ends with Part I of "Elegy of Entrapment," when Jin is fighting Sara, the blind singer/assassin on the bridge. Do not spoil me for part II or anything after that, or I will kick you in the head.

I hardly know where to start, so I will just write down semi-random notes.

1. Past history.

I was a bit disappointed to learn that the sunflower samurai was Fuu's father, though I had guessed it earlier and it seemed confirmed by her vision of herself as a little girl in a sunflower field, watching a man walk away from her. It seems so... modern-psychological, I guess, that everything comes down to abandonment and father issues. I hope that ends up going somewhere more interesting than where it looks like it is-- the hidden Christian angle seems, well, certainly more promising than the old old story of father leaves, mother dies.

We learned a lot about Mugen's history in "Misguided Miscreants," of which my favorite part was the stunningly animated sequence where he has a near-death experienced, accompanied by a haunting Okinawan song. I think that was the first time in the series that any of the three travelers seriously thought that one of them might have died, and they both seemed surprised by the extent to which they freaked out, Jin quietly and Fuu noisily. I wonder if this was the big reveal as far as Mugen is concerned, or if there are more secrets from his past life that will be revealed.

At this point, Jin's history is the big mystery (unless there's more to Fuu's than I'm surmising) and I realize that I don't even know for sure that he did kill his sensei. I had been assuming that he did, since he didn't deny it, but I think all he's actually said was "I wasn't the one who betrayed him." Which might mean that someone else did it, but for reasons of pride or maybe covering for some third party, he doesn't want to say so. But my guess is that if he did, he presumably had his reasons, and... I have no idea what they might have been. Something involving honor, no doubt.

2. Romance.

Wow, does this never work out well for the trio. I figured out that Sara was bad news mostly because Mugen had a crush on her, and whenever he likes a woman, she poisons him, drugs him, betrays him, beats him up, or some other combination thereof. Also, she generally seemed too good to be true.

Jin comes off marginally better-- at least he gets to have sex without the woman bashing him over the head before, during, or after-- but then it's get thee to a nunnery in three years and maybe we'll meet again then, assuming we're both still alive and haven't found someone we like better.

Likewise, Fuu is either ignored by men or crudely hit on by men she has no interest in. (Story of my life!) When she finally meets someone she likes, the tragic archer, he ditches her but takes her pet, then gets shot in the chest, set on fire, and jumps off a cliff. Story of my life.

I was surprised that she revealed a massive crush on Jin in the episode where he rescues the woman forced into prostitution, not so much because a crush on him is out of the question, but because the structure of the story would usually dictate that everyone likes each other equally but in a different way; however, by the point I'm at now it does seem to have come to that.

Which brings us the really startling and powerful turning point of "Elegy of Entrapment" where Sara asks Fuu which of the men she'd want to keep with her, and poor Fuu bursts out that she doesn't want to leave either of them and wants the road trip to go on forever, but all good things must come to an end. (The only reason that scene was not accompanied by falling sakura was that it was indoors.)

And then comes the sort of painful situation that can only happen when three people are emotionally retarded and incapable of expressing their feelings at all or in time or in an appropriate manner, and the fourth is a cunning assassin. Sara asks Fuu to let one of them go off with her, Fuu agrees (Oh, Fuu...), and picks Jin because she thinks he'd be better for Sara than Mugen, and Jin acquiesces (Oh, Jin...)

The scene at the crossroads perfectly summed up everyone's characters: Fuu trying really hard not to burst into tears until Jin and Sara leave, Jin totally stoic and presumably thinking, "A samurai does not experience messy emotions oh God my heart is breaking," and Mugen demonstrating how much he doesn't care by ostentatiously picking his nose. Ah-ha-ha-ha! Mugen is awesome! And now I know where that hilarious icon comes from.

That conversation Fuu and Sara had about the end of the journey is already breaking my heart.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Possibly my favorite moment of the series is the end of "Misguided Miscreants," when he doesn't kill her, because it's so harsh and so fitting. Which is weird because usually "harsh and fitting" aren't on the top of my list.

Have you been warned that "Elegy of Entrapment" is followed by two episodes of complete and utter non-plot-advancing crack? Well, it is. Don't be surprised.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Uh, no, but thanks for the warning. I adored the cracked-out episode where everyone got high-- once I'd recovered from falling off my chair at Mugen fighting while hallucinating, the warrior-priests started kissing each other and I fell off again, and when I'd recovered from that they were all doing a conga line.

I loved that moment at "Misguided Micreants" too. It also points out how gutsy Fuu is for managing to make her own way in a culture that's really harsh for women, without either being a kick-ass fighter or turning into a woman like Mugen's childhood sweetie.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

GIP!


I'm usually somewhat anxious about using it, because I'm not sure if people really appreciate Mugen ostentatiously picking his nose all over their friendspage, but sometimes it's just called for.

[octopedingenue]

Your DVD was mailed off this morning!

Episode 14/"Misguided Miscreants" is my favorite episode, largely because of Mugen's near-death sequence that is so gorgeous. Shinichiro Watanabe said at a panel that his vision of Champloo started with that visual sequence, and he built the rest of the series around that. Other favorite moments: Jin holding Fuu back on the bridge, Fuu leaning over Mugen in the hut, Jin saying "I was supposed to kill him", Jin seeing Mugen still alive for the first time, Mugen's horrible mercy in not killing the girl.

Mugen intrigues me because so much that should be obvious about him is not--he feels like he should be the main character but most of the narrative weight hangs on Jin and Fuu; he acts like brash matter-of-fact thinking-is-hard no-illusions character, but most of the imagery that surrounds him is surprisingly bittersweet and metaphysical (birds, the Okinawan death imagery, "infinity" in the graffiti episode). Maybe it's tied into the interpretation of Jin/Fuu/Mugen as the past/present/future of Japan, I don't know. All of them are fascinating characters for interpretation.

I loved the "what guy do you like best?" choice Sara made Fuu make, because Fuu manages to choose without choosing at all.

If I have a ship in Champloo, it's Jin/Fuu/Mugen as OT3. I think Fuu has a huge obvious crush on Jin because he is the handsome courteous noble samurai, and then once he reveals his inner dork she discovers she likes him as a friend as well as a bishonen; I think she has a marginally larger crush on Mugen that she does not make obvious because Mugen is a rude annoying lout who doesn't bathe. But I love all three of them in any combination.

I really liked how the Christian stuff was used in the series. It was handled better than in any other anime I've seen. And oh, the Ainu guy.

Really glad you're enjoying this and so looking forward to your thoughts on the last episodes (including the cracktastic ones) and how the series works overall.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I love all three of them together, which is why Fuu's realization that they can't stay together forever crushed my heart into a million little pieces.

I am not certain, at the moment, whether Fuu has a crush on Mugen, or whether he's the best brother she never had. Their bickering strikes me as marginally more sibling-esque than couple-esque, though that may be partly because it would kill Mugen to admit that Fuu is attractive.

"Misguided Miscreants" is a great episode. I just realized now that Mugen throwing himself over the cliff backward is echoed in "Lullabies of the Lost," where Jin does the exact same thing, and so does the Ainu guy.

Speaking of which, that scene with the young guy from Jin's dojo just killed me. So to speak. And Fuu's sandal!

"Infinity" is a pun on Mugen's name, right? Or is it? It could be the same "mu" that comes up so often in Buddhist stories, or perhaps not-- I haven't seen the kanji for any of their names. Do you know what they all mean?

[octopedingenue]

Oh, yes, I love all three of them together, which is why Fuu's realization that they can't stay together forever crushed my heart into a million little pieces.
Me too. I looooove Champloo as a roadtrip story because it really is all about the journey, but they knew from the start that journeys end. (Stories don't.)

I can't comment on Mugen/Fuu without being spoilery (not that I am implying they do get together or they don't get together or anything, only that I can't talk about scene interpretation without spoiling you for scenes). They love each other and Jin too, though, and that is not spoilery at all.

I just realized now that Mugen throwing himself over the cliff backward is echoed in "Lullabies of the Lost," where Jin does the exact same thing, and so does the Ainu guy.

Don't forget (in the eps with the Ainu guy) Fuu falling off the cliff into the water as well! And there's a ton of water/ocean imagery. What's with all the symbolic drowning of the main cast?

I want to know more about Yukimaru, that guy from Jin's dojo. They clearly had A Past, the nature of which clearly has a great effect on Jin that he does not show us because he is a frustrating emotionally retarded bastard. There's been one or two doujinshi pairing Jin/Yukimaru (far more Mugen/Jin, though. but het with Fuu? of course not!).

Fuu's sandal, oh, love! Fuu mad at Jin because she thinks seeing only him that he killed Mugen so she snaps about the sandal, and Jin very stiffly going "I was going to put it with your body because I love you and had to find out if you were dead because I think I couldn't bear it if you were dead and this odd warm and fuzzy feelings are strange and new to me" and Fuu going "Oh that's sweet but you still killed Mugen!" and the awkward pause and then both of them blurting in unison "WHERE IS HE?" Because each one thinks the other as Mugen's keeper, of course.

As to Mugen's name, I'm going to copy-and-paste part of the character description from the fansite AMALGAM (I would just point you to the character bio page itself but it contains MAJOR spoilers for the end of the series, but they make a fascinating read once you've finished it):

[H]is name literally means “no illusions” or “dreamless”[...later, in the footnote] There are many possible translations of Mugen's name. One writer suggested that the stress in the meaning should not be "no illusions", but rather "not an illusion": hence something more like "genuine, the real thing, no bullshit". Another reassembled all the elements and rendered it as "nothing but a dream". --More recently, Episode 18 offered yet another interpretation--"infinite/limitless"--though this is not a translation of the exact kanji used to spell his name on the show's official website. In this case we have a clever pun: the kanji "mu" read (in this case) as "no/none/without", but paired with two alternate kanji for "gen", one of which means "dream/illusion/fantasy" --the one used on the website--and one of which means "limit/boundary". So "Mugen" means both "no illusions/dreamless" and "no limits/infinite", depending on the characters used to spell it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

(Yeah, yeah, about to get back to work.)

Don't forget (in the eps with the Ainu guy) Fuu falling off the cliff into the water as well!

Yeah, she falls backward too, but she doesn't do it on purpose, unlike everyone else who goes over the cliff. Perhaps because she's more attached to life than the others, who would happily risk theirs for honor or fun or pride or to make a statement.

I don't know what the water and drowning imagery means either. Maybe when I finish the series.

What, there are no Jin/Fuu/Mugen doujinshi? What a shame! I would read Jin/Yukimaru though. Again, I don't know what kanji are used, but "Yukimaru" could mean "Courage Circle." Yes, there's little said but a lot suggested between them.

Yes, the sandal scene was wonderful. I love your interpretation of their thoughts. (Jin really needs subtitles to flash above his head every time he says something.) I also love that Fuu thought it was totally plausible that Jin and Mugen might just decide to kill each other-- still!

Mugen's name-- thanks, that's very interesting. It reminds me of the recent discussion of Hakkai's name, which literally means "eight renunciations" but by means of some complex pun, really means "not a single renunciation."

[octopedingenue]

(Me too. Honest!)

She gets a near-death experience drowning flashback, still, which fits it in with Mugen's near-drowning dream in ep 14. (They all need to just...stay away from water or something. Although Mugen the pirate boy would dry up and die.) That's an interesting thought about her, though. Mugen and Jin start the series--the opening scene, even--willing to die at any moment.

Water, and sunflowers (the first closeup shot we ever see of Mugen), and sight, and fate vs. chance.

No OT3 romantic doujinshi I've seen scanned, although there's some gen stuff. Everything was gone from the Champloo boxes by the time I found them at AWA this year! I think I've heard Yukimaru/Courage Circle somewhere before, but I don't know if that was an exact translation. I'll see if I can find the kanji for their names (maybe on the Japanese website).

(Perhaps Momo-san could sit on his shoulder and serve as interpreter.) I think Fuu is trying to convince herself that Jin and Mugen don't care as much about her or each other as she does about them so it won't hurt as much when she has to let them go.

My Olde English Style name is not nearly as fun in translation as Japanese fictional character names are.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Just watched Part II. There is certainly a lot of falling into water, nearly drowning, and falling from a height into water and then nearly drowning.

[kate_nepveu]

If you don't mind fic rather than doujinshi, Yuletide had some good stuff (alas, not spoiler-marked, so Rachel, I don't recommend browsing yet).

http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/samurai_champloo.html

[octopedingenue]

Oh, those are lovely, thank you!

Rachel, "Nugatory Nursery" and "Pursuit of Happiness" are both spoiler-safe and awesome!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, that's not a close-up of Mugen, it's a pinwheel. I would go on about the significance of pinwheels, but I won't since it's on Amalgam. (I've been checking the excellent notes on anachronisms and so forth after watching the episodes they concern, but have avoided most of the rest of the site for fear of spoilers. That is why I now know that Sara's weapon was a kama-yari, rather than a souped-up naginata as I had assumed.)

I don't know the significance of sunflowers in Japan, except that they seem to represent cheerfulness when they appear in shoujo manga.

My name means "ewe," as in "female sheep." Alas. If I went by "Rei," which I sometimes do in Japan, I could theoretically spell it with any one of a number of cool kanji like the one in my icon, but I have been told very firmly by Japanese people that this is incorrect and I must spell it in katakana, and also that "Rei," the samurai virtue, is not a name kanji. (Ob.Samurai Champloo: Gay Dutch guy: "Perhaps at some future time, Japan will stop being so tight-assed.")

[octopedingenue]

It's Mugen spinning a pinwheel, which gets associated later with both Sara through the pinwheel-salesman and the child and with Fuu through her pinwheel-sunflowers. Amalgam says pinwheels are placed on the graves of dead children to amuse their spirits. No clue what one's doing outside Fuu's teahouse. I'm unsure how much of traditional symbolism sunflowers and pinwheels are supposed to have in Champloo and how much they're supposed to have picked up symbolism within the series on their own.

(Oh gay Dutch guy, I heart you so.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Sunflowers, I don't know; the pinwheels do seem to have the traditional symbolism, at least given Sara's story.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Why does Fuu refer to Momo as Momo-san, or did I mishear her? It seems to me that she's known the little dude for a long time and takes care of him, so why is it still "-san"? I guess he can't very well tell her, "stop addressing me as -san"....

[octopedingenue]

The same reasons people name their cats Mister Fluffykins, one assumes.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

but by means of some complex pun, really means "not a single renunciation."

That's wonderful, because he certainly never seems to have renounced much at all, to me. Possibly apart from sex, but even then... where was that discussion, btw?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

http://oyceter.livejournal.com/412286.html?thread=3031678#t3031678

[megancrane.livejournal.com]

Make me #4 who doesn't like Cowboy BeBop.

We just got the DVDs of Samurai Champloo, so I'll have to save this to read later!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, you'll have to write it up. Fullmetal Alchemist too.

Do not read this post, it is full of spoilers. The one before it isn't spoilery, though, and has many pretty pictures.

[elyndys.livejournal.com]

I think that's just about where I'm up to, too. Need to catch up! I agree, that sequence where Mugen's in the water is beautiful. I downloaded two soundtrack albums, but none of the traditional-style music is on either of them. :/ It's so atmospheric, I'd love to get hold of it.

I keep being struck by how like Bebop it is, whilst also having almost no similar characters, scenarios or, indeed, message. As a Bebop admirer, though, I think of that as a good comparison! Can I ask what you didn't like about Bebop? I'm always interested in what people see in things that I don't, or vice versa!

Cowboy Bebop

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I never felt emotionally connected to Spike, Jet, or Faye, though I'm not sure why; and Ed bugged me. That was the main thing, really, because it was well-done and the music was lovely. But without being invested in the characters, the plot didn't grab me either.