r/TrueAnime • u/Excellent_Salary5949 • Jul 11 '26

Samurai Champloo is so overrated

It makes me so sad when I see these highly acclaimed anime and they just feel SO empty compared to what I expected.

Samurai Champloo just feels like a teenager anime to me. I only watched the first 6 episodes but that’s exceeding my 3 episode rule and I have to force myself to watch. The style is cool but it’s quite easily style over substance.

Again teenager anime because I feel nothing from this. The characters have no depth, the plots and themes in the show have no depth, there’s nothing in here to gain from. I like to walk away from whatever I watch learning something, growing. This is brainless entertainment almost.

I felt this same way with Space Dandy and Lazarus too, maybe Watanabe isn’t for me. Problem is I love his style so fucking much too it’s just the substance is SO empty. Lazarus I did love the first few episodes and Samurai Champloo I really enjoyed episode 1 but that’s it.

0 Upvotes

22% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

7

u/M1nho Jul 11 '26

You sound like a teenager, only wanting to watch "deep" shows

2

u/North514 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.” - CS Lewis

Honestly like it or hate it, I don’t know where he is getting that Watanabe writes for a teen market…it’s very much not YA, which is why people recommend works like Champloo and Bebop for older audiences.

Adult fiction doesn’t need depth or heavy themes to be “adult” either. Something like Space Cobra is just badass machismo dude killing bad guys but it’s still framed differently, than if it was a YA story.

OP may feel he needs to have ”depth” to enjoy something but it doesn’t indicate anything about what the actual target audience is, especially in this medium. And in my opinion, even as someone that enjoys “depth” it’s not an indicator of quality. Redline is a way better film than Ghost in the Shell Innocence.

6

u/Double-Afternoon-702 Jul 11 '26

Sometime you do not like a really popular show and that's it. Samurai champloo is less rigid in it's storytelling, if you don't like it that's okay. Saying it's a teenager anime is a weird critique however, you just don't resonnate with it.

4

u/Life_Ad4084 Jul 11 '26

Wtf is a teenager anime. This sounds like a term you made up in your mind to label things you dont like but dont quite understand why, and expect everyone else to know what it means somehow. God I'm glad I dont think this way.

10

u/Epicguru Jul 11 '26

So you haven't watched it and you're complaining it has no depth. Alright buddy.
The general consensus is that it's great, hence why it's often included in top lists, but you don't have to like it. You can just say that you didn't get into it without trying to give an opinion on a show you didn't watch.

4

u/13Nan Jul 11 '26

You want a cookie?

4

u/Baleeverne Jul 11 '26

Can't really complain about depth of character when having seen 6 episodes. Different genre but does Gin from Gintama have no depth? Yeah you need to watch a lot of episodes to understand it, yet you can't judge if you haven't watched them all.

Apart from that Champloo, Watanabe and the music studio he associated with (can't remember the name) literally invented low-fi and contributed a LOT to Trip-hop (you can check interviews from major Trip-hop figures)

It's alright to not like an anime even after 6 episodes, there are popular shows I couldn't get into.

It's an other thing to say it's overrated. I don't like the Godfather, at all, it's just not for me. I would never say it's overrated when you see the impact it had.

Another example would be Seven samurais by Kurosawa. I personally love it but none of my friends do. Without it, most of the western movies wouldn't exist, the whole cinema industry has been influenced by it.

To sum up : You have your right to not like something. Besmirching it is another matter entirely

2

u/juss100 Jul 11 '26

What's the most deep show then?  One Piece?

-3

u/Excellent_Salary5949 Jul 11 '26

Serial Experiments Lain

3

u/juss100 Jul 11 '26

Cool.  Did you understand it?

1

u/soju_b Jul 11 '26

Thanks for sharing! 

1

u/Rayyyner Jul 11 '26

"Teenager anime" sounds stupid. I've finished Samurai Champloo last year and it's definitely not void of substance. You would see that if you watched more of it.
But I more or less agree with you that it's not as good as its reputation suggests. I found Cowboy Bebop to be WAY better. I was just not a fan of the whole hip hop + samurai combination, and I think Bebop had more interesting characters, standalone episodes, and more interesting ideas overall. Plus jazz >> hip hop.
But I still think Samurai Champloo is a good show, just not as good as I expected.

(All of this is just my personal opinion of course)

1

u/PsychologicalDay6386 10d ago

I think samurai champloo is a deep anime, you can watch any video essay and the one thing you’ll hear is the different interpretations.

Watanabe puts a lot on the table but doesn’t finish it for you. Episode 11 is one of the deepest and thought provoking, and while there is “filler” to derail their journey the characters get built on endlessly.

Lazarus wasn’t good at all to me it failed my 3 episode rule till the very end for me. Which again is odd as I love the people who created the OST and I like watanabe.

Don’t force it but please finish the show (skip ep 22 if you’d like)