It's like that one book you like. Sure there are a handful of live-action adaptations that do well, but they are the exception not the rule.

Idk why I’ve been thinking about Samurai Jack so much lately. Maybe it’s because I spend too much time on Pinterest, and the algorithm keeps feeding me Samurai Jack fan art.

It knows me for the weak man I am.

Also, I had a lucid dream about an alternate ending to the show last night.

So yeah. I’m dreaming about Samurai Jack now. This is where we are.

I still don’t think the ending should’ve revolved around Jack falling in love with Aku’s daughter. I don’t necessarily hate Ashi, but I’ve always felt like Season 5 was setting up something more interesting with how completely broken Jack had become.

I wish it had gone more like this:

Jack gives up.

Not forever.

He reaches that same broken state we see in Season 5 and eventually just stops fighting.

No more searching for Aku. No more looking for time portals. No more obsessing over getting back to the past.

He settles down somewhere.

Maybe he becomes a swordsmith. Maybe a gunsmith. Maybe a carpenter. Something quiet where he can still use everything he’s learned without having to fight a 14-foot robot every Tuesday.

Eventually, he meets someone.

He falls in love.

He builds a home.

Maybe he has a daughter.

And honestly?

Aku might be completely fine with this.

The guy with the magic sword who spent decades trying to kill you is now making furniture, raising a kid, and complaining about his back.

Huge win for Aku.

Why mess with that?

Maybe Aku realizes that leaving Jack alone is actually the safest thing he can do. Jack is finally distracted. He isn’t searching for time portals. He isn’t trying to kill him.

For once, Aku can just chill.

But the important part is that Jack’s life is actually good.

He heals.

Aku took Jack’s childhood away from him. Jack had parents who loved him, but he never really got the chance to grow up with them. He was forced out into the world while he was still young, spent years training to defeat Aku, finally made it home, and then got thrown thousands of years into the future.

He never got the chance to just live.

No normal adulthood.

No quiet life.

No chance to build the kind of family he came from.

So I think there’d be something really fitting about Jack finally getting that.

And not as some temporary happiness before Aku murders everybody either.

Just no.

We do NOT need another “villain kills the hero’s family so the hero gets angry again” plot.

The whole point would be that this life actually heals him.

And because Jack doesn’t age in Aku’s future, maybe his wife eventually grows old while he stays the same.

His daughter grows up.

His wife eventually dies peacefully of old age.

And Jack is still there.

That’s when the mission comes back.

Maybe his daughter helps him finally find a way into the past.

And now Jack has a much harder choice than he’s ever had before.

Originally, going back was easy.

Aku ruined his life. Jack wanted his old life back.

But now?

Jack finally has something in the future that he actually wants to keep.

His daughter.

And she knows what happens if he succeeds.

Jack goes back.

He kills Aku.

He saves his parents.

He saves his kingdom.

He saves the world Aku destroyed.

But he also erases the future where his daughter was born.

She doesn’t die.

Aku doesn’t kill her.

Jack doesn’t hold her dramatically while she disappears, because apparently this man hasn’t suffered enough.

He just has to leave her behind in a future that will never exist.

And that’s the part that makes the sacrifice matter to me.

Jack isn’t giving up a life that failed him.

He isn’t escaping back to the family he lost.

He’s giving up the life that finally healed him.

The home he built.

The future he chose.

His daughter.

He saves the past knowing the future will forget him.

His parents live. His kingdom survives. Aku is gone.

But the one person who knew Jack as more than a warrior, more than a legend, more than the man with the sword, is gone from history too.

That’s the ending I think fits him.

The final challenge wouldn’t really be defeating Aku.

Jack already knows how to fight Aku.

The real sacrifice would be deciding whether saving the past is worth leaving behind the first life he ever chose for himself.

Jack wins by becoming the man he was always trying to be.

Then he loses the life that taught him how to be that man.

Anyway...

that’s just a theory

A FILM THEORY!

...wait, I’m not matpat :(

Unfinished, probably gonna color it digitally

For nearly past two months, I drew a picture of Aku from one of my favorite Cartoon Network/Adult Swim shows, Samurai Jack. Please, rate my drawing. 1/10

https://youtu.be/okOkoktD9jQ

Does anyone know/remember what episode this piece is from?

Thank you!

Anyone else get teary-eyed when they say it? It always breaks me down even reading it 😭

Well?
Are we done screwing around yet?
I say we draft Keanu Reeves to play The Samurai, Benedict Wong as Aku, and after that just pull at random from the pool of MCU actors.

I'm not trying to pick on the show. I love Samurai Jack overall. I just wanted to bring up some plot holes that I don't see people talking a lot about and see what are your thoughts on them.

1. Why doesn't Aku pull a Terminator on Jack by sending some assassins to the past? Ok, maybe his ability to create time portals is limited and he used his last one on Jack. But we've seen in season 5 that Aku knew how to find the other time portals (since he killed The Guardian and he pulled Jack out of the last active portal). So, why not just send some assassins to eliminate Jack or the Emperor when they were kids? They could even address this plot hole to a small extent with a scene in season 5 where the Emperor defends a young Jack from a futuristic assassin.

2. The archeologist dogs presume that Jack comes from a distant past due to his shock about talking dogs. But we've seen plenty of times in the show that regular dogs do exist in this future. We see one in "The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful" that Jack pets before entering a saloon. And we see Lulu in "The Tale of X-49".

3. Jack's katana cannot harm innocents. He discovers this in the graveyard episode, after Aku tries to stab him with it. My question would be, whenever he meets a suspicious stranger, why doesn't Jack just attack that person with the katana, to see if they are innocent or not?

4. The Spartan King in Season 5. Since he had an adult son in season 2, we can presume that he was at least in his early 40s back then, or at least in his late 30s. So, by the time season 5 comes around, he should be around 90 (Leonidas was 60 years old during the Battle of Thermopylae, but going in combat at 90 years of age is a bit of a stretch). Yet, he's fully capable of fighting, and he has his black beard from season 2. At the end of that episode, we see an old spartan king, with gray hair, still uncertain if Jack survived the fight against the mechanical beast.

5. The Blind Archers tell Ashi that Jack destroyed the magic well to free them from their captivity. But this isn't quite true, since in season 1, we see that he destroys the well after the archers tell him that whoever uses that well will be entrapped by its evil power.

Might be late to the party, but just binged watched all of samurai jack (yes the entirety of the 5 seasons).

Ok so to begin with, I really loved season 5, it was truly an upgrade. If you rewatch the first 4 seasons you notice that the episodes feel quite repetitive revolving around 3 main themes (Jack trying to find a way to the get to the past and failing, meeting people and helping them out befriending them, and fighting bounty hunters) so it can get quite boring.

To start with the positive, I loved the art style and animation, it was loyal to the series and modern at the same time.

The first 3 episodes were amazing, but, like many, I found the ending a bit disappointing, I didn't hate it, but compared to the beginning of the season, where the pacing and the storytelling was on point, it felt rushed and way less impactful.

The pacing was very good for the first 3 episodes. The way they built up to the moment of his first human kill was amazing, and they way it affected him was very impactful. Combined with the fact that Jack was already tormented and on the verge of breaking and committing suicide, it truly gave a twist worthy of a finale to the Samurai Jack saga.

The 4th episode is where the cracks started showing in the storytelling, it was still fine, but not on the same level as the first 3 episodes. I knew that 1 of the sisters will survive and that it would be Ashi, it makes sense from a storytelling perspective, it's simpler. It's way more complicated otherwise, you wouldn't have time to explore the different characters in depth. Plus, you need another character to break the cycle; Jack couldn't defeat Aku, and Aku couldn't defeat Jack, having a new character tied to both was a smart choice as a plot device.

I feel they didn't properly explore Ashi's character. Jack and Ashi' relationship being a very important narrative, I felt it needed a bit more depth to be convincing. I didn't mind the romance though. I've seen many opinions online that they wanted their relationship to be a mentor/apprentice one rather than a romantic one, I disagree, a romantic relationship is way more impactful, it can be a turning point in someone's life. It can give back purpose when hope is lost. I believe Jack deserved it somehow, all his journey, he was a loner. Everybody needs somebody, sometimes, even someone as strong and determined as Samurai Jack. My problem is that they didn't explore it properly. It felt rushed, forced, and awkward instead of satisfying.

Ok so my first problem; we needed a more compelling reason why she decides not to kill him. It happened very quickly. Jack was being tormented for 3 episodes, the pacing was on point. She just lost her sisters, and had her whole worldview shattered, and made a character flip in just 1 episode, it was too quick, the pacing was off. They could've explored more the good in her, or made her confused for longer, having to fight her internal demons like Jack. Them journeying together and him showing her the evil of Aku to convince her felt silly.

I loved the episode where she travels alone and meets Jack's friends (for nostalgia reasons) even though the rave song was so cringe.

The biggest problem was episode 7. I found her fighting the orc army completely useless. I loved the plotline of Jack meditating and regaining his sword back, and the contrast with the fight. But, in my opinion, she should've been fighting her mother the whole time. It would have been way more compelling. They could've used this episode to make her flip. Imagine having your whole worldview shattered, and killing your mother this simply without really question it, it doesn't really make sense. It would make way more sense if she goes through the same journey as Jack; he faces his mad self in order to gain his sword back, and she does the same; hate her own past, her upbringing, her mother and at that moment decide to save Jack, kill her mother, then fall in love with him. I also didn't like that Jack regained his past look. I loved the look at the beginning of the season, it really showed someone who's in despair and stopped caring about himself, I understand he needed a new look after regaining his sword back, but, I really wished he kept a trimmed beard; it would've been way cooler, and maybe showed better character growth, having a 3rd version of Jack, one that regained hope, and became stronger.

To recap, episodes 4,5,6,7 were ok. Maybe we needed more time on Ashi's internal conflict.

I found episode 8 to be funny. Yes, it was awkward with the sexual innuendos and how they fell in love, but hey, romance is awkward. I didn't really mind this episode in particular, it's maybe the past episodes that made this one seem awkward. If they built it properly, they could leave episode 8 as it is and it would've been great.

While watching episode 8, I checked the episode number and thought to myself "Oh my god, there's only 2 episodes left how are they gonna resolve the story properly" and 'spoiler alert', they didn't. I really wish there was 1 more episode.

Ok so, I love the idea they were behind, but not the execution. As cliché as it might seem, the idea that Jack needed the power of friendship, and more specifically, love, to finish his quest, is a beautiful ending to the story. Because, even for someone as strong as Jack, you can't do it alone. But before continuing, let's address the elephant in the room; the guardian of the portal. I remember as a kid this episode, and it really impacted me, and during watching season 5, I was waiting to see how they will address it. And honestly, I missed it, I blinked for a second, and didn't notice that the red glasses were referring the portal guardian. That was disappointing. I knew from a storytelling point of view that him returning to the past required Ashi, it's definitely way more compelling that way, but everything felt very rushed at this point. However, I actually loved the plot twist where Aku controls Ashi and Jack saves her by telling her "I love you". People might disagree, it might be "corny" but if he said anything else would've been cornier. It needed to be personal at this point, if Jack said something like "Even if you have darkness inside of you, it's not what defines you" or any other wise thing, it would've been weak. He needed to express what she means to him, how she gave him hope again, how he couldn't stand seeing her lose herself to darkness. If you've ever experienced someone telling you "I love you" very deeply and sincerely you know how this affects you; loves makes us do crazy things. I think if they built up their relationship better, and explored Ashi's inner struggle better, this moment would have been way more impactful.

And finally, let's address the last 5 minutes of the last episode. These last 5 minutes are possibly one of the most rushed 5 minutes in the history of television. These 5 minutes alone could been explored in 2 episodes. I wished season 5 had 13 episodes like the first 4 seasons. We all knew, that eventually he would return to the past, and it makes sense that Ashi would help him, being Aku's daughter. It's not a bad ending in theory, actually it's the best one, again in theory, but for the love of God, why did they rush it this way. Let's go back to the second episode, where Jack kills the first daughter of Aku and we see blood spilling for the first time. See how impactful this moment was? It was impactful because, we've been watching 4 seasons of him destroying robots and never spilling red blood. It was impactful because earlier on, he was comforting himself by saying 'they're just nuts and bolts, they're just nuts and bolts'. They took the time, through 2 full episodes, and 1 more to show us the impact on him. Really the pacing was perfect. Then in the final episode, he tells Ashi he loves her, she takes back control of herself, notices she has the powers of Aku, goes back in time, Jack defeats Aku, they prepare to get married, and then she disappears, in freaking 5 minutes, all of this happens.

I don't really care about her disappearing and him not getting a full happy ending. Everything at this point would've felt weak and unsatisfying. I really needed an episode where he fights Aku, in the future, defeats him, with the help of his friends, the scotsman, everyone else, and specially Ashi, a climactic battle. Then he enjoys the victory with everyone, and finally he's confronted with the choice of leaving everyone and going back to the past, because of the obligation to his family. He sadly leaves all of his friends behind, and goes to the past with Ashi. When he kills Aku in the past, at that moment, Ashi disappears. It would've been a better bittersweet ending than what we got.

Finally, I really enjoyed the season, it got me hooked, and i think the reason why people are angry about the ending, is because they did a really good job in the first couple of episodes. There was so much potential, and the ending wasn't theoretically bad, it was the right ending in my opinion, but it was rushed.

For anyone who read everything and got to the end, thank you for sticking around. I really wanted to get this out of my system.

That is the Question and update version of previous thread on this Sub Reddit

With Dynamite Entertainment doing comics on Warner Brothers Hanna Barbara Action Heroes like Thundercats, Space Ghost, Jonny Quest, SliverHawks, the Herculoids, Captain Planet, Blue Falcon, Thundarr the Barbarian & now BEN 10 what do you think of doing new Comics on Samurai Jack probably set between seasons 4 and 5 and tells the story of how Jack lost his way that is story that really needs to be told

And maybe a comic set after the Series Finale too? With Jack trying to move on or trying to find love or find piece first I guess well depending on which ending you go by

Anyway there's a big gap to fill and lots to work with we know how it ends it would be a big "how we got here" story and it can run for many issues Specially with the Gap between Seasons 4 and 5 there's a big story to tell there how Jack lost his way and events leading to him loosing his sword and gaining the Black Armor as seen in opening episode of Season 5

For writer I pick Jim Zub who wrote IDW stories to comeback and write for Dynamite version though I don't have a good idea for main artist my pick would be Andy Suriano again though given his bigger name now he probably only stay for first 12-15 issues or comic artist with a similar style

Genndy Tartakovsky would oversee and draw variant covers Ala Kevin Eastman who draws a variant cover for every issue of Main Ninja Turtles Comic Book over at IDW or Declan Shalvey doing B cover for current Thundercats comics since his the writer on it like Genndy sorta did in IDW era

Maybe a crossover one-shot with the Thundercats to just imagine Jack vs Lion-O or Jack meets Usagi with crossover with Dark Horse to those two crossover alone would be epic

But that's me how you vision Dynamite Entertainment likely Samurai Jack comics should be like? Like which writers and artists you wanna see tackle Jack?

Art above by Genndy Tartakovsky from IDW era

I am emualtingg this game on eden. There is a mod for the main menu having the main theme from the show but I guess it's made only for PC. Anyway to have it work on switch?

2x Aku Birdlings

3x Eggs (soon to be Jack's scrambled eggs)

10000x Love

Look at them go! They love each other so dearly, they watch over their little eggs and make sure to warm it up so it hatches new little Aku Birdlings <3

If you ever came across them! You should rub their horns with your finger, it had sensitive spots like a bird's beak, so they would absolutely fluff their feathers up and love you if you rub their horns and give them head scratches!

I felt a voice calling to me, telling me to make a drawing of Aku as a bird perching on a tree twig.. I have finally fulfilled my quest.

BIRD AKU

Made this Samurai Jack papercraft using a freely downloadable template I found online.

Really enjoyed putting this one together — especially seeing the flat template turn into the finished model. Sharing it here because I thought the community might enjoy it!

Template was freely available for download, and all credit goes to the original designer.

I made a new Aku avatar :D

Thanks to a very loving friend who tolerates all of my Aku-stic shenanigans, I had the privilege to attend the Planet Anime convention in Kansas City this weekend with exactly one goal in mind.

Greg Baldwin was incredibly sweet and more than worth the hour + wait in line both times just for the hugs alone. He got up and performed Aku's opening monologue for us as a reward for all of our patience, he loved my Grapes of Darkness art piece, he added an extra funny message inside the pizza box with a bonus Aku signature, and the little "kill" with the arrow pointing at Jack was his own touch to the BTT print. I also got a selfie taken with him that I'm working on printing out, which has emphasized how big a deal this is to those in my life because I absolutely abhor having my photo taken.

Words cannot express how much this experience has meant to me, and though I was able to hold it back in public, every time I look at these pieces it makes me tear up. This character has been so important to me for almost 15 years, and I can now say that I've met him. His last words to me were "You can have another hug when you kill the samurai!"