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Sunday, September 03, 2006
During a recent war, samurai fought against the merchants to save the peasants from their overbearing ways. But when the war was over, the samurai found themselves with little to do. Some of them turned to a vagabond existence while others became like the people they once fought against, bandits roaming the countryside and stealing from the peasants.
The village of Kanna has decided to fight back against this bullying and oppression. They don't see how they can possibly survive if they must give all their rice to the bandits, so they send their priestess, her young helper, and another villager to the city to hire a band of samurai to protect them. But finding willing samurai is a lot harder than they thought it would be, especially since they can only offer rice as payment. They've soon made enemies in the city, and they have a more immediate need for samurai protection.
I felt like the story got off to a bit of a slow start as the characters gathered together. I feared the little girl character was going to be annoying at first, but I think she's only going to be used for occasional comic relief, so that should be fine. Most of the characters manage to be interesting rather than stoic samurai clichés. The show was at its best when the action started, though. As it really should be in a show focusing on samurai. I'm certainly intrigued enough by the general idea of the show and the characters I've met so far to want to continue watching the series.
Volume One of Samurai 7 contains the first four episodes of the series: "The Master," "The Pupil," "The Entertainer," and "The Loner." As you can guess from the titles of the episodes, we are introduced to the samurai a bit at a time as the story develops.
The series is based on an interesting concept. The creators have re-imagined Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai as a 26-episode anime series in a slightly futuristic setting. I say "slightly" because the setting is actually an interesting mix of styles from the past and technology like flying ships. I think the older styles of clothing and similar touches make the samurai seem less out of place, while the machinery and possible technology add an element of surprise. You have a certain expectation for what a skilled samurai can accomplish (at least in a movie), but can they still do it when they're up against robot samurai and similar machines?
Samurai 7 is distributed by Funimation, a studio generally known for quality anime adaptations, and in general, they don't disappoint here. The dubbing was good on the whole, with only a few secondary characters and voices in the crowd having voices that were annoying to me. I recognized a few of the voices form the Fullmetal Alchemist dub, another Funimation product. The image quality is crisp and clear. The design of the menus was a little troublesome, though. The difference in color between the selected menu choice and the other options wasn't enough to be immediately noticeable.
I watched the DVD with the dubbed English track, and I experienced a troubling audio issue. Whenever there was background music, it wasn't balanced well with the vocals, and it actually overpowered the voices. The music was typically stirring and added drama to the scene, but there was just too much of it. It was so bad I had to strain to hear, and I contemplated turning on the subtitles. If I hadn't wanted to give the dub a fair try, I probably would have switched to the Japanese audio track.
The DVD case itself is attractive, with a stylized illustration of one of the seven samurai. The cover image looks more like a painting than a traditional anime image. In the seven-volume series, each samurai is featured on a different cover, and it makes for a distinctive collection.
The DVD has the usual extras, with an image gallery, textless version of the opening and ending songs, and trailers for other Funimation releases. The DVD does come with quite a nice booklet filled with sketches and episode descriptions which adds to the overall fan appeal of the release.
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