Samurai Jack

Samurai Jack was an American cartoon created by Genndy Tartakovsky which aired on Cartoon Network from 2001-2004, and Adult Swim in 2017. The series is about a nameless Samurai who adopts the name Jack from aliens, who attempts to go back to the past to kill the demon Aku.

Cast

Main Cast

Phil LaMarr as Jack, a Samurai from feudal Japan who is sent to the future before he can strike the finishing blow on Aku, a demon who terrorizes the people of Japan, and later the entire Earth.

Makoto ‘Mako’ Iwamatsu as Aku (Seasons 1-4), a demon who was formed when Odin, Vishnu, and Ra were destroying an evil creature centuries ago, but forgot to destroy one last piece that fell to Earth. His name is derived from the Japanese word for demon, 悪魔 (akuma.)

Greg Baldwin as Aku (Season 5)

Supporting Cast

John DiMaggio as The Scotsman, a proud Scottish warrior who befriends Jack, and helps him out from time to time.

Tara Strong as Ashi, the daughter of Aku, as well as Jack’s love interest.

Development

Genndy Tartakovsky was already making a name for himself for Cartoon Network, as he played a significant role in developing episodes of The Powerpuff Girls, and created Dexter’s Laboratory. When the show aired, it got positive reviews for its storytelling, which were mostly episodic. However, after Season 4 ended, the show went on hiatus, failing to get a Season 5 on Cartoon Network. More bad news came for Tartakovsky and the showrunners, as Mako who voiced Aku died in 2006. However, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network’s more adult channel, renewed the show for a ten-episode season that aired in 2017. To replace Mako, they cast Greg Baldwin as Aku, who also replaced Mako as Uncle Iroh in the third and final season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and finished his work as Master Splinter in the 2007 film, TMNT. Unlike the first four seasons which were given a TV-Y7 rating, this season was rated TV-14, which allowed Tartakovsky and co. be able to dive into deeper themes, and show more violence. Furthermore, the final season was more overarching, abandoning the episodic format the show had for the first four seasons. The show’s final episode, officially called CI, aired on May 20, 2017.

Plot

Seasons 1-4

“Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But, a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword, stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time, and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku!”

- Aku in the intro of the first four seasons

Many years ago, three gods named Odin, Vishnu, and Ra fought an evil creature in space, destroying it all, but one piece that flew away from them. That piece crashed on earth, and many years later, took the form of a demon named Aku. Aku was invulnerable to any form of attack, and easily defeated the Emperor of Japan, almost killing him. However, the three gods who fought the evil creature forged him a sword capable of killing Aku, and gave it to him. With the sword, the Emperor defeats Aku, sealing him in prison, and later witnessing the birth of his son.

A few years later, on a solar eclipse, lightning strikes Aku’s prison, freeing him. Wanting revenge, he sought out the Emperor, but not before he sent his son into exile with the sword that defeated him once before. The son of the Emperor spends many years outside of Japan training with other warriors, including Robin Hood. The boy, now a Samurai, returns to his home to see it under Ali’s rule. He goes to his castle to challenge him, and after a fight, the Samurai is victorious, but before he can finish Aku, Aku roars out white circles, which opens a time portal, sending the Samurai into the future. After landing, three aliens all call him Jack, which he later adopts as his name through Aku’s Earth.

Many times, Jack had chances to go back to the past, but was always thwarted by Aku, or sometimes himself, such as being infected by a sickness he got from Aku having a cold, or him choosing to go back to save monks, when the time portal closed.

Season 5

“50 years have passed, but, I do not age. Time, has lost its effect on me. Yet, the suffering continues. Aku’s grasp chokes the past, present, and future. Hope is lost. Got to get back, back to the past, Samurai Jack.”

- Jack in the intro of the final season

In the time since the end of Season 4, Aku destroyed all the time portals, and when he bragged about it to Jack, he got enraged, and killed baby lambs Aku corrupted after he left. After killing innocent life, Jack loses his sword, as it falls into the pit where the last time portal was. Since then, Jack spent the next 50 years fighting Aku’s minions, giving hope to the people of Earth, but Jack himself gets more and more depressed, as without the sword to defeat Aku, or a way of returning home to see his family again, a part of him believes there’s nothing to fight for, and believes the only way of restoring honor is to commit suicide. Jack later faces a robot bounty hunter named Scaramouche, who massacred an entire town killing everyone there to attract Jack, but he didn’t arrive for hours. In the fight, Scaramouche realizes Jack lost his sword, and is eager to tell Aku, but Jack beheads him with his new weapons, but unknown to Jack, Scaramouche is still alive, and still seeks to tell Aku the news.

Meanwhile, a High Priestess who leads a cult called the Daughters of Aku drinks an elixir, and gives birth to seven daughters, who she trains in a very brutal fashion to make them the greatest warriors in the world, so they can kill Samurai Jack to please Aku. After many years of training, the High Priestess orders her daughters to kill Jack. The daughters find Jack, and corner him in an abandoned temple. One of the daughters intercepts him in a hallway, and despite Jack being weak, he manages to grab a blade, and slice her throat, killing her. This shocks Jack, as he never killed a human before, and expected her to be a robot. He barely escapes the temple, and blows it up with a weapon he got after defeating Scaramouche. The remaining six daughters track Jack near a snowy cliff, and Jack warns them that if they attack, he won’t hesitate to kill them after remembering advice from his father. The daughters attack, and Jack kills all but one of them, whom is spared thanks to being binded.

After a long time traveling, where Jack showed Ashi how evil Aku is, she saves children from the Dorminator, a human in armor, but from what he saw, he thought the children were dead, so he followed a horseman who appeared in Jack’s visions for years, into a graveyard where Jack would go through with committing suicide. But before that, Ashi meets people who were friends with Jack, and when she finds Jack, she tells him the children were alive, and says he shouldn’t lose hope, and that he saved many people, including herself. With this, Jack refuses to kill himself, and with Ashi, go to the spot where he lost his sword. As Jack was meditating by the mountainside, Ashi’s mother, the High Priestess, appeared to kill her, and Jack to finish her duty to Aku. Ashi ends up saving Jack by killing her mother, and after his meditation, Odin, Vishnu, and Ra forged Jack another sword, and cleaned his body to look more like he did in the first four seasons. While traveling to Aku’s to try to kill him, Scaramouche completes his journey, and tells Aku that Jack lost his sword. Aku is overjoyed, that he can finally put an end to Jack, who’s existence tormented Aku for the last 50 years due to the initial time travel making him immortal. Aku and Scaramouche appear to Jack in a junkyard where a previous time portal was destroyed, but after seeing Jack has a sword again, Aku kills Scaramouche, and prepares to leave Jack and Ashi be, but then he smells his essence on Ashi, realizing that she’s his biological daughter. He remembers leaving an elixir to the Daughters of Aku due to him being impressed with their worship, but left before the High Priestess drank it, getting her pregnant. With Aku’s influence, Ashi becomes a true daughter of Aku, protecting her father from getting killed by Jack. Jack refuses to kill Ashi, surrendering to her and Aku.

CI

The people of the world are commanded by Aku to watch their TVs for a special announcement, where he streams the old intro, and later says in excitement that he captured Jack, and took his sword, claiming victory. However, due to Aku struggling to find a fitting way to kill Jack, all of Jack’s friends he helped for the last 50 years storm Aku’s tower, which helps break Jack free, but he still needs the sword to join the fight. He has to face Ashi, who inside is trying to fight off Aku’s influence. As Jack is devoured by Ashi, he confesses his love for her, which breaks Aku’s influence from Ashi. After realizing she has Aku’s powers, she stretches her arm out to take Jack’s sword, and opens a time portal, taking Jack mere seconds after Aku flung him into the future in the first place. Jack wastes no time, and kills Aku instantly, putting an end to his future. Jack and Ashi are set to be married, but due to Aku’s death, Ashi can’t exist, so she fades out of existence. The series ends with Jack along near a snowy tree, as a ladybug, which reminds him of Ashi, lands on his finger.