Samurai Jack

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Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 | Main

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Samurai Jack is an American adult animated action-fantasy science-fiction television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on Cartoon Network from 2001 until 2004 and on Adult Swim in 2017. The series tells the story of a heroic samurai finding the way to return to the past, when he was being banished into a distant, dystopian future ruled by the shape-shifting Aku, who is the demonic personification of evil and darkness.

Intro Dialogues

Aku: (Season(s) 1-4 opening narration) Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shapeshifting 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!

Jack: (Season 5 opening narration) 50 years have passed, but I do not age. Time has lost its effect on me. And yet, the suffering continues. Aku’s grasp chokes the past, present, & future. All hope is lost. Gotta get back. Back to the past. Samurai Jack.

About Samurai Jack

• [A]lthough Tartakovsky is a good storyteller, in a silent film sort of way—expressing what’s happening moment-to-moment through picture and sound rather than in dialogue—I never watched either of these programs for their plots, and I don’t re-watch them for narrative, either. I re-watch them for the same reason that I visit art museums, attend live concerts, and pause during journeys from point A to point B in New York to watch dancers, acrobats, or street musicians: because I appreciate virtuosity for its own sake. And that’s what Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars and Samurai Jack give you, scene for scene and shot for shot .... [T]he plot was never the point. It was always about the visual music that Tartakovsky, his designers, and his animators created onscreen.
  • Matt Zoller Seitz, "No Respect Week: Seitz on Genndy Tartakovsky's Underrated Classic Samurai Jack", Vulture, New York Media LLC, (May 30, 2014). Retrieved April 9, 2016.