I burned through Samurai 7 quite quickly a while back and intended to say a few words about it, but never quite got around to it. I am reminded of it now by Mark’s list of anime on his queue to watch, and I can definitely offer a recommendation for S7, though it wasn’t the kind of anime that really grabs you (unlike, say, Death Note). Samurai 7 was simply a good story, with some interesting themes, but ultimately didn’t leave any significant mark. I’d recommend Samurai Champloo far more enthusiastically to anyone looking for a good samurai anime.
Incidentally, now that I am dipping my toe into the Fullmetal Alchemist waters, I notice an interesting parallel between Kikuchiyo and Alphonse. Of course I am only a few eps into the latter but still, the idea of a cyborg samurai seems to be an anime trope of sorts. Are there other examples I am not thinking of?
FYI – the earlier discussion on my previous post was pretty interesting – talking about the influences of Kurosawa’s original movie (which I’ve not yet seen) on this anime, as well as more mainstream movies like Star Wars and The Magnificent Seven.
(aside – my apologies to Mark and Nick for the confusion. I blame my feedreader. This is the reason I created @otakusphere, incidentally…)
