Viewing Journal: Afro Samurai - Resurrection

Movie Overview DVD Info Trailer Rating: Overall= D Story = D Video = B+ Audio = C-

Journal

Late one night, Afro is suddenly attacked by Jinno. However, he is unable to protect himself, and Jinno drags him nearby to his father's grave, where a woman named Sio awaits. She proceeds to take the Number One headband that he possesses, as well as the remains of his dead father's skull. Before leaving, she tells him to seek and obtain the Number Two headband, if he wants the right to take back his father's remains. With that, Afro must once again embark on a path of violence in order to let his father rest in peace once again. (Source: ANN)

This movie could have been cool if they would have focused on telling a bit of the history of the legendary numbered headbands and developing the world that the story takes place in (while still including crazy fighting action of course). But instead what we end up with is a story that includes inconsistent, one-dimensional characters and a cliche plot.

It also has the same flaw as the original series: it takes itself way too seriously for all the goofiness that is going on: a samurai with a giant afro with his loud-mouth semi-hallucination sidekick, a cyborg with a teddy bear head, a rotund lust-filled scientist, and crazy villainess.

It seems like all it is really doing is trying to take a bunch of "cool" elements, throw them together and hope that it results in something super-cool. And it is possible to do that, but you still need to have a cohesive plot and you really need to explain the "why?" behind it all. Otherwise the story will seem forced and pretentious.

Even the high-quality animation did not improve my opinion of the show. The stylized character designs and dynamic fight scenes were enough to distract me from the flaws during the original series; but by the time this movie rolled around, so the novelty had worn off.

The music is almost all rap -- yet another element that attempts to make the show seem all cool and bad-ass. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just that everything is this show is just trying so desperately hard to be cool seemingly without any effort to develop characters or settings, that it ends up seeming pitiful.

So I wasn't crazy about this follow-up movie to the original series. If you really want more Afro Samurai, you're better off just watch the original series twice.