Studio: Cartoon Network Studios
Completed viewing on 21/04/20
***SPOILERS***
The darker tone and adult focus of this final series gave it lots of promise, on which it mostly came good. It was also nice that they tried to target the same viewers who originally watched the show on CN as kids (without milking the nostalgia value completely dry). Lots of good, interesting storytelling and excellent animation but for every good moment it had, the series almost always had a disappointing low point to match it. It's a show that really knows its identity and plays to its strengths but is ultimately let down by a poorly balanced story.
The name of the game is quite clear for Genndy Tartakovsky: slow tempo, high tension. He's clearly very good at it. Through the whole show, there are these long, intense passages without dialogue, often focusing on peripheral, even menial mini-tasks. They achieve their objective perfectly without feeling like they're slowing things down. There are plenty of other great storytelling mechanisms, like the wolf and the incredibly deliberate widescreens and split screens. Tartakovsky's comedy is also probably underrated. I would maybe say there was one too many spirits/hallucinations. They already made their point. Also the script wasn't amazing.
The animation is straight up impressive. The style is very Tartakovsky and distinctly Samurai Jack. It has an almost South Park-like paper cut-out style. Despite this, they do an amazing job of creating very dynamic feeling shots, solid objects and really vibrant environments (the belly of the beast episode was gorgeous).
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| That's probably as dynamic a shot as you're ever likely to see with no object lighting/shading |
On top of that, action scenes are sick (Jack vs. re-fried Ashi was too lit). There is a tasteful use of 'implied action' but there's plenty of straight up throwing hands. More importantly, this doesn't get lost in quick camera angle changes and poor timing (i.e. there are plenty of inbetweens). It's just good, direct directing - no hiding behind nothing. Given the style, the animaion punches well above its weight.
Sadly, the big let down was the story and balance is the thing they got wrong I think. For example, Old Man Jack was excellent but all the interesting things about him were cancelled out. He'd lost his sword and was haunted by this deathly samurai spirit. Great. But he gets the sword back and he defeats the spirit (while swordless) with a single slash. I did quite like the explanation of how he lost and re-found the sword but it would have been cooler to see who Jack becomes without it. How does he defeat Aku then? And the spirit was cool as fuck, we could definitely have had some explanation around that and this pact that it's implied Jack has entered into. Sticking with the old vs. new balance, Ashi was a great addition, so too were the Daughters of Aku. However Ashi basically ends up the hero. This is supposed to be the conclusion of Jack's epic journey. He should be the one to decide it, not someone who only joined in the last leg. Also they didn't actually defeat Aku, which is just classic disappointing story for me. Lastly, the balance between exploration/development and story was way off and it just made for poor pacing. How can they defeat Aku, go back to the past, meet everyone, plan a wedding, have Ashi die, then have the final scene all in the last 6 minutes? The final scene would have been far more powerful if Ashi had died during the final fight and maybe even an episode before the end.
Lastly, Characters. They're pretty good. Jack and Ashi are sweet, both have solid, sensible journeys through the series. The rest are colourful enough to keep things entertaining but nothing amazing. Scaramouche was mad fun. His, like pretty much all character designs in the series was really really great. Re-evil Ashi's design was brilliant too. They also did a really good job of making Aku actually feel powerful like a big bad should (hence the disappointment of not actually beating that version of him). End of the day, it's a small, simple cast that serves its purpose. Last thing, what the fuck was the need for the Scotsman to be so overtly sexist and do so completely unprovoked? That wasn't great.
So the show has plenty of value beyond the nostalgia but doesn't give the closure it should. Really paid its respect to the original series (even spent an entire episode literally validating it, which was a nice touch) but didn't conclude it correctly in my opinion. Maybe I would have enjoyed the last episode a bit more if I'd never seen Avengers Endgame as well*.
