Samurai 7

Wow, just wow. Years ago i saw this series and was amazed and now, going through immense growth in every direction, changing views, maturing i still feel a lot, when i see this series. This entertaining and emotional fantasy story finds time to reason about many things. After finishing it i'm just interested in 2 things: how long have you been carrying the pain inside of you? How long have you been hiding that sadness in your eyes when you smiled?

First of all, this is definitely a high quality anime series that does have the blessings of the Kurosawa family.

At first I was unsure about the story being changed into some sort of fantasy future. The city setting and the "robots" are pretty impressive though.In fact the whole production is of the highest quality. This is one good looking anime series. The music and soundtrack are really good also. But it would be meaningless if the story and the characters didn't have something to offer the viewer. And they do. While not in league with the strong characters of other top animes, Samurai 7 has a well thought out and developed cast. The story is paced for a full series so your memories of the film have to be kind of tempered. There is a new sub-plot and a number of invented incidents.

The creators of this series do experiment at some points with mixed results. There are some other anime concessions (beautiful girls, mega destruction) but overall it doesn't hurt the series.

Some notes on the US DVD release: The video quality is excellent and so is the sound and translation . The dubbed track is different compared to the subtitle track. A lot of dialog is slightly different or changes the original intent of the Japanese writers. I recommend avoiding the English track for this reason although the voice actors are very well cast and do an excellent job. The sound mix is sloppy at times. With some episodes, the Japanese track has the sound effects turned way down but the English track has the music and sound effects overpowering the vocal track.

Overall, I believe the series is very enjoyable and fun while not being over the top...9/10

That's right. I'm not a fan of anime, and I probably never will be. I can understand how others can enjoy it, with the quirky characters and bright colors, but for me, it just stands as a mostly un-enjoyable genre.

As for this series, Samurai 7, a futuristic recreation of the classic black-and-white masterpiece? I absolutely loved it.

Samurai 7, while taking some generous liberties with the original film (obviously there weren't giant mechs raiding villages back in any 30's film) stands on its own as an engaging story that uses top-notch animation and clever translation/writing to keep itself intriguing. The CGI for the numerous robots and the hand drawn animation for the rest of the characters all looks great, though I did notice in the later installments of this series that there were points of animation that suddenly looked sub-par. Don't ask why, my guess is that the better animator got sick or something and they called in a cheap replacement.

But what really makes this series stand out, and is also a feature I feel is desperately missing from the majority of the anime genre, is the simple, relatable humanity of the characters. As with any "team" film or series, which have large ensembles of interacting and different characters, Samurai 7 relies of the simple yet difficult art of human subtlty and foibles to deliver diologue and conflict that is above and beyond most animated features. Even for the characters that are mechanical (I don't believe its ever explained how the people are put in robotic bodies)you feel a definite attachment and understanding for them, and in the process, you care for them.

There are virtually no over the top anime-staple "weird faces," or whatever they're called by anime fans, where an over-the-top emotion causes the face of a character to become "super-deformed." I find this a welcome breath of fresh air, and its absence truly keeps the idea that these are actual people in the story alive, though some odd character designs do occasionally mar the experience, if only for a few brief, forgettable seconds.

As for the action, fear not. Fans of sword fighting hack-and-slash, beat-em'-ups will be well satisfied. Especially between the hand drawn characters, the fighting couldn't be better, with a beautiful mix of "Kung-Fu" and "Samurai-champloo" esquire combat that truly leaves you breathless. My one complaint in this aspect of the series is that the giant mech characters, who are each about the size of a building, seem a bit helpless to the small, faster human characters, who dice them up like cheese at a deli over and over again. Fortunately, as the mech characters are few, this never really bars anything down.

While the visual style may irk Seven Samurai purists, and the storyline is greatly molded to fit this post-war, cyber/steam punk universe the plot is set in, open-minded fans of Seven Samurai and its several spin-offs ("Magnificent Seven" anyone?) will find tons to love, as well as anime and animation fans in general who have never seen the film.

Dig up this vastly underrated series. Trust me, your in for one hell of a ride.

I loved this, it found me and gave me 26 episodes of fun and delight.

I didn't give it the full 10/10 only because like Ukyo - I am not a fan of robots - normally anything with robots in, is a turn away. However the characters and the relationships were brilliant, and it was good to see on UTube that others felt the same concerning the deaths of some of the characters.

I just watched the first episode of this take-off on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai on IFC, dubbed into English (and possibly edited in other ways I'm not sure). At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, and in the first five minutes or so I had no idea what connection, if at all, this had to Kurosawa's original story. Then as the episode unfolded I could see the relationship to it, if only on a loose basis; large mechanical machines in battle and dominance over people has a farming community panicked, leading to reaching out to find samurai to protect them. In the first episode there is only minimal swordplay towards the end, as the "one" is discovered, at least one of them I could figure.

In order to have more of an appreciation for the show, I think, one has to take it sort of apart of the original film. The original 1954 classic takes from both samurai/Japanese lore, as well as the Western genre (originally some John Ford influence in there), forming into this big, but focused epic. Watching this series, I could see this owes a lot more to the dozens of other anime like this, where samurai are cast against the light of a science fiction backdrop (some of the opening animation made me think of Star Wars, also a connection to Kurosawa coincidentally), as technological forces of mass destruction face off against those ultra-skilled with a sword, or maybe more. The hero of this episode, for example, and who I can imagine has a much greater role in the course of the series, is like the Takashi Shimura character from the Kurosawa film crossed with one of the characters from an ultra-stylized Magma comic book, to give a generic comparison to be sure.

I'll keep on watching the series to see how and when the action unfolds, and I'm even intrigued enough to seek out the uncut, Japanese-language version of the DVD. But make no mistake, this will divide (or just make made) those who place the Kurosawa film in such high regard, as to whether such a work of art can be transposed into a well-made, if not that spectacular on a first go-around, anime show. Those who are already fans of the animation style anyway may gravitate to it, however when compared to programs like Fist of the North Star and Ninja Scroll it isn't quite the caliber either. My recommendation- if you have IFC, it's worth a view, but if you are expecting a literal translation from live-action film to animation, look elsewhere.