14 years have passed.
I. . .have aged.
Gracefully! Like Brad Pitt!
Yet. . .the story remains incomplete.
The unconcluded ending of Samurai Jack chokes both the past, present, and future.
Hope. . .is lost. Until now.
Gotta review it! Review the final season of. . .Samurai Jack.
*Dramatic drums*
Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. We made it you guys, 300 reviews. I am beside myself. I never really thought I would get this far but here we are. For a while I wondered what I was going to review for this occasion and I can think of nothing better to review than Samurai Jack. I’ve gone on record a number of times calling Samurai Jack the greatest show Cartoon Network has ever produced. It was unlike any show at the time. The story of Jack’s endless quest to return to the past and defeat Aku was engaging, interesting, and led to a lot of great visuals, fight scenes, and stories. Then they cancelled it. Fans were outraged by this; the best show the channel had ever produced was cancelled and that meant that we would never see the end of Jack’s story. Jack was now forced to wander an endless dystopian future where Aku rules and our samurai’s journey would be left incomplete. . .until 2017 where our prayers were finally answered, and Jack made his return to Adult Swim for the fifth and final season of his story. We were excited and worried for what would happen. It had been 13 years since the last season ended and as we all know technology in the animation field has changed drastically. Were the producers of the show able to adapt Jack to this new age and give the show the conclusion it deserved? Let’s find out. This is Samurai Jack season 5.
Episodes 1-5
We start off the final season of Samurai Jack with these cute aliens who use emojis and their antennae to speak with each other (at the rate we’re going that might be us in the near future) being chased by robotic beetles. They get surrounded and give up hope but all of a sudden, a mysterious stranger riding a motorcycle comes in and takes them all down with it. We see that the mysterious stranger is Jack (now sporting a lumberjack beard) and instead of using his sword to take them down he instead uses a gun and high-tech spear (scene here: https://youtu.be/Qg6thQja0Mw, glad to see he’s learned to adapt to current technology after all these years). After defeating the beetles (and all these years everyone blamed Yoko), he rides off and we get the intro where we find out Jack has been in the future for 50 years now (really? It felt shorter than that). Yet, despite this, he hasn’t aged a day (Mira: So Aku made him immortal? (Nitsuj): Most likely. (Mira): Than why send him to the future? (Nitsuj): My guess is, Aku didn’t know that sending Jack to the future would make him immortal. Chances are it’s an after affect from Aku sending Jack so far into future. A time conundrum if you will. That or Aku wanted Jack to suffer and see how he failed to save the world hoping he would lose hope and just give up. It had the opposite affect). To make his mental stability even worse he’s haunted by visions of his parents and the people who say that he failed them and left them all to die (and it’s done in some scary imagery. Hey, they’re on Adult Swim, they can do whatever they want). It’s so bad it’s to the point where Jack will honestly believe that they’re all right there in front of him begging for help (scenes here: https://youtu.be/f4u2ErHUGQE?t=5s and https://youtu.be/Y3KmsuklQqk?t=5s). While that’s going on we focus on this group of female monks who are devoted followers of Aku (Aku has a harem? I guess even he has his needs). Their leader has given birth to 7 girls (damn, it must be a warzone down there) and trains them to be the ultimate assassins so that they can kill Jack. After years (or days, a part of me believes they were genetically engineered. You never know) their training is complete, and they’re sent out into the world to find and kill Jack (scenes here: https://youtu.be/-j5szkecL2s, https://youtu.be/B4OGfEMUDXk, and https://youtu.be/7BJzXYylHIA). We return to Jack where he comes across a robotic bounty hunter named Scaramouche voiced by Tom Kenny (who is just enjoying himself here. I think he was just happy to get away from voicing Spongebob. Can’t say I blame him), who destroyed a village in order to get Jack’s attention and it gets revealed that Jack lost his sword (holy shit! (Chibi Isis): What, why is that bad? (Nitsuj): That sword is the only thing that can kill Aku. Even if Jack managed to get back to the past without the sword he stands no chance of defeating Aku). Of course Jack doesn’t need his sword to defeat this bot and while the bot puts up a good fight he still falls at the hands of Jack (scene here: https://youtu.be/MS4GojJyRxE).
Episode 2 starts with Aku (everyone’s favorite villain and evil ruler) now voiced by Greg Baldwin who in all fairness does a good job voicing Aku and was a good replacement for Mako (also, fun fact. He also did the voice of Iroh from Last Airbender when Mako passed away). Much like Jack he too seems to be going through an identity crisis. We see how he doesn’t really care about Jack anymore and doesn’t even want to kill him now (who are you and what have you done to the real Aku!?). After he destroyed all the time portals he just assumed that Jack would give up and die with age but no, Jack hasn’t aged at all (he just grew that manly beard) and now Aku isn’t sure if he can handle Jack being around forever (and since all the portals have been destroyed he’s stuck in the future where he’s totally unaware that Jack has lost his sword there’s really no point in trying to kill him. He’s stuck in a world where he has to live in constant fear that Jack could find him and kill him. So, in truth Aku has pretty much screwed himself over. Scene here: https://youtu.be/pyWXPp_8Zks). After that we return to Jack where the Daughters of Aku have found our hero and right away they decimate him. They catch him by surprise, destroy half his armor, his guns are destroyed, and they even steal that cool short sword he got from Scaramouche (which is gonna cause a lot of problems if they learn how to use it). Jack manages to hide behind some rubble where he has an argument with his former self who begs him to just give up (the mental stability of Jack continues to intrigue me). Jack refuses to listen to his former self and says he’ll find a way to win (he always does. Scene here: https://youtu.be/3zK5WxvpsmI). He comes out from hiding and makes a run for it with the daughters right behind him and it’s here where we see the series at its best. After Jack’s talk with himself the whole episode remains silent. There’s no dialogue whatsoever it’s just action, suspense, and intensity. Like I said before in the past the show’s greatest feat is its ability to tell a story without words and that’s what this episode is doing. Jack is facing off against his strongest opponents yet and during this fight and chase sequence we see and feel how Jack is both scared and unsure if he can escape or even beat them. We also see how skilled the daughters are in this sequence as well. They are able to take Jack on and are in complete control of this fight as Jack is constantly on the run or hiding from them (scene here: https://youtu.be/xHNFIHSdSD4, I guess all of that abusive training and raising worked out in the end. Too bad it cost the girls their sanity as people). In the final moments of the episode Jack manages to kill one of the daughters (oh~, and she was so beautiful) and sees that they’re human not robots (so he finally killed another human being. Had to happen eventually. (Isis): Didn’t he kill in that one episode with the bounty hunters and the princess? (Nitsuj): Maybe, it’s debatable). He gets fatally stabbed in the ribs by the daughter and is bleeding profusely but gets his sword back where he causes the place to crumble and he escapes in the river floating down it as he continues to bleed (scene here: https://youtu.be/WpRSp0xbKJM). Also, during the episode, there’s this scene of a white wolf fighting off a bunch of tigers and barely surviving (I guess this was supposed to be symbolic of Jack’s current situation. He’s the wolf and the Daughters of Aku are the tigers).
Episode 3 picks up where episode 2 left off. Jack continues to flow down the river unconscious with a knife stuck in his side. He eventually regains consciousness and pulls himself out of the water still bleeding profusely and rests in a cave where he pulls the knife out of him and falls over catching a fever. While in the cave he receives a visit from his former self (now taller and crazier than before) who mocks Jack for his current condition saying he’s survived worse (amazingly this is true) and says he’s just acting this way because he’s dealing with the guilt of killing his first human (so he didn’t kill those bounty hunters? I knew it. Score one for Nitsuj) and wonders if he’ll be able to kill the others when the time comes or if he’ll allow himself to be killed. (scene here: https://youtu.be/GUW0arr6-3s). The wolf from last episode also enters the cave to rest from his wounds (oh hey he survived. Good for him, he earned it) and Jack slips into a dream where he remembers the first time he saw his dad kill someone. It was when he was child and he and his parents were traveling when suddenly, bandits attacked them (oh sure, attack the guy who killed the giant monster and saved the world. That seems smart). Jack’s dad gives them one last chance to leave but they refuse (and he even gave them a chance to walk away and they don’t? These guys really are stupid) and he kills them all single-handedly with Jack bearing witness to it (scene here: https://youtu.be/njp8w4b5neI, you’ve got a little something on your face Jack. Also, your dad’s a badass). We see later on that Jack’s dad explains to Jack that our decisions and actions are a reflection of who we are, and we can’t hide from ourselves. Jack wakes back up where he stitches the wound closed with a bone and I think some tree bark (I’m not entirely sure). The wolf surprisingly has been taking care of him and even brings him some food to cook so they can eat (that is one smart wolf. He knows he can’t beat Jack so why fight him? Instead, befriend him and send him off). A few days go by as the wolf and Jack look out for each other until the wolf’s wounds have finally all healed up and he leaves and Jack remembering the words of his dad that I mentioned earlier and knowing what he must do next (find your sword and try to face the Guardian again? Scene here: https://youtu.be/R3UZ1eD9zZU). The Daughters of Aku escape the wreckage of the temple (how long were you guys in there?) and the remaining 6 begin tracking down Jack (scene here: https://youtu.be/4amhbMYaqkA?t=5s). They follow the river and reach the forest where they see two deer kiss each other and don’t understand what they’re doing (scene here: https://youtu.be/DO3-gMT2qHY dear God, they don’t even understand the concept of love). They finally find Jack who gives them one last chance to walk away (yes, go and figure out that concept of love. (Corbin): I can teach them. (Nitsuj): I said love not lust. (Corbin): Can’t it be both?). But they refuse to leave, and the fight begins where Jack kills two of them off quickly and then kills another one leaving only three left (you girls are in trouble now. Jack’s mentality may be scattered all over the place but once he’s focused nobody can beat him). Jack leads the remaining three to a cliff and they each fight him one on one. He tosses the first one off the cliff like it was nothing (that girl must be light), snaps the neck of the second one with one punch (https://youtu.be/Y8EMndSFFMk) and makes the other one fall to her death as she curses him to die. As Jack stands triumphant the cliff collapses and he falls as well (scenes here: https://youtu.be/DzB-jUJbE88 and https://youtu.be/LA3nUyUkuMo, hey her wish might come true).
At the start of episode 4 we see Jack survive the fall (the tree branches broke his fall and most likely his back) as did Ashi the only daughter of Aku we got to learn about. She attacks Jack but loses again (scene here: https://youtu.be/LaMjzGrIgJM) and they both get swallowed up by a giant monolithic creature (their words not mine. Scene here: https://youtu.be/ulZV6HmdHbM). Ashi is excited about this because she thinks Jack will die in the belly of the beast (meh, he’s been through worse) but Jack assures her he’ll escape. They soon get attacked by crab monsters with Jack fighting them off all while Ashi tries to get him killed in the process until she gets knocked out (scene here: https://youtu.be/hYWWhuJUjrw. Yeah side note, Jack’s dialogue in this episode is hilarious as are the jokes). Now you have to step back and understand where Ashi is coming from. To her, Jack is the villain and Aku is the hero. She’s been raised her whole life to believe that Jack is this evil being bent on destroying the world while Jack (and we for that matter) know that Aku is evil. What we have here is a rare occasion where an unguided antagonist has come face to face with a protagonist she believes is evil and starts to question her said beliefs. Anyway, getting back to the episode Jack’s conscious mind tells him to abandon Ashi and leave her to die but he refuses to abandon a misguided girl and Ashi has a front row seat to Jack’s mental breakdown (it’s quite the show if you ask me. Scene here: https://youtu.be/c3Qj8EsvZAk). As they continue to make their way through the beast (just how big is this thing and what kind of digestive tract does it have? Seriously, I feel like we’re on that sentient plant planet from Space Dandy) Ashi keeps mouthing off about Aku’s greatness (shut up woman), Jack performs acupuncture on her (scene here: https://youtu.be/tXKEAqcyhFw. Jack’s small talk with the ladies seems rusty. (Yin-Yang): You could say he lost his edge. Huh? Huh? *Nitsuj gives her a blank stare* I’ll see myself out). He does manage to find himself some crab armor (scene here: https://youtu.be/yo2J1_S28x4, Jack’s bringing back the fur look) and manages to find a way out over a pool of acid with beautiful flying creatures (alright, use the flying creatures to escape while avoiding the pool of acid all while carrying a woman on your back who’s trying to kill you. Seems simple). Jumping and riding various creatures all while avoiding a very cool skeleton fish-like creature, Jack and Ashi escape into the ocean and swim to an island where Ashi gets freed from her chains and gets ready to attack Jack from behind until see she’s a ladybug which reminds her of her childhood and it flies to Jack where he doesn’t kill it but instead admires its beauty and lets it fly away. This act causes Ashi to drop her weapon and question everything she’s been taught to believe (scene here: https://youtu.be/EpdaPRVuhBI, you now have the keys to the kingdom my child).
Episode 5 starts with the return of everyone’s favorite side character the Scotsman (while the years have not been kind to him, it’s great to see he’s still the lovable crazy man we all remember). He’s amassed an army composed of himself, two other nations, and his many daughters (well someone got busy) in order to fight Aku. Of course, Aku destroys them all easily (you know, this wasn’t the best idea) except for the Scotsman’s daughters thanks to the Scotsman who bought them time to escape by taking on Aku himself. Aku easily destroys him but not before he gets his shots in calling Aku a little bitch afraid of Jack (these weren’t his words, but you can tell he wanted to say that). Thanks to Celtic magic he returns as a ghost and decides to rebuild the army, find Jack, and attack Aku once again (scene here: https://youtu.be/7coACW-PI84). Back with Jack and Ashi, Ashi has finally seen that Jack is not evil and now wants to see if what he said about Aku being evil is true (is the Pope catholic? Scenes here: https://youtu.be/7coACW-PI84 and https://youtu.be/LjZV1yKOGTU). Jack shows her all the evil of Aku from destroying a beautiful forest and leaving only one tree to allowing dangerous travelers from distant planets refuge on the planet and letting them loose on innocent villages (scenes here: https://youtu.be/-EZzXmFbZ98 and https://youtu.be/qbnPx9yWDg0). Ashi finally becomes convinced that what Jack said is true and when they come across a destroyed village filled with blue wookies who had their children kidnapped they go save them. The children have been implanted with microscopic chips that turn them into rabid animals at a certain sound frequency and they attack our duo. Ashi sneaks into the factory to destroy the sound while Jack distracts the children without harming them. Ashi gets captured and receives shock torture but manages to escape, defeat the factory sadist, and destroys the sound. This causes the kids to collapse where Jack thinks they’ve been killed and that mysterious samurai horseman (who I believe is the Grim Reaper) shows up and takes Jack away. Ashi checks on the kids to see that they’re all okay and wonders where Jack is.
Episodes 6-10
In episode 6 Ashi searches for Jack all over the world (man talk about a world tour). During her travels she comes across past characters from previous seasons such as the whoolies (scene here: https://youtu.be/_vMIUtXMuHE), the three archers (scene here: https://youtu.be/dZvmZo7w3bo), the Sam-Moo-Rhai, and the kids from the rave episode (hell, even Demongo comes back for a few seconds. Scenes here: https://youtu.be/yMm5NBMGLNM and https://youtu.be/VAOQFxaPMZI). During her travels she sees how Jack’s actions have given hope to everyone he’s come across and how grateful they are to him. When she comes across a waterfall Ashi jumps in and washes away her dark skin which apparently, she was forced to dip herself in as a child (scene here: https://youtu.be/mLix8Ed1T_I, wait a minute! Are you telling me she and her sisters have been naked this whole time! Damn *slams desk*! (Corbin): What’s wrong? (Nitsuj): Ashi’s been naked this whole time. (Corbin): Damn! *Takes out phone and texts Baron* (Baron): Damn! *Baron texts Brian* (Brian): Damn! *Brian forwards the message to multiple male agents* (Agents): DAMN! *Danny receives the message* (Danny): Who cares. *Whispers* Damn). She does her hair and makes an outfit composed of leaves (man she looks hotter now) and continues her search where she finally finds Jack in a graveyard about to commit seppuku. We find out that that samurai grim reaper is the spirit of a dead samurai and represents the soul of other dead samurais. Since Jack has failed so many times to return and end Aku’s evil, they feel that he must now atone for his dishonor and kill himself. Ashi tries to stop him but the samurai spirit keeps getting in the way so she tells Jack of all the people he’s helped including herself and that the blue wookie kids are still alive. This gives Jack the strength to rise back up and continue fighting where he saves Ashi from the samurai spirit (you know Ashi has been getting pretty weak these last few episodes) and the samurai spirit vanishes. With Jack’s mind clear and at peace he and Ashi head out to find his sword. We also see that Scaramouche survived his fight with Jack and makes his way to Aku’s lair to tell him that Jack lost his sword where he drops possibly the best line in this entire series (scene here: https://youtu.be/pqTdcdM38jY).
Episode 7 starts off with us seeing how Jack lost his sword. It all started with him climbing up a mountain looking for a time portal (just like the good old days). He reaches the summit where he finds a portal and jumps into it. Just when it seems like Jack is about to accomplish his mission Aku pulls him out and destroys the portal saying that was the last one in existence. Angered by this Jack tries to attack Aku but he escapes and leaves Jack to fight against mountain goat monsters. In his rage Jack kills them forgetting that they were innocent baby goats (boy PETA is gonna have your ass for this). Shocked by his actions Jack drops his sword and a pillar fell almost squashing him. The shockwave of the pillar caused the sword to fall into a pit where it was lost (scene here: https://youtu.be/3Mwt9lPxHzw?t=6s). Jack searched frantically for the sword but couldn’t find it (until today) so he reassigned himself to his situation where he went a little crazy (Shizuku: A little? The guy made Panty and Stocking look tamed). Jack and Ashi have returned to the mountain and search the pit only to find nothing. Jack realizes that he didn’t lose the sword but rather the sword left him (well it was created by the gods so it wouldn’t surprise me if it had a mind of its own) and the only way to find it is to go on a spiritual quest. He decides to meditate not knowing how long it’ll take and goes on a celestial journey where he comes across a monk who asks him to make him tea (the long proper way). While that’s going on an army of lizard men have arrived to kill Jack and Ashi takes them on where the violence level goes up big time as Ashi becomes a one-woman army taking down the army by herself snapping limbs and everything (I am so turned on right now, https://youtu.be/ilfQf71T-y0). She even takes out her mother who also shows up trying to kill Jack (scenes here: https://youtu.be/8eH7GeVd7-8 and https://youtu.be/vbUkCWR90lA). Back with Jack he finishes making the tea and serves it to the monk who says it’s awful because it lacks balance. This causes the other Jack to come out (who I am convinced is Mad Jack. Think about it, the rage, the anger, the hatred in his voice, this is Mad Jack) who tells Jack to attack the monk saying he has the sword, but Jack doesn’t listen saying that he is the reason their path has been blocked and Jack finally gets rid of him. With the other Jack gone Jack has returned to balance and the gods who originally created the sword make him a new one as well as return him to his original form (I’m gonna miss his beard. (Yume): I’m going to miss seeing him walk around half-naked. I swear you could grind meat on that man’s abs). Jack returns to reality to see that Ashi is okay and they head out with their focus on taking down Aku (scenes here: https://youtu.be/TkreTryt6YU and https://youtu.be/gtTX7gi-oGo).
In episode 8 we start off in space where a ship gets hit by an asteroid and crash lands on Earth (yeah because we already have enough problems on our hands). We then cut to Jack and Ashi riding a camel bus where the romantic tension between the two is high (not the best buildup but we’ve only got like two episodes left and I’m just happy to see Jack possibly get some). They get attacked by green tigers (they couldn’t beat the wolf and now they think they can beat Jack?) but they fight them off and escape (scene here: https://youtu.be/NNLVcZetscw). They then find themselves traveling through the desert (steadily raising that romantic tension. We just need one life threatening event to push them over the edge) until they come across that ship we saw at the beginning of the episode. Having no choice they enter the ship to escape the sandstorm only to discover that it’s a prison ship and the deadliest prisoner a legion of insects is loose and trying to kill them (like something out of an Alien movie). They manage to reach the weapon room and Jack finds a device that can destroy the creature but he has no idea how to use it. As they fight the creature they both try to get the device to work but fail and even Ashi loses her leaf dress (and she’s naked again). Jack finally gets the device to work and acting as a bug zapper the device kills all the insects saving our two heroes who finally kiss each other in a very intense make-out session (scene here: https://youtu.be/vbUkCWR90lA).
We start off episode 9 where 8 ended (millions of fans crying out for approval and disapproval for this turn of events). After they get done kissing, Ashi looks for clothes and Jack goes outside to shower (scene here: https://youtu.be/-55fvZpvYlI). Ashi manages to find some clothes and gets to see Jack naked (if that girl wasn’t thirsty she is now). They settle in for the night and everyone’s favorite bounty hunter Scaramouche has finally made it to Aku to tell him that Jack has lost his sword and Aku is so happy he dances (scene here: https://youtu.be/F6Fk7icKejE oh yeah, get down Aku). The next morning Jack leaves Ashi behind because the last time he traveled with a woman he was betrayed and he is not going through that again. After walking through the dessert with his mind on Aku (and his heart on Ashi) he comes across a junkyard which just happens to be the ruins of where Jack fought the Guardian (the man who gave Jack his first loss). Ashi manages to catch up to him and Aku and Scaramouche show up where Jack reveals his sword and Aku kills Scaramouche (a whop bop a loo bop a whop dead). Aku decides to leave but he feels his presence inside of Ashi and it finally gets revealed that yes, Aku is in fact Ashi’s father (boy that is going to be one awkward wedding ceremony). Years ago he visited the followers of Aku and left behind his essence (baby batter or cum to my older audience), Ashi’s mom drank it, and gave birth to the Daughters of Aku (scene here: https://youtu.be/z-Dd8gI0se0). Jack calls BS and attacks Aku only for Ashi to stand in his way, not by choice of course. Aku’s essence inside of her is forcing her to defend Aku against her will and she attacks Jack with Aku turning her into a mini version of himself (with flaming eyebrows and everything. Scene here: https://youtu.be/eywLJYWY3wM). Ashi tells Jack to kill her and fulfill his mission but he just can’t do it and surrenders to Aku leaving us on a shocking note with Aku standing triumphant over Jack.
In the final episode, we start by seeing the return of more past characters (such as the dogs from the pilot movie, the fish people, the robot people from the mecha samurai episode and even the jump good guy who have all aged in the way I expected. Although it is shocking to see the dogs still alive). After that Aku goes on TV (where we get to hear the dialog of Mako from the original Samurai Jack opening. That was nice of them. He was there in spirit) all over the world announcing his victory over Jack shocking everyone (haven’t seen people this shocked since Brock Lesnar beat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania ending The Streak). Aku prepares to kill Jack but after all these years of fighting he’s not sure how he wants to kill him (scene here: https://youtu.be/XcTFxsbNn1k, so many ways to kill him but which one is the most satisfying? (Seras): I’ve been there). Aku finally decides to give the honors to Ashi (killed by the person he loved and trusted the most. Brilliant) but before she can kill him everyone who Jack helped in the past 4 seasons comes to save him (scene here: https://youtu.be/hVYyjtkcEaE, man you guys mobilized quick. How’d you even find Aku’s hideout? Not gonna lie I actually teared up a little bit during this scene. Everyone that Jack has helped has come to save him. It’s heartwarming and shows how one man can inspire the masses to have hope). So, they all fight Aku as Jack gets freed and tries to get his sword but Ashi gets in the way and absorbs him. Jack finally tells Ashi he loves her (Baron: And Tumblr is no doubt bitching about it) and she manages to break Aku’s hold on her and gains control over her powers (scene here: https://youtu.be/gM-tp-lxWRQ. She gives Jack back his sword and opens up a time portal where they both head back to the past and Jack finally destroys Aku (scenes here: https://youtu.be/MNDtWw7yaYI and https://youtu.be/trmN5jsHnJ4, yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh~! It took us over a decade, but we finally saw it). However, Aku’s defeat isn’t without casualties. On the day of their wedding Ashi faints and disappears. Why? Because Aku never existed in the future and since he never existed in the future that means that the followers of Aku never existed, Ashi’s mom never received Aku’s essence, thus, Ashi was never born (scene here: https://youtu.be/ATDVLMDpDXc, even in death Aku found a way to take everything from Jack). Saddened by his loss, Jack goes off to brood alone (Batman: That’s my thing) until he sees a ladybug which reminds him of Ashi and he starts to feel better bringing light back into his life (scene here: https://youtu.be/8zROp3fZQuY).
Final Thoughts
So that was the final season of Samurai Jack and it delivers on everything I wanted to see. This final season was dramatic, action-packed, intense, funny, and most importantly, gave us closure on Jack’s story. The character development of Jack in this season was great. We see an older Jack who is just about ready to give up the fight and can you really blame him? He’s lived in Aku’s future for 50 years. Everywhere he goes is a constant reminder of his failure and if you were surrounded by your constant failure for 50 years you be in Jack’s state as well. However, despite this, he can’t bring himself to give up and keeps fighting where he slowly returns to his former self and we see how his acts have inspired the people around him. Aku also goes through his own little character development as well. Despite the fact that he’s beaten Jack and prevented him from returning to the past, he still has to live in fear of Jack because as long as Jack has the sword than Aku’s life is in danger and thanks to the time conundrum Jack has stopped aging meaning Aku is stuck with Jack forever. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental stress Aku went through when he realized this. The addition of Ashi was also good. At first I wasn’t sure how this character would work out in the series but I’m glad they kept her around. She was the spark that gave Jack the strength to stand back up after he was ready to give up. Some have argued that she changed sides too quickly but if you ask me I think it was the right amount of time. Jack showed her all of Aku’s evil with her own eyes. If she had denied any of this than it would have just been stupid on her part. Anyway, I thought she was a good character to the series and while her romantic feelings for Jack came out of left field I think in the end it was handled well.
Speaking of the ending let’s talk about the ending. Fans are really torn about this ending. Some people like it while others hate it. Personally, I liked it. Don’t get me wrong it’s a bittersweet ending with Jack getting screwed over in the end but what did you expect to happen? Change a major event in the past and you alter time all together. Also, this shows us what it means to be a hero in Jack’s world. To constantly sacrifice one’s own happiness for the happiness of others and that’s what Jack does. He sacrifices his happiness to give the world a chance to be happy and in the end, he finds hope in knowing that he’ll be able to find happiness. Was this the perfect ending? No. But let’s be honest, there really was no perfect ending to this series. No matter what they decided to do they were gonna piss some people off so instead of trying to please everyone, they decided to go with an ending that they thought was right and I respect them for that.
The new style of animation is great, and the fight scenes are more intense and bloodier than the past seasons but capture the heart and soul of the original series that we all grew up watching. They just adapted the series to the current animation style of today and they succeeded greatly. If anything, I think this animation is better. The backgrounds just so beautiful to look at that I could get lost for hours just staring at them and never grow bored. The music is awesome in this season. My favorite track being the tomb scene from episode 2. The music just captures all of the emotions of the scene and easily tells the story of what’s going on. This music along with the show’s ability to tell a story without relying on dialogue is just perfect.
Final Score
My final score for Samurai Jack season 5 is a 9.5/10 with a much watch stamp of approval. If the show had done a better job with the Jack and Ashi romance it would have been a 10/10 but still this final season delivered on everything we wanted to see and gave us a satisfying ending. If you grew up with Samurai Jack like me, you’ll love this show and for those of you who haven’t watched Samurai Jack I highly recommend tracking down the series and watching it. It was Cartoon Network’s greatest show and in my opinion one of the greatest cartoons of all time. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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