I may have problems with the final episode but, my heart dropped when it ended. At least we finally got the ending to this show. Fun fact: it was this show that made me love swords at a young age.
PhantomHero Mine was Zelda. Come to think of it, Zelda and Samurai Jack have a lot in common. Both involve masters of Evil (who even share similar color schemes of black, red/orange, and green) who could only be harmed by swords forged by gods and can only be wielded by a warrior with a pure heart. Both wielders of the weapons are adventurous and willing to fight their way through to reach their goal. They have traveled in time at least twice, have fought monsters, demons, and even evil versions of themselves (Mad Jack and Dark/Shadow Link). Even more interesting is that their recent installments, season 5 and BOTW, share even more similarities. In addition to both warriors failing to defeat the shape-shifting masters of evil and finding themselves in a ravaged world, both recent chapters reveal that their warriors have lost their sacred weapons. And to get those swords back isn't just a matter of finding them as they must take a test to see if they are worthy of wielding (link must have enough endurance to pull the master sword while jack must subside his negative subconscious to obtain a peaceful mind). Both stories have an evil cult working for the villain and trying to kill the hero. They also involve their lead protagonists developing bonds despite starting off poorly (though Link and Zelda's case was more subdued as it goes from sour to platonic while Jack and Ashi's was more extreme on both ends). Both installments even have the heroes wielding weapons that break. Plus they came out in 2017 and just weeks away from each other.
I think my interest in swords came from Master Ting's flying swords from ZU: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, and the Tri-blade from The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Those three gods should've rewarded Jack for his deeds by giving him Ashi back. After all the sacrifices he has done for other, he deserves that one important bit of personal happiness: Love.
Yeah, those gods were kind of the biggest assholes of all. Technically, killing Aku was supposed to be THEIR job, but instead they sat back and did nothing while one guy with a sword did their dirty work for them!
It's damn good too! So much so that people are petitioning Genndy to make that an alternate ending officially. It's already gotten 1,035 signatures!! Won;t you sign it too? www.change.org/p/genndy-tartakovsky-samurai-jack-s-alternative-ending/w?comment_id=641837297&reply_id=642318950&sfmc_tk=i2yE1IE6qzul3xVFg%2fRQWGdEqQH5c5uS2jShnLb975wPH%2bXhMO78tFpaEUzSAx2t
There is one thing many forget about the ending to the finale. The ladybug Some say that, according Japanese myth. A ladybug symbolizes the spirits of those who've died. Not to mention that the ladybug was the first pure thing Ashi came across in Aku's bleak and villainous world. So, by seeing that ladybug land on his hand. Jack took it as a sign that Ashi will live on forever, even if it's just a memory
Excellent review and I completely agree with your rating. That being said, a few points: -The decision to go back to the past was not something that Jack made on his own. It was *all* Ashi's decision. It had to be. In season's 1-4 of Samurai Jack we have seen Jack sacrifice his chance to go back to the past whenever his friends were in trouble in order to help them. If he selfishly went back to the past on his own while his friends were dying on the battlefield, it would have been a betrayal to his character. That being said, the decision to actually kill Aku once he travelled to the past was indeed Jack's decision. -Ashi *knew* that going back to the past and allowing Jack to kill Aku would erase her from existence. If you look closely at the scene where Ashi and Jack travel back to the past she looks at Jack with a sad look on her face while he has his eyes closed relishing the fact that he is finally going home. Then we see her hold Jack's hand, at which point he opens his eyes and sees her smiling (subtle storytelling through visuals at its finest). Jack might have been a hero, but so was Ashi, because she knowingly and willingly sacrificed her life, her very *existence*, in order to allow Jack to fulfill his quest and give him his life back. -Why did Ashi decide to send Jack to the past? In the previous episode, Ashi had asked Jack about his home, and his time. Jack vividly described how beautiful it was and how much he missed it. When Jack said that it was now all "nothing but a memory" and saw the pained expression on his face, she knew that Jack wanted to go back to his time more than anything else. And because she loved Jack selflessly, when she had the chance, she sent him back to the past instantly without any hesitation. -On that note, it's interesting to note that when Jack faced the choice to either kill Ashi or give up on his quest, he chose the latter. If he had known that killing Aku in the past would have erased Ashi from existence, he wouldn't have killed Aku (at least not in the way he did). Which is why Ashi's decision to not interfere in the final showdown between Jack and Aku is really poignant. That's about it! Thanks for introducing me to the word "apophenia"!
The 🐞 throughout Ashi's life, and then showing up at the end to raise Jack's spirit after the whole time loop erasing. Beautiful detail. Thank you for a beautiful Series!
Never since both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Return of the King have I felt such satisfying closure at a series ending as strong as it began. Thank you Genndy Tartakovsky. And Keep up the amazing work ERod, you're videos are getting better and better.
i think the main thing about this season and even the series as a whole is one thing: freedom. from jack's major acts to his own demons, not to mention Ashi's whole family problems, it makes sense to end with a sad yet beautiful scene.
To many people promised themself that whould happen. But I agree it was a good set up. BUT....... Now when Jack is in the past all the time portals will return and the Guardian is alive again, he lived far before Aku toke over if I understand it right. So in a ofcannon continuation Jack goes on new adventures and meets with the Guardian who with the time portal knows about his death by Aku. And maybe there is another evil in the world for Jack to battle and reunite the whole world. And that becomes Jack in the vision.
the last scene where Jack is underneath the tree and a ladybug flies on him and he smiles letting it fly away and the sun comes up showing the blossoms on the tree and the beautiful yet kind of sad music was about gorgeous and made me want to happy cry, which is great because it is the complete opposite of the beginning scene of both season 1 episode 1 and season 10 episode 1 which both started out dark and bit depressing
anyone else find it completely incomprehensible that aku is actually dead? like he's one of the most prolifoc villains in western culture and most people who grew up with him i would assume find it surreal that he's actually dead. it's such a weird feeling.
One of the Most prolific in Western Culture? You're giving this show far, far too much credit. It's prolific for a lot people who were watching cartoons 13 years ago. "Western Culture" is a huge swath of people and places who don't care about a Cartoon Network show.
I find it incredibly surreal . Aku is one of the greatest villains in animation (And in my oppinion one of the best villains ever ) so it is odd knowing he has finally been destroyed. Inn fact the show actually has a finale now is a little weird to me
Daisyhead It's like accepting the deaths of Voldemort, Sauron, and probably Darth Vader back in the day: you just gotta move on and get pumped for other cool villains in the future...
Great timing! I had just caught up with your previous Honest Reviews when this popped up in my feed :-). Just like the show, your HR on it was also worth the wait. Although I felt it was little rushed (I wish it had been 44 instead of 22 min), overall I enjoyed the ending. I don't think the final moments could have been any different. It would have been nice to actually see Aku be erased from the future and have all of Jack's allies celebrate but this was still a satisfying ending. I liked Jack with Ashi despite what many in the fandom might have called a FRI ;-). Would you consider doing a list of your top 10 favorite episodes?
Tartakovsky mentioned that it was only coincidence that her hairstyle was the same, but I thought I read somewhere else what he was truly going for was to give her the same hair as Vegeta.
I loved Samurai Jack and started watching it during my late teens years ago. However that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the major flaws, inconsistencies, plot holes and timeline contradictions exposing why Genndy's finale doesn't work or make any sense. Though Genndy wanted a bittersweet ending for Samurai Jack, which most if not all the fans like myself didn't want, here some some major mistakes the finale had: First Mistake: How did Ashi know exactly at what point in time in the past to travel to and where to travel to with Jack? Certainly Aku never told her and Jack himself doesn't know how many centuries into the future he was thrown into. It doesn't add up. Second Mistake: Why did Ashi so conveniently stop existing on her wedding day to Jack in front of hundreds of people, foreign delegates and dignitaries? A royal wedding of that magnitude takes months to plan and prepare especially since people from other countries were invited to Jack's wedding to Ashi; meaning Ashi was given a lot of time to be introduced not only to Jack's royal family but also to everyone he knew in that timeline. A year must have gone by at least. Ashi should have immediately been erased from history the very moment Aku was killed in the past. The fact that she lasted for months before she so suddenly just never existed doesn't make any sense; that was completely fabricated by Genndy in his attempt to emotionally stab the audience with Ashi's dramatic death into oblivion. Third Mistake: How could Jack continue to exist in the past if Ashi never existed to send him back to the past in the first place? Jack should have ceased to exist in that altered past timeline also since Ashi never existed to send him back. This is a paradox that doesn't make any sense! Some argued that because time lost its affect on Jack's ability to age that he wasn't affected. But that doesn't make sense as the same rule should have also applied to Ashi since she also jumped out of her original timeline like Jack did and went to another timeline. This inconsistency was never explained. Fourth Mistake: If Ashi never existed in the future because Aku was killed in the past by Jack, then how did Jack go back in time to kill Aku in the past in the first place? That means that Jack never went back in time and killed Aku in the past; meaning that Aku is not dead and the future did not change. It doesn't add up! Fifth Mistake: Why were Jack's parents so young looking with their kingdom perfectly intact when in the first episode of Season 1 before Jack was thrown into the distant future by Aku, they were very old, their kingdom was completely destroyed by Aku and his minions because Aku escaped his prison, his aged mother was living in the icecap mountains with monks who held onto his father's legendary sword, and his father and the rest of his people were slaves under Aku's tyranny? These are contradictions and inconsistencies that were never explained and it they stay true to the original storyline. These are the reasons why the finale of Samurai Jack doesn't work or make any sense!
Manga Prime The Split Timeline theory is serviceable for a couple of those but that's all I got. And the second mistake was what I was wondering about while I was watching for the first time.
My only issues with the finale were that it was horribly rushed and paced -- it really needed to be 40 minutes long, or at least 30 -- and that there should have been at least, like, 5 seconds of Jack trying to say goodbye to the Scotsman, before the Scotsman said "Go, laddy! Don't waste time, we'll be fine!" and Jack nods before leaving through the portal. That's it. These two small fixes would have helped absolutely everything. But yes, indeed, at least we now have an ending at last, and the rest was awesome
During Aku's death scene that wasn't archival recordings of Mako. It was Greg Baldwin. He sounds very similar to him in that scene but if you did a comparison you would notice the difference. Here's a video the compares the first episode's version of the scene to the final episode's version: ua-cam.com/video/fUjin3X9j1M/v-deo.html I think the reason they sound so similar is because Greg is reading lines beat for beat that Mako had spoken, not lines written for Aku when he took over.
Bro this series. Just left me happy and sad. I'm notice to cry. Not even when playing the Walking dead season 1 all the way through. But this made me tear up. AAAAAHHH
I have a problem with the ending. In that it's pretty much ripped straight from the end to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That's right. They stole the ending to TTGL. Simon and co defeat the Anti-Spiral, save the human race from extinction, and Nia, Simon's love interest, as having been created by the Anti-Spiral and part of them, disappears from existence right on their wedding day.
Samurai Jack has referenced multiple shows and genres before in the past. Why referencing Gurren Lagann in the ending is seen as something horrible? Even then, Samurai jack didnt rip off Gurren Lagann properly. Nia was well aware that she held herself together till she got married and only then she passed away. And the entire scene was shown as bittersweet in Gurren Lagann while here Ashi disappeared right before she got married and the entire scene straight up like a forced and depressing scene. If they really wanted to ripoff Gurren Lagann they should have made Ashi disappear right after she and jack got married or they should have made Ashi disappear right after Aku was defeated which would have been more logical.
The show didn't rip it off, it took inspiration from that ending. Every idea in the world was inspired by another idea. Note the near ending of the South Park "Simpsons Did It" episode
Ashi, but all accounts, knew that with no Aku in the future, that she couldn't exist. In reality she should've faded from existence the moment Jack killed Aku in the past. They strung this along to mirror the events of TTGL. It's not a reference when you're doing pretty much the exact same thing to get that reaction from people. I never said the ending was bad, but I feel they could've done something a lot more unexpected and brilliant. And sadlobster1, when South Park used that material, it was for Parody purposes, as was the point of the entire episode. That's completely different from what we see them doing here.
I kinda wish I saw the gangsters again, but I'm not complaining. This show was amazing ride, and I am content, (and a little sad), to see that it has finally coming to an end. See ya 'round, Jack!
i doesnt need a prologue. you dont need show up who batgirl was to make people care for her . Heck i didnt knew anything about her or give 2 cents for her when i read the killing joke for the first time and but the time the story was over , she still was the character that leave the biggest impact on me next to the joker past self because she was written just as a common person , not a superhero , just a common person, which as any fan of horror could tell you, that made her extreamly repeatable .. alot more than Gordon which is the commissioner of Gotham's police or batman who hide his humanity behind that bat cowl
Let's be fair here. The thing that destroyed it was THAT scene with Batman and Batgirl. I mean that was just...uncomfortable for me. AND I WAS ONE OF THE ONES THAT SAW IT IN THEATERS! And Tara Strong was good as Batgirl yes, but any script where she says the words "It' was just sex" is just plain bad. Seriously if they had made older than she was in the movie that scene would not have been as bad, but given the age gap between her and bruce it's just uncomfortable and disgusting. Here's an idea for a prologue why not have an adventure with Batman and Batgirl actually CATCHING the Joker? That way it would not only lead up to the real part of adaptation of the movie better, but it wouldn't have her doing THAT with Batman. Seriously Bruce you should have clocked her in the head saying "Go home Barbara you're drunk" and then take cold shower once he got home to forget about the whole incident.
I still find it funny how people argued on twitter about the waiting game between Samurai Jack and Rick and Morty. While fans argue that they've waited months for Rick and Morty to return, Samurai Jack fans have been waiting years for Samurai Jack to return. The argument is pretty irrelevant when you see who has the longer patience.
It'll never happen, of course, but if anyone deserves an Annie, it's Greg Baldwin, for nearly flawlessly replicating one of the most legendary voices of all time AND one of the most important for Samurai Jack. Oh, also, I wanted to point out something: when you said they used archival recordings of Mako for the past in the final episode, you were actually incorrect. You gotta listen to the original episode and then the re-animated scene back to back to hear it, but the new re-animated stuff is GREG, not Mako. The only part that had Mako was when they played the original intro for that meta joke. But I'll give ya a pass for missing it because, in all fairness, Greg's Aku was SO good in that scene that I myself also thought it was Mako.
Really loved this 10 episodes. So diffrent from eachother. So strange to go from episode 8 for example and jump back to 2-3. I just love how this show stayed consistent with the original. Sure blood and death but not to much. Like Genndy said - We are not Ninja scrolling it. Only in the first throwback episode with cameos of old character´s did we get some naughty words but other then that this show was exactly like how Jack always had been. I mean as soon Jack get´s his sword back he dose´t kill anyone. I was sort of afraid of that. Hey even when Ashi fought that army she did´t kill everyone but sure brutally almost did. I wish this show could be shown in mini theatre´s with great sound display becuse Samurai Jack is always pleasing to the ears. Headset all the time. I wonder what countries will get this season aired in there language? Whould be fascinating to find our how many managed to get the original voices back. I am trying to raise interest to get this dubbed in Swedish. Even thought no one whould really earn much money.
I'm very glad that you defended the ending, and you're right, it was fantastic, just like the rest of this series. I just wish people would stop throwing a hissy fit over it. Yes, it sucks that she died and it's very sad, but it makes sense why it happened. Honestly, anytime I hear people whine about that or the fact that the Guardian was killed off screen, I just want to send them that eSults video NC made for Whiners.
SonicStantz I didn't like the ending at all. Honestly I didn't even think the season past episode 4 was that great either. It wasn't bad, but I thought it was just okay, especially compared to how SPECTACULARLY the season started.
I would have liked in an ending credits sequence, an aged Jack approaches the Guardian, who manages to recognize him despite Jack only ever meeting him in a future that never existed, and their dialog would indicate that Jack's life is fading and wants to spend his remaining time in the company of his friends of the destroyed timeline.
And pretty fitting for the Nickelodeon series of the Ninja Turtles 2 have Sab Shimono as Mr. Murakami in maybe 2 episodes because he was on the "terrible" Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III as Lord Norinaga. "Help I'm a turtle and I can't get up." Casey Jones came back in this movie, same for Corey Feldman as Donatello after the first Ninja Turtles movie. That's all I can say.
so wheni heard of this season and how hiped people were for it i wanted to see it, thing is: i never saw the original show, so out of respect for the love and reputation this show has i binged the entire show episode by episode so i knew what i was getting into, i do this with a lot of shows that i never started with and a lot of them were just grinding through it, however when i started watching i noticed the art style the fight scenes and the amazing story even in silence. i gained the respect for this show as other people who grew up with it had and i was not disappointed, when i finally got to the new season i was hyped, not all episode's were out yet and i would have to wait. i started with the first four episodes and loved it, each week i came back to see it and i was never disappointed. i'm glad i watched this show and i hope other people agree on that with me. i know this is a wall of text but if you read it up until this point i thank you, i just wanted to tell you guys this, because i know how much you respect the show and wanted to show my appreciation to getting exposed to it as well as let you know new fans are still coming aboard .
issac flores I don't really think so. The timeline was altered. You're thinking more of a "time loop". PS A time paradox never happened in Back to the Future. An alternate timeline occurred, but not a paradox.
Michael Joesph well either way if Jack killed Aku in the past then Aku would have never fathered Ashi, which means that Ashi wouldn't be born to bring Jack back in time to defeat Aku since Aku sent Jack into the future and Jack would have no way of coming back thus he would be stuck there and wouldn't come back to the past. There for Aku might be alive since there was no Ashi to bring Jack back but then Jack will go back in time since Aku is alive to father Ashi so he'll have to go back in time but then he don't since Aku would be dead and the pattern repeats. Or he'd be stuck in a future with no Aku and no way of getting back since Jack killed him already and Ashi wouldn't be born. But still a pretty good ending but it has a paradox.
issac flores Not really, it just means the timeline was erased. Ergo, essentially "it hasn't happened anymore" for lack of a better phrase. It may have for Jack, but not for the rest of time and space (especially if you take the whole "personal time" thing into account, but that gets all weird). It would be a paradox if ASHI went back in time and killed Aku, however.
or, stay with me for a moment, or. SPOILERS AHEAD FOR GURRREN LAGGAN It's exactly Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's ending. Where Simon's girlfriend was erased not because of a time paradox, but because the force that brought her into existence, ceased to exist. Maybe Ashi really was half aku, meaning that what was binding her together, was Aku, not Aku the character, but the universal force of magical evil. And with that erased Ashi, an Aku offsprout, slowly began to fade from existence. Just like the Heroine from Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan.
Would you one day please do an honest review of the HellBoy movies? Since their is a reboot in the works and since HellBoy is in your TRINITY OF AWESOMENESS I think it would be fitting to talk about the movies and how you feel about them and maybe talk about the animated ones if you feel like it. Keep up the good work.
I'm still thinking about the ending. I live that Jack stopped mourning over Ashi after having the lady bug find him, and crawled on his finger before flying off.
I love Tara Strong, but I kind'a wish they got someone new to voice Ashi, like keep Kari Wahlgren from her first non-speaking role in the first episode, or even someone completely different. (like Laura Bailey or Fryda Wollf since they're both rather underutilized in animation) Only reason I could think why Tara was cast was because of this character's likeness to Llana from Sym-Bionic Titan, but I feel casting the same actress was too obvious. Not that I mind the cast, but still some differentiating would be more interesting.
Waited ten years for this. Cartoon Network needs to stop cancelling shows when they are getting popular. Except Teen Titans Go, no one wants that now, we want Young Justice.
Hey Samurai Jack fans out there; comment "I" if you want a Samurai Jack spin-off, either on Adult Swim or on Netflix, call Samurai Jack The Next Genderation and have the exact same quality as the main show itself and it'll be forever remembered in the Samurai Jack history books as THE next greatest thing Samurai Jack has ever done in recent memory with THE most mind-blowing Samurai Jack ending in the history of endings yet that'll surly outshine the season 5 ending in every way possible!
Im glad you said "I cried like a little girl at a Katy Perry concert" Instead of something else considering the timing and that would have been hilariously horrible.
The only thing I wished the finale had was jack having a epic final battle with aku I was expecting it to be a combination of all of jacks previous battles with aku but sadly it never happened but I will say despite that it still had a decent end even if it wasn't the bang I was expecting.
the real problem i have with season 5 is that it completely ignores seasons 1-4. the show makes just as much sense if you watch episode 1 of the first season then skip to episode 1 of season 5. i see season 5 as a template of what story the author wanted to tell originally but didn't get too because the show got cut. the last few episodes of season 4 really hammered home that jack wasn't just fighting bad guys anymore, so i assume that was setting up jack losing his sword. and the rival turned love interest that was ashi was supposed to be the princes assassin from season 4 episode 5. and in my personal head cannon, jack got home via the guardian's portal and not ashi ex machina. i also would've had it be alternate timelines. jack saves the post-aku world from aku, then goes back and starts a new timeline to save the old world from aku. seems needlessly bitter to leave on the note of, every good thing in the aku future also got errased, but so did all the bad things, so enjoy the world of more good than bad.
What would be cool would be if after the end they had a short flash after jack touches the ladybug forward to the time jack visited and they show the new world that was created. Earth would still have become a diverse hub world but it wouldn't be under aka' rule. We see all the people jacked helped. I like the idea that we see Ashi with her sisters, maybe their chilling out or going to school or something. Ashi stops and looks at something. It's an old out of the way statue of jack, dirty and filthy (jack would have been remembered with the one statue after drafting aka) Ashi goes to it and just has a feeling like she's seen this guy before. Then her sisters call her away. She goes to leave but then stops and looks back over her shoulder one last time.The screen flashes back to jack in front of the tree and the lady bug flies off into the sunset, then we have the ending that happened.
I'm sorry, but I cannot cope with the ending. 1st- HOW THE FUCK DOES ASHI KNOW HOW TO MAKE A TIME PORTAL?! SHE'S KNOWN THAT SHE HAS HIS BLOOD FOR ABOUT 24 HOURS BY THEN AND THAT SHE SHARED ALL OF HIS POWERS FOR MUCH SHORTER TIME! SO HOW THE FUCK DOES SHE ALREADY KNOW THAT SHE CAN DO THAT?! 2- GENNDY FORGOT ABOUT THE GUARDIAN! Ok... ok... I'm calm now. ahem. In season three, Jack forgot the gate guardian, but after losing, the guardian tells him that he cannot use it yet. However, in the new season, it is implied that the guardian was dead. Big error. The prophecy told us that only one person can kill him, and it was clear that it was Jack. It's pretty safe to say Genndy completely forgot about this episode when creating the new season. 3- When Ashi and Jack destroy aku, Ashi should've immediately died and vanished. But yet it took her several days and the middle of a wedding to die. That was a stupid choice because it forces us to feel bad. We could've seen her dying from a mile away, so this just seemed like padding out time. Now don't get me wrong, I love Samurai Jack with all my heart, but this ending was shit. Period.
my main problem with the ending is the grandfather paradox. If jack killed aku, ashi would have never been born, if ashi was never born jack cant go back to the past meaning he could not kill aku as past him was flung into the future and the series happen and so on and so forth in a infinite loop.
honestly, as much as I enjoyed the finale it was too short. maybe they should've done what they did with the premiere and made it three parts. I would've loved a scene where Jack reconnects with his mother and father, they help rebuild Japan, his father gets nursed back to health, Jack and Ashi get married, and....this is the one thing I always wanted to see...have Jack become emperor. That would've been awesome
10:51 - 11:17 Kinda reminds me of The Entity, or MissingNo from Atop The Fourth Wall, a Lovecraftian creature who has a bleak and tragic story. Yes, it an absorb and conquer all that he sees until the entirety of existence is a part of it, but what will it do after? It has no aspirations or goals or dreams outside of it's all consuming need to be all that is, and thus, when Linkara tricked it into "killing itself to discover the truth of what lies beyond death, it still was afraid of being without purpose, so it left a part of itself behind hoping it would get the answers when the greater whole returned from death. Alas, that wasn't the case, so that made you feel all the more sad for MissingNo when it finally accepted the inevitable, unable to find any other challenge that it deemed unworthy of it's greatness despite realizing it's own insignificance in comparison to the vastness of existence.
Glad to know it met with your approval! A lot of people disliked the ending, but I feel it was very strong in its own right. Like you say, the element of tragedy amidst triumph suits the ultimate aesthetic of the show's story. Furthermore, it creates a final challenge for the hero to overcome, one more personal and powerful than ever before. He was always going to save the world, but could Jack weather the loss of a loved one? Without any hope of going back and saving her? To finally move on from the past, and live in the present? Hell... even Batman has trouble with that one.
I loved the idea of a Ninja like character who was fiercely loyal to their leader being an enemy to the samurai who was only fighting for the greater good, which (to my knowledge) is a cool role reversal on the Samurai being loyal to the Shogun and the Ninja standing up against them. I would like to point out that everything eRod said about the action scenes was for the other seasons, and he showed very few (if any) clips from this season during that segment. Yeah, true, you could say the action's just about the same in this season as the others, but he already has a video talking about the other four seasons, and it seemed like he was only talking about the other seasons instead of this one. Honestly, eRod seems a bit nostalgia blind in this video. Just slightly. Apparently Samurai Jack has one of the best ending fight scenes in all animation history, most heartrending endings in all of fiction, and an episode that is the best combination of action and comedy since Shaun of the Dead. As someone who did not watch every episode of Samurai jack when it first came out when I was 9 years old, im pretty sure alot of that is the excitement of having your show come back after 13 years, and wearing nostalgia goggles a little bit.. Also, this is just me being nitpicky on the show, but why did it take Ashi months to disappear after Aku was defeated? This always bother me in time travel stories. Ashi literally died at the most dramatic moment possible instead of disappearing along with Aku like she should've. Im not even talking about the time paradox stuff here, just why it took Ashi such a long time to disappear after Aku was destroyed.
I would have preferred to see Aku follow Jack and ashi back to the past in a desperate bid to protect himself, to culminate in a final battle, with Jack and ashi versus the past and future Aku. I also would have liked to find out what that image in the Guardians time portal was.
7:37 - The hell you talking about? Jack never had a love interest in this season....... 8:24 - You just had to bring that up didn't ya >:/ 13:56 - *ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!* 18:50 - There see? Never had one......and just like when I saw this episode proper I need to go cry now.....
I'm glad he didn't as it's stupid and pretty common. Heck there's still a fandom split in MLP over Princess Twilight and that's been a thing for over four seasons now.
I may have problems with the final episode but, my heart dropped when it ended. At least we finally got the ending to this show. Fun fact: it was this show that made me love swords at a young age.
PhantomHero Mine was Zelda.
Come to think of it, Zelda and Samurai Jack have a lot in common. Both involve masters of Evil (who even share similar color schemes of black, red/orange, and green) who could only be harmed by swords forged by gods and can only be wielded by a warrior with a pure heart. Both wielders of the weapons are adventurous and willing to fight their way through to reach their goal. They have traveled in time at least twice, have fought monsters, demons, and even evil versions of themselves (Mad Jack and Dark/Shadow Link).
Even more interesting is that their recent installments, season 5 and BOTW, share even more similarities. In addition to both warriors failing to defeat the shape-shifting masters of evil and finding themselves in a ravaged world, both recent chapters reveal that their warriors have lost their sacred weapons. And to get those swords back isn't just a matter of finding them as they must take a test to see if they are worthy of wielding (link must have enough endurance to pull the master sword while jack must subside his negative subconscious to obtain a peaceful mind). Both stories have an evil cult working for the villain and trying to kill the hero. They also involve their lead protagonists developing bonds despite starting off poorly (though Link and Zelda's case was more subdued as it goes from sour to platonic while Jack and Ashi's was more extreme on both ends). Both installments even have the heroes wielding weapons that break.
Plus they came out in 2017 and just weeks away from each other.
I think my interest in swords came from Master Ting's flying swords from ZU: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, and the Tri-blade from The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Those three gods should've rewarded Jack for his deeds by giving him Ashi back. After all the sacrifices he has done for other, he deserves that one important bit of personal happiness: Love.
Yeah, those gods were kind of the biggest assholes of all. Technically, killing Aku was supposed to be THEIR job, but instead they sat back and did nothing while one guy with a sword did their dirty work for them!
Mecha-san
IKR? PLEASE GENNEDY, MAKE AN ALTERNATE ENDING TO THIS EPISODE!!!
Mecha-san You know someone made an alternative ending where the gods reward jack's efforts by letting him be with the love of his life.
It's damn good too! So much so that people are petitioning Genndy to make that an alternate ending officially. It's already gotten 1,035 signatures!! Won;t you sign it too? www.change.org/p/genndy-tartakovsky-samurai-jack-s-alternative-ending/w?comment_id=641837297&reply_id=642318950&sfmc_tk=i2yE1IE6qzul3xVFg%2fRQWGdEqQH5c5uS2jShnLb975wPH%2bXhMO78tFpaEUzSAx2t
colleen
YES! PLEASE SIGN THIS AND LET'S MAKE THIS FANTASTIC ALTERNATE ENDING A REALITY!!!
There is one thing many forget about the ending to the finale.
The ladybug
Some say that, according Japanese myth. A ladybug symbolizes the spirits of those who've died. Not to mention that the ladybug was the first pure thing Ashi came across in Aku's bleak and villainous world.
So, by seeing that ladybug land on his hand. Jack took it as a sign that Ashi will live on forever, even if it's just a memory
The reason Scaramouche sounded like Sammy Davis Junior is because, SDJ was the actual inspiration for the character.
Petros Laoudikos Sami-raaaaaiiii Jaaaaaack.
Excellent review and I completely agree with your rating. That being said, a few points:
-The decision to go back to the past was not something that Jack made on his own. It was *all* Ashi's decision. It had to be. In season's 1-4 of Samurai Jack we have seen Jack sacrifice his chance to go back to the past whenever his friends were in trouble in order to help them. If he selfishly went back to the past on his own while his friends were dying on the battlefield, it would have been a betrayal to his character. That being said, the decision to actually kill Aku once he travelled to the past was indeed Jack's decision.
-Ashi *knew* that going back to the past and allowing Jack to kill Aku would erase her from existence. If you look closely at the scene where Ashi and Jack travel back to the past she looks at Jack with a sad look on her face while he has his eyes closed relishing the fact that he is finally going home. Then we see her hold Jack's hand, at which point he opens his eyes and sees her smiling (subtle storytelling through visuals at its finest). Jack might have been a hero, but so was Ashi, because she knowingly and willingly sacrificed her life, her very *existence*, in order to allow Jack to fulfill his quest and give him his life back.
-Why did Ashi decide to send Jack to the past? In the previous episode, Ashi had asked Jack about his home, and his time. Jack vividly described how beautiful it was and how much he missed it. When Jack said that it was now all "nothing but a memory" and saw the pained expression on his face, she knew that Jack wanted to go back to his time more than anything else. And because she loved Jack selflessly, when she had the chance, she sent him back to the past instantly without any hesitation.
-On that note, it's interesting to note that when Jack faced the choice to either kill Ashi or give up on his quest, he chose the latter. If he had known that killing Aku in the past would have erased Ashi from existence, he wouldn't have killed Aku (at least not in the way he did). Which is why Ashi's decision to not interfere in the final showdown between Jack and Aku is really poignant.
That's about it! Thanks for introducing me to the word "apophenia"!
Now I want Genndy Tartakovsky to finish Symbiotic Titan.
Same, I loved that show
I'd go absolutely insane with joy if CN/Adult Swim announced they were reviving that.
You just need to wait 13 years.
Just after he finishes directing Hotel Transylvania 3.
+Mullerornis Did they write it off as a loss on their taxes. That's the kind of BS that is preventing Megas XLR from coming back on the air.
Without reward,
Without witness,
Without hope,
That is what defines you.
The 🐞 throughout Ashi's life, and then showing up at the end to raise Jack's spirit after the whole time loop erasing. Beautiful detail. Thank you for a beautiful Series!
Never since both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Return of the King have I felt such satisfying closure at a series ending as strong as it began. Thank you Genndy Tartakovsky. And Keep up the amazing work ERod, you're videos are getting better and better.
I love how almost all of the things you mentioned from your top 10 list of things I want to see in the new season of Samurai Jack came true.
oh Scotsman. we knew ye well laddie.
Dang it, Genndy! How could you Gurren Lagann your fans with that ending?
i think the main thing about this season and even the series as a whole is one thing: freedom. from jack's major acts to his own demons, not to mention Ashi's whole family problems, it makes sense to end with a sad yet beautiful scene.
No Guardian rematch...
We were fuckin robbed
Flame of Udun I know how you feel man
+David Brown the ending was kinda rushed tbh
Flame of Udun I understand what your saying but it was still satisfing to see jack finally destroy aku am I right
+David Brown true
To many people promised themself that whould happen. But I agree it was a good set up. BUT....... Now when Jack is in the past all the time portals will return and the Guardian is alive again, he lived far before Aku toke over if I understand it right. So in a ofcannon continuation Jack goes on new adventures and meets with the Guardian who with the time portal knows about his death by Aku. And maybe there is another evil in the world for Jack to battle and reunite the whole world. And that becomes Jack in the vision.
mad props to Genndy, for storyboarding this season by hand
Now lets hope Gendi can finally finish Symbiotic titan or some other shows that weren't finished
The BlockBuster Buster can you do Honest Reviews on The Real Ghostbusters and Gargoyles.
SPOILERS: Jack gets back to the past and kills Aku. Nothing else happens
somethin really sad happend
Scott Sandler I remember something tragic happening...
Nothing else happens!
Great video! Been waiting for this since I first saw the Samurai Jack S1-4 review video! It was such an excellent ending to an excellent series. :)
the last scene where Jack is underneath the tree and a ladybug flies on him and he smiles letting it fly away and the sun comes up showing the blossoms on the tree and the beautiful yet kind of sad music was about gorgeous and made me want to happy cry,
which is great because it is the complete opposite of the beginning scene of both season 1 episode 1 and season 10 episode 1 which both started out dark and bit depressing
Let's not forget Mako did Uncle Iaro, Zuko's uncle in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Splinter in TMNT before his death. It was his last role.
Tommy Diaz-Millan I saw TMNT in theaters to honor Mako.
No, Greg redubbed Pas Aku's lines too. Only Mako's opening prologue from the first 4 seasons are used in the episode.
Hewy Toonmore you are wrong sir, in the final episode there was the name of Mako
it feels sad that samurai jack ended we will miss you
anyone else find it completely incomprehensible that aku is actually dead? like he's one of the most prolifoc villains in western culture and most people who grew up with him i would assume find it surreal that he's actually dead. it's such a weird feeling.
One of the Most prolific in Western Culture?
You're giving this show far, far too much credit. It's prolific for a lot people who were watching cartoons 13 years ago.
"Western Culture" is a huge swath of people and places who don't care about a Cartoon Network show.
being a dick for no reason
I find it incredibly surreal . Aku is one of the greatest villains in animation (And in my oppinion one of the best villains ever ) so it is odd knowing he has finally been destroyed. Inn fact the show actually has a finale now is a little weird to me
Daisyhead It's like accepting the deaths of Voldemort, Sauron, and probably Darth Vader back in the day: you just gotta move on and get pumped for other cool villains in the future...
erubin100 Great comment!
Didn't Jack kill living individuals in "The Princess and the Bounty Hunters" so saying he never killed in a literal sense bugged me a tiny bit
Nope, Tartakovsky said those guys didn't die.
Great timing! I had just caught up with your previous Honest Reviews when this popped up in my feed :-). Just like the show, your HR on it was also worth the wait. Although I felt it was little rushed (I wish it had been 44 instead of 22 min), overall I enjoyed the ending. I don't think the final moments could have been any different.
It would have been nice to actually see Aku be erased from the future and have all of Jack's allies celebrate but this was still a satisfying ending. I liked Jack with Ashi despite what many in the fandom might have called a FRI ;-).
Would you consider doing a list of your top 10 favorite episodes?
Tartakovsky mentioned that it was only coincidence that her hairstyle was the same, but I thought I read somewhere else what he was truly going for was to give her the same hair as Vegeta.
15:24 It was at that moment Aku knew...he fucked up.
I loved Samurai Jack and started watching it during my late teens years ago. However that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the major flaws, inconsistencies, plot holes and timeline contradictions exposing why Genndy's finale doesn't work or make any sense. Though Genndy wanted a bittersweet ending for Samurai Jack, which most if not all the fans like myself didn't want, here some some major mistakes the finale had:
First Mistake: How did Ashi know exactly at what point in time in the past to travel to and where to travel to with Jack? Certainly Aku never told her and Jack himself doesn't know how many centuries into the future he was thrown into. It doesn't add up.
Second Mistake: Why did Ashi so conveniently stop existing on her wedding day to Jack in front of hundreds of people, foreign delegates and dignitaries? A royal wedding of that magnitude takes months to plan and prepare especially since people from other countries were invited to Jack's wedding to Ashi; meaning Ashi was given a lot of time to be introduced not only to Jack's royal family but also to everyone he knew in that timeline. A year must have gone by at least. Ashi should have immediately been erased from history the very moment Aku was killed in the past. The fact that she lasted for months before she so suddenly just never existed doesn't make any sense; that was completely fabricated by Genndy in his attempt to emotionally stab the audience with Ashi's dramatic death into oblivion.
Third Mistake: How could Jack continue to exist in the past if Ashi never existed to send him back to the past in the first place? Jack should have ceased to exist in that altered past timeline also since Ashi never existed to send him back. This is a paradox that doesn't make any sense! Some argued that because time lost its affect on Jack's ability to age that he wasn't affected. But that doesn't make sense as the same rule should have also applied to Ashi since she also jumped out of her original timeline like Jack did and went to another timeline. This inconsistency was never explained.
Fourth Mistake: If Ashi never existed in the future because Aku was killed in the past by Jack, then how did Jack go back in time to kill Aku in the past in the first place? That means that Jack never went back in time and killed Aku in the past; meaning that Aku is not dead and the future did not change. It doesn't add up!
Fifth Mistake: Why were Jack's parents so young looking with their kingdom perfectly intact when in the first episode of Season 1 before Jack was thrown into the distant future by Aku, they were very old, their kingdom was completely destroyed by Aku and his minions because Aku escaped his prison, his aged mother was living in the icecap mountains with monks who held onto his father's legendary sword, and his father and the rest of his people were slaves under Aku's tyranny? These are contradictions and inconsistencies that were never explained and it they stay true to the original storyline.
These are the reasons why the finale of Samurai Jack doesn't work or make any sense!
Manga Prime The Split Timeline theory is serviceable for a couple of those but that's all I got.
And the second mistake was what I was wondering about while I was watching for the first time.
Good to hear I'm not the only one who appreciates the Finale for what it is.
I could've asked for a better and beautiful ending to a show that's now my favorite cartoon/art of all time.
My only issues with the finale were that it was horribly rushed and paced -- it really needed to be 40 minutes long, or at least 30 -- and that there should have been at least, like, 5 seconds of Jack trying to say goodbye to the Scotsman, before the Scotsman said "Go, laddy! Don't waste time, we'll be fine!" and Jack nods before leaving through the portal. That's it. These two small fixes would have helped absolutely everything.
But yes, indeed, at least we now have an ending at last, and the rest was awesome
I honestly felt like Aku should have put up more of a fight against Jack in the final episode. He went down like a bitch in the final episode. :/
During Aku's death scene that wasn't archival recordings of Mako. It was Greg Baldwin. He sounds very similar to him in that scene but if you did a comparison you would notice the difference. Here's a video the compares the first episode's version of the scene to the final episode's version: ua-cam.com/video/fUjin3X9j1M/v-deo.html
I think the reason they sound so similar is because Greg is reading lines beat for beat that Mako had spoken, not lines written for Aku when he took over.
So E-Rod's big four animated shows are Batman The Animated Series, Animaniacs, Samurai Jack, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Bro this series. Just left me happy and sad. I'm notice to cry. Not even when playing the Walking dead season 1 all the way through. But this made me tear up. AAAAAHHH
I have a problem with the ending. In that it's pretty much ripped straight from the end to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That's right. They stole the ending to TTGL. Simon and co defeat the Anti-Spiral, save the human race from extinction, and Nia, Simon's love interest, as having been created by the Anti-Spiral and part of them, disappears from existence right on their wedding day.
satisfying and conclusive as it was, a rip-off is STILL a rip-off
Samurai Jack has referenced multiple shows and genres before in the past. Why referencing Gurren Lagann in the ending is seen as something horrible?
Even then, Samurai jack didnt rip off Gurren Lagann properly. Nia was well aware that she held herself together till she got married and only then she passed away. And the entire scene was shown as bittersweet in Gurren Lagann while here Ashi disappeared right before she got married and the entire scene straight up like a forced and depressing scene. If they really wanted to ripoff Gurren Lagann they should have made Ashi disappear right after she and jack got married or they should have made Ashi disappear right after Aku was defeated which would have been more logical.
The show didn't rip it off, it took inspiration from that ending.
Every idea in the world was inspired by another idea. Note the near ending of the South Park "Simpsons Did It" episode
Ashi, but all accounts, knew that with no Aku in the future, that she couldn't exist. In reality she should've faded from existence the moment Jack killed Aku in the past. They strung this along to mirror the events of TTGL. It's not a reference when you're doing pretty much the exact same thing to get that reaction from people.
I never said the ending was bad, but I feel they could've done something a lot more unexpected and brilliant. And sadlobster1, when South Park used that material, it was for Parody purposes, as was the point of the entire episode. That's completely different from what we see them doing here.
Still, to say the ending was a "ripoff" of Guren Lagann is rather juvenile; don't you think
Thanks for your insightful review, and for not using the words "rushed", "forced" or unnecessary". Very much appreciated!
Soon, 12 will become 13 as the runners of our show change as well.
15:25 It was at this moment when Aku knew..............................................He fucked up.
I kinda wish I saw the gangsters again, but I'm not complaining. This show was amazing ride, and I am content, (and a little sad), to see that it has finally coming to an end. See ya 'round, Jack!
AGGGHHH! DAMMIT E-ROD WHY DID YOU REMIND ME OF THAT SCENE FROM THE KILLING JOKE!?
that mvie deserved at least a much better prologue story instead of that moment
i doesnt need a prologue. you dont need show up who batgirl was to make people care for her . Heck i didnt knew anything about her or give 2 cents for her when i read the killing joke for the first time and but the time the story was over , she still was the character that leave the biggest impact on me next to the joker past self
because she was written just as a common person , not a superhero , just a common person, which as any fan of horror could tell you, that made her extreamly repeatable .. alot more than Gordon which is the commissioner of Gotham's police or batman who hide his humanity behind that bat cowl
Let's be fair here. The thing that destroyed it was THAT scene with Batman and Batgirl. I mean that was just...uncomfortable for me. AND I WAS ONE OF THE ONES THAT SAW IT IN THEATERS! And Tara Strong was good as Batgirl yes, but any script where she says the words "It' was just sex" is just plain bad. Seriously if they had made older than she was in the movie that scene would not have been as bad, but given the age gap between her and bruce it's just uncomfortable and disgusting. Here's an idea for a prologue why not have an adventure with Batman and Batgirl actually CATCHING the Joker? That way it would not only lead up to the real part of adaptation of the movie better, but it wouldn't have her doing THAT with Batman. Seriously Bruce you should have clocked her in the head saying "Go home Barbara you're drunk" and then take cold shower once he got home to forget about the whole incident.
yeah that part could be interesting in the movie (the part of catch the joker)
You...you're not serious...Bruce Timm? BRUCE FUCKING TIM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?
I still find it funny how people argued on twitter about the waiting game between Samurai Jack and Rick and Morty. While fans argue that they've waited months for Rick and Morty to return, Samurai Jack fans have been waiting years for Samurai Jack to return. The argument is pretty irrelevant when you see who has the longer patience.
It'll never happen, of course, but if anyone deserves an Annie, it's Greg Baldwin, for nearly flawlessly replicating one of the most legendary voices of all time AND one of the most important for Samurai Jack.
Oh, also, I wanted to point out something: when you said they used archival recordings of Mako for the past in the final episode, you were actually incorrect. You gotta listen to the original episode and then the re-animated scene back to back to hear it, but the new re-animated stuff is GREG, not Mako. The only part that had Mako was when they played the original intro for that meta joke.
But I'll give ya a pass for missing it because, in all fairness, Greg's Aku was SO good in that scene that I myself also thought it was Mako.
Really loved this 10 episodes. So diffrent from eachother. So strange to go from episode 8 for example and jump back to 2-3. I just love how this show stayed consistent with the original. Sure blood and death but not to much. Like Genndy said - We are not Ninja scrolling it. Only in the first throwback episode with cameos of old character´s did we get some naughty words but other then that this show was exactly like how Jack always had been. I mean as soon Jack get´s his sword back he dose´t kill anyone. I was sort of afraid of that. Hey even when Ashi fought that army she did´t kill everyone but sure brutally almost did. I wish this show could be shown in mini theatre´s with great sound display becuse Samurai Jack is always pleasing to the ears. Headset all the time.
I wonder what countries will get this season aired in there language? Whould be fascinating to find our how many managed to get the original voices back. I am trying to raise interest to get this dubbed in Swedish. Even thought no one whould really earn much money.
I'm very glad that you defended the ending, and you're right, it was fantastic, just like the rest of this series. I just wish people would stop throwing a hissy fit over it. Yes, it sucks that she died and it's very sad, but it makes sense why it happened. Honestly, anytime I hear people whine about that or the fact that the Guardian was killed off screen, I just want to send them that eSults video NC made for Whiners.
Me too, that's very annoying.
SonicStantz I didn't like the ending at all. Honestly I didn't even think the season past episode 4 was that great either. It wasn't bad, but I thought it was just okay, especially compared to how SPECTACULARLY the season started.
I didn't care about Ashi dying at all, she just there to me.
I would have liked in an ending credits sequence, an aged Jack approaches the Guardian, who manages to recognize him despite Jack only ever meeting him in a future that never existed, and their dialog would indicate that Jack's life is fading and wants to spend his remaining time in the company of his friends of the destroyed timeline.
And pretty fitting for the Nickelodeon series of the Ninja Turtles 2 have Sab Shimono as Mr. Murakami in maybe 2 episodes because he was on the "terrible" Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III as Lord Norinaga. "Help I'm a turtle and I can't get up." Casey Jones came back in this movie, same for Corey Feldman as Donatello after the first Ninja Turtles movie. That's all I can say.
All hale to Mako,the one true Aku
so wheni heard of this season and how hiped people were for it i wanted to see it, thing is: i never saw the original show, so out of respect for the love and reputation this show has i binged the entire show episode by episode so i knew what i was getting into, i do this with a lot of shows that i never started with and a lot of them were just grinding through it, however when i started watching i noticed the art style the fight scenes and the amazing story even in silence. i gained the respect for this show as other people who grew up with it had and i was not disappointed, when i finally got to the new season i was hyped, not all episode's were out yet and i would have to wait. i started with the first four episodes and loved it, each week i came back to see it and i was never disappointed. i'm glad i watched this show and i hope other people agree on that with me. i know this is a wall of text but if you read it up until this point i thank you, i just wanted to tell you guys this, because i know how much you respect the show and wanted to show my appreciation to getting exposed to it as well as let you know new fans are still coming aboard .
I SWEAR TO GOD: I honestly thought you going to swerve into a Goldberg joke at the beginning.
I agree the ending was perfect even though I'll admit I did cry.
FullmetalNinja25 but the ending was a paradox. A PARADOX! You know the same time travel paradox like Back to the Future.
issac flores I don't really think so. The timeline was altered. You're thinking more of a "time loop".
PS A time paradox never happened in Back to the Future. An alternate timeline occurred, but not a paradox.
Michael Joesph well either way if Jack killed Aku in the past then Aku would have never fathered Ashi, which means that Ashi wouldn't be born to bring Jack back in time to defeat Aku since Aku sent Jack into the future and Jack would have no way of coming back thus he would be stuck there and wouldn't come back to the past. There for Aku might be alive since there was no Ashi to bring Jack back but then Jack will go back in time since Aku is alive to father Ashi so he'll have to go back in time but then he don't since Aku would be dead and the pattern repeats. Or he'd be stuck in a future with no Aku and no way of getting back since Jack killed him already and Ashi wouldn't be born. But still a pretty good ending but it has a paradox.
issac flores Not really, it just means the timeline was erased. Ergo, essentially "it hasn't happened anymore" for lack of a better phrase. It may have for Jack, but not for the rest of time and space (especially if you take the whole "personal time" thing into account, but that gets all weird).
It would be a paradox if ASHI went back in time and killed Aku, however.
or, stay with me for a moment, or. SPOILERS AHEAD FOR GURRREN LAGGAN
It's exactly Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's ending. Where Simon's girlfriend was erased not because of a time paradox, but because the force that brought her into existence, ceased to exist. Maybe Ashi really was half aku, meaning that what was binding her together, was Aku, not Aku the character, but the universal force of magical evil. And with that erased Ashi, an Aku offsprout, slowly began to fade from existence. Just like the Heroine from Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan.
Would you one day please do an honest review of the HellBoy movies? Since their is a reboot in the works and since HellBoy is in your TRINITY OF AWESOMENESS I think it would be fitting to talk about the movies and how you feel about them and maybe talk about the animated ones if you feel like it. Keep up the good work.
E-Rod has a Katana. Of course he does.
anyone else disappointed that the ending.... SPOILER ALERT
ripped off Gurren Lagann's?
YES!!! FINALLY SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH ME!! COPY CAT!
But like, wasnt it established from the start that Ashi was a Daughter of Aku?
No, it was metaphorical. Like Son of Sam. AKU didn't even remember that he even left his essence at the cult site.
Oh, fun fact! That was the last remaining time portal in existence!
I'm still thinking about the ending. I live that Jack stopped mourning over Ashi after having the lady bug find him, and crawled on his finger before flying off.
I love Tara Strong, but I kind'a wish they got someone new to voice Ashi, like keep Kari Wahlgren from her first non-speaking role in the first episode, or even someone completely different. (like Laura Bailey or Fryda Wollf since they're both rather underutilized in animation)
Only reason I could think why Tara was cast was because of this character's likeness to Llana from Sym-Bionic Titan, but I feel casting the same actress was too obvious.
Not that I mind the cast, but still some differentiating would be more interesting.
#childhood fulfilled!
Waited ten years for this. Cartoon Network needs to stop cancelling shows when they are getting popular. Except Teen Titans Go, no one wants that now, we want Young Justice.
Daniel Lado You'll have to get DC's streaming service next year
***** more like we need semiotic Titan back
Hey Samurai Jack fans out there; comment "I" if you want a Samurai Jack spin-off, either on Adult Swim or on Netflix, call Samurai Jack The Next Genderation and have the exact same quality as the main show itself and it'll be forever remembered in the Samurai Jack history books as THE next greatest thing Samurai Jack has ever done in recent memory with THE most mind-blowing Samurai Jack ending in the history of endings yet that'll surly outshine the season 5 ending in every way possible!
ashi's demise fit the theme of this season the decisions that you make and the actions that follow are a reflction of who you are
Im glad you said "I cried like a little girl at a Katy Perry concert" Instead of something else considering the timing and that would have been hilariously horrible.
I'll be honest here: Anyone who watched Gurren Lagann and/or knows about time paradoxes knew what was going to happen to Ashi.
The past Aku that recited the original monologue was still Baldwin.
The only thing I wished the finale had was jack having a epic final battle with aku I was expecting it to be a combination of all of jacks previous battles with aku but sadly it never happened but I will say despite that it still had a decent end even if it wasn't the bang I was expecting.
the real problem i have with season 5 is that it completely ignores seasons 1-4. the show makes just as much sense if you watch episode 1 of the first season then skip to episode 1 of season 5.
i see season 5 as a template of what story the author wanted to tell originally but didn't get too because the show got cut. the last few episodes of season 4 really hammered home that jack wasn't just fighting bad guys anymore, so i assume that was setting up jack losing his sword. and the rival turned love interest that was ashi was supposed to be the princes assassin from season 4 episode 5. and in my personal head cannon, jack got home via the guardian's portal and not ashi ex machina. i also would've had it be alternate timelines. jack saves the post-aku world from aku, then goes back and starts a new timeline to save the old world from aku. seems needlessly bitter to leave on the note of, every good thing in the aku future also got errased, but so did all the bad things, so enjoy the world of more good than bad.
time for a Megas XLR final season
What would be cool would be if after the end they had a short flash after jack touches the ladybug forward to the time jack visited and they show the new world that was created. Earth would still have become a diverse hub world but it wouldn't be under aka' rule. We see all the people jacked helped. I like the idea that we see Ashi with her sisters, maybe their chilling out or going to school or something. Ashi stops and looks at something. It's an old out of the way statue of jack, dirty and filthy (jack would have been remembered with the one statue after drafting aka) Ashi goes to it and just has a feeling like she's seen this guy before. Then her sisters call her away. She goes to leave but then stops and looks back over her shoulder one last time.The screen flashes back to jack in front of the tree and the lady bug flies off into the sunset, then we have the ending that happened.
I'm sorry, but I cannot cope with the ending.
1st- HOW THE FUCK DOES ASHI KNOW HOW TO MAKE A TIME PORTAL?! SHE'S KNOWN THAT SHE HAS HIS BLOOD FOR ABOUT 24 HOURS BY THEN AND THAT SHE SHARED ALL OF HIS POWERS FOR MUCH SHORTER TIME! SO HOW THE FUCK DOES SHE ALREADY KNOW THAT SHE CAN DO THAT?!
2- GENNDY FORGOT ABOUT THE GUARDIAN! Ok... ok... I'm calm now. ahem. In season three, Jack forgot the gate guardian, but after losing, the guardian tells him that he cannot use it yet. However, in the new season, it is implied that the guardian was dead. Big error. The prophecy told us that only one person can kill him, and it was clear that it was Jack. It's pretty safe to say Genndy completely forgot about this episode when creating the new season.
3- When Ashi and Jack destroy aku, Ashi should've immediately died and vanished. But yet it took her several days and the middle of a wedding to die. That was a stupid choice because it forces us to feel bad. We could've seen her dying from a mile away, so this just seemed like padding out time.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Samurai Jack with all my heart, but this ending was shit. Period.
Thomas Murrell utter garbage
my main problem with the ending is the grandfather paradox. If jack killed aku, ashi would have never been born, if ashi was never born jack cant go back to the past meaning he could not kill aku as past him was flung into the future and the series happen and so on and so forth in a infinite loop.
Andrew Billman its a time travel story. no time travel story is with out plot holes. you just kind of have to suspend you disbelief a little.
Great review Blockbuster Buster! You hit the nail on the head
Hey ERod, great video. Question, "What are your thoughts on Samurai Jack being similar to Frank Miller's Ronin?"
I wouldnt be surprised if his real name was Kenshiro or Shiroken
I always liked to call him Musashi lol
so does that mean all Jacks friends dont exist anymore
honestly, as much as I enjoyed the finale it was too short. maybe they should've done what they did with the premiere and made it three parts. I would've loved a scene where Jack reconnects with his mother and father, they help rebuild Japan, his father gets nursed back to health, Jack and Ashi get married, and....this is the one thing I always wanted to see...have Jack become emperor. That would've been awesome
I just realise that, but why there are french humorist DVD in your backgrond ?
10:51 - 11:17 Kinda reminds me of The Entity, or MissingNo from Atop The Fourth Wall, a Lovecraftian creature who has a bleak and tragic story. Yes, it an absorb and conquer all that he sees until the entirety of existence is a part of it, but what will it do after? It has no aspirations or goals or dreams outside of it's all consuming need to be all that is, and thus, when Linkara tricked it into "killing itself to discover the truth of what lies beyond death, it still was afraid of being without purpose, so it left a part of itself behind hoping it would get the answers when the greater whole returned from death. Alas, that wasn't the case, so that made you feel all the more sad for MissingNo when it finally accepted the inevitable, unable to find any other challenge that it deemed unworthy of it's greatness despite realizing it's own insignificance in comparison to the vastness of existence.
So Aku became a more evil version of Megamind pretty much.
I was kinda hoping that when ERod speaks about Makos death, he will do Makos glowing head from NC...
Glad to know it met with your approval! A lot of people disliked the ending, but I feel it was very strong in its own right. Like you say, the element of tragedy amidst triumph suits the ultimate aesthetic of the show's story.
Furthermore, it creates a final challenge for the hero to overcome, one more personal and powerful than ever before. He was always going to save the world, but could Jack weather the loss of a loved one? Without any hope of going back and saving her? To finally move on from the past, and live in the present?
Hell... even Batman has trouble with that one.
Hey Erod, I was wondering if at some point you could review generator Rex. It's a highly underrated show that not a lot of people talk about.
Legends of tomorrow was the influence of samurai jack, back to the future and doctor who
Why are there so many asking for the Gods to give Ashi back? Surely the more logical action would be to not let her disappear in the first place?
I loved the final season. Phil Lamarr is coming to my town and i'm going to ask him about it
An awesome review. Say, here's another great series from about the same time: Kim Possible. Please Review?
Wait till the video game "Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time" maybe we'll get the know Jack's 'real' name.
I love samurai jack because of season 5 I'll miss him
I loved the idea of a Ninja like character who was fiercely loyal to their leader being an enemy to the samurai who was only fighting for the greater good, which (to my knowledge) is a cool role reversal on the Samurai being loyal to the Shogun and the Ninja standing up against them.
I would like to point out that everything eRod said about the action scenes was for the other seasons, and he showed very few (if any) clips from this season during that segment. Yeah, true, you could say the action's just about the same in this season as the others, but he already has a video talking about the other four seasons, and it seemed like he was only talking about the other seasons instead of this one.
Honestly, eRod seems a bit nostalgia blind in this video. Just slightly. Apparently Samurai Jack has one of the best ending fight scenes in all animation history, most heartrending endings in all of fiction, and an episode that is the best combination of action and comedy since Shaun of the Dead. As someone who did not watch every episode of Samurai jack when it first came out when I was 9 years old, im pretty sure alot of that is the excitement of having your show come back after 13 years, and wearing nostalgia goggles a little bit..
Also, this is just me being nitpicky on the show, but why did it take Ashi months to disappear after Aku was defeated? This always bother me in time travel stories. Ashi literally died at the most dramatic moment possible instead of disappearing along with Aku like she should've. Im not even talking about the time paradox stuff here, just why it took Ashi such a long time to disappear after Aku was destroyed.
Well done, ERod. :)
I hope Symbionic Titan will have is day too
I would have preferred to see Aku follow Jack and ashi back to the past in a desperate bid to protect himself, to culminate in a final battle, with Jack and ashi versus the past and future Aku. I also would have liked to find out what that image in the Guardians time portal was.
Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but didn't everything seem too damn convenient in the final episode? Celtic magic and the like?
Two things you did not discuss what is the fabled alternate ending and the Guardian
I completely disagree that greg sounds anything like Mako. As soon as I heard his voice I was like "That's not Aku".
Why can't he kill Aku in Present\Future day again? :)
7:37 - The hell you talking about? Jack never had a love interest in this season.......
8:24 - You just had to bring that up didn't ya >:/
13:56 - *ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!*
18:50 - There see? Never had one......and just like when I saw this episode proper I need to go cry now.....
Wow, I'm surprised you didn't mention how the fandom is now pretty much split in half because of the ending
I'm glad he didn't as it's stupid and pretty common. Heck there's still a fandom split in MLP over Princess Twilight and that's been a thing for over four seasons now.
Maybe Da Samurai isn't the most favourite episodic character, but I am sure he is the second most favourite.
Yay samurai jack