[8.3/10] This one is tons of fun. I love Da Samurai. He is part Mr. T, part M.C. Hammer, part The Rock, part Johnny Bravo, and part generalized blaxploitation film protagonist. That's one hell of an entertaining combination. David Alan Grier does a great job of bringing the character to life with his uber-extroverted deliveries, and the writers and animators do a great job and making him unbelievably expressive and over-the-top in his quips and catchphrases.
Behind all of this, there’s some really interesting subtext, and I wonder if it’s intended. This is, more a less, a story of a black man having appropriated Japanese culture and taken it on as an affectation, without understanding any of the spirit or principles of it. There’s some irony to that in a show about a samurai made by a Russian-American Jewish man who’s voiced by an African American man.
Maybe it’s the show commenting on itself and noting its possible appropriative posture. Maybe it’s the show pointing out why what it’s doing is better than what Da Samurai is doing -- because it treats its main character and his code and quest with respect and dignity, rather than as a gimmick. Or maybe it’s just a standard personality clash, and I’m reading too much into it.
Either way, I like the story as text too. It’s fun seeing the Goofus and Gallant routine of Jack and Da Samurai. The contrast of Da Samurai as a pretender to the throne, one who’s boastful, phony, harassing of his fellow man, egotistical, brash, and overconfident on the one hand, with Jack as a possessor of true grace and dignity, who treats all of his fellow men and women with respect, doesn't hunt for a fight, approaches combat with honor and grace, and is understated and unshowy. There’s a lesson there about how real power and strength carries itself, that I like, however much I may be entertained by Da Samurai’s act.
(This may be the part of the review where I admit that I was a biiiiiiig fan of The Rock when I was a kid.)
The confrontation that follows is great. I love the sequence where Da Samurai goes nuts with his bombastic challenges, only for Jack to quietly but definitively topple and embarrass the guy with very basic, very direct moves. The robot battle that follows is pretty standard as this show goes, but that also means it’s very good, and I’ve just gotten used to the show’s consistent quality in that regard.
On top of that, I like the uber-bot that the other thin robots merge into. And there’s even some nice character development for Da Samurai, who shoves Jack out of the way when it looks like the uber-bot is going to strike him. It’s a nice measure of redemption for the guy. Jack telling him that he’s taken his first step toward becoming a real Samurai, with the guy chasing after him trying to get Jack to be his new sensei is a nice place to leave things, showing that Jack is the true Samrai and stripping away the trappings tha Da Samurai clings to, but showing that Da Samurai recognize the true version of the thing he was playacting as, and wants to take it to heart. It’s a nice ending.
Overall, this was yet another great episode of the show, which combines a fun new character of the week, a solid battle and arc, and maybe even some potent self-commentary from the series.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-04-01T01:21:12Z
[8.3/10] This one is tons of fun. I love Da Samurai. He is part Mr. T, part M.C. Hammer, part The Rock, part Johnny Bravo, and part generalized blaxploitation film protagonist. That's one hell of an entertaining combination. David Alan Grier does a great job of bringing the character to life with his uber-extroverted deliveries, and the writers and animators do a great job and making him unbelievably expressive and over-the-top in his quips and catchphrases.
Behind all of this, there’s some really interesting subtext, and I wonder if it’s intended. This is, more a less, a story of a black man having appropriated Japanese culture and taken it on as an affectation, without understanding any of the spirit or principles of it. There’s some irony to that in a show about a samurai made by a Russian-American Jewish man who’s voiced by an African American man.
Maybe it’s the show commenting on itself and noting its possible appropriative posture. Maybe it’s the show pointing out why what it’s doing is better than what Da Samurai is doing -- because it treats its main character and his code and quest with respect and dignity, rather than as a gimmick. Or maybe it’s just a standard personality clash, and I’m reading too much into it.
Either way, I like the story as text too. It’s fun seeing the Goofus and Gallant routine of Jack and Da Samurai. The contrast of Da Samurai as a pretender to the throne, one who’s boastful, phony, harassing of his fellow man, egotistical, brash, and overconfident on the one hand, with Jack as a possessor of true grace and dignity, who treats all of his fellow men and women with respect, doesn't hunt for a fight, approaches combat with honor and grace, and is understated and unshowy. There’s a lesson there about how real power and strength carries itself, that I like, however much I may be entertained by Da Samurai’s act.
(This may be the part of the review where I admit that I was a biiiiiiig fan of The Rock when I was a kid.)
The confrontation that follows is great. I love the sequence where Da Samurai goes nuts with his bombastic challenges, only for Jack to quietly but definitively topple and embarrass the guy with very basic, very direct moves. The robot battle that follows is pretty standard as this show goes, but that also means it’s very good, and I’ve just gotten used to the show’s consistent quality in that regard.
On top of that, I like the uber-bot that the other thin robots merge into. And there’s even some nice character development for Da Samurai, who shoves Jack out of the way when it looks like the uber-bot is going to strike him. It’s a nice measure of redemption for the guy. Jack telling him that he’s taken his first step toward becoming a real Samurai, with the guy chasing after him trying to get Jack to be his new sensei is a nice place to leave things, showing that Jack is the true Samrai and stripping away the trappings tha Da Samurai clings to, but showing that Da Samurai recognize the true version of the thing he was playacting as, and wants to take it to heart. It’s a nice ending.
Overall, this was yet another great episode of the show, which combines a fun new character of the week, a solid battle and arc, and maybe even some potent self-commentary from the series.