Anime DVD

Amazon.com
As Shinichiro Watanabe’s freewheeling adventure continues, the pasts of the three main characters begin to come into focus. As an outlaw and a native of Ryukuu, Mugen is doubly an outsider in mainstream Japanese society. Watanabe plays his childhood flashbacks against an Okinawan folk song to stress the character’s alienation. Angry students of the dojo where Jin once studied dog his path, and additional flashbacks hint at the significance sunflowers hold for Fuu. Episode 15 epitomizes the seamless blend of stylized violence and rambunctious comedy that make Samurai Champloo so popular. On a visit to the local red-light district, Mugen finds his match–and a possible love interest–in a policewoman posing as a prostitute. She lures him into beating the sashimi out of a gang of counterfeiters with promises of exotic pleasures, then realizes they’re already having a great time. (Rated 16 and older: violence, profanity, brief nudity, sexual situations, alcohol and tobacco use) –Charles Solomon