Samurai 7

Lately my taste in anime has been somewhat particular. I have had a lot of shows on the go but it has been difficult to find ones that really capture my attention. My interests have lied  heavily on shows with a lot of action and fast pace. I have also found myself coming back to the shows that have received more attention from North American television stations like YTV, Teletoon, and Razor. While I do try to spend time watching anime that is "less known" to North American television stations, I still have to be interested in what I watch right.....?

Samurai 7 was a quick watch for me. I managed to get through the entire series in 4 days. I found the episodes were very easy to watch and kept my attention the entire way through. The series is a rendition of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai film, produced back in 1954. Seven samurai are brought together to save a village from bandits who are continually stealing their crops. As the samurai embark on their mission to save the village, the dynamics of their service begin to change, and they find themselves in a war with the Capital.

An interesting component of how this series was put together was the use of machinery and somewhat modern weapons combined with the feudal time period. A big element in this story has to do with the machine samurai who no longer have a purpose after the great war. Essentially, many of the samurai become bandits and the age of merchants becomes the norm.

The writers for this series did a great job keeping the story engaging. I thought the ability to remind the audience of the samurai's mortality was a very strong element. The artwork used for the animation is excellent and the use of colors really helps to demonstrate the tone used in the story. Having listened to the soundtrack for this story a number of times over the years, I found that the imagery used to accompany the music was well selected. The kinds of feelings that much of the music evoked was very much in line with the contexts in which the songs were used throughout the show.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series. For fans of samurai and feudal era anime, this is a great series to watch and I recommend it highly. At the end of the series, I did not find myself with a feeling of incompleteness. After 26 episodes I felt I had just the right amount of exposure to this series.