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I just finished watching Samurai Champloo, and a few things come to mind. One, I originally watched the series because of a profound enjoyment of Shinichiro Watanabe's other directorial effort, Cowboy Bebop. On the surface, Champloo seems a lot like Bebop - a stylized fantasy view of a typical genre mixed with a contemporary and unique soundtrack.

For Watanabe's shows, music plays a vital role in expressing the atmosphere and character of the setting, and is very much a character in and of itself. Such was the case in Cowboy Bebop, and Samurai Champloo attempts to do the same. Only, this time, Champloo comes short of ... Bebop's example, and fails in a few ways.

Story: This is the story of three wanderers who meet up and join forces to search for a "samurai who smells of sunflowers". I won't give away much here, but I found the plot to be incredibly disjointed and hollow. The only real antagonists make themselves known within the last 6 or so episodes of the series, and most of the preceding episodes are pretty much filler. This is a series that could have benefitted from a shortening in length to perhaps 13 episodes to preserve plot integrity. The last handful of episodes redeem the plot somewhat, but a handful of awesome doesn't quite make up for the bucketful of yawns that precede it.

Art: I found the artwork in Samurai Champloo to be pretty good as a whole. The swordfighting scenes specifically are fantastic, and motion is fluid and exciting, particularly when Mugen fights someone. Thumbs up here.

Sound: As mentioned before, Watanabe's previous work, Cowboy Bebop, successfully married jazz music with sic-fi to create something altogether unique and creative. Champloo attempts to do the same with samurai and hip-hop, but the end result doesn't impress as much as one would think. A much better effect could be had by just watching the fight scenes of this show while playing a Wu-Tang CD. Sometimes the music does not fit the scene, and sometimes the music for a dramatic scene is a bit too subtle. Hip hop as a genre really shouldn't be subtle, and the high hopes promised by the opening theme are not lived up to by the background music. Also, should the ending theme have been a sappy J-pop song? If you were gonna do the whole hip hop thing, go the whole way.

Character: The three main characters are interesting, but I cannot give too high a score here because there really isn't a lot of development of any antagonists. All of the character-moments of the series involve the three heroes, and while they are fairly developed, it seems as though some questions are left unanswered. Each main character had a serviceable background story, but their pasts seemed glossed over a bit. Some funny moments are had at the expense of Mugen particularly, and the different natures of the protagonists lead to some memorable scenes. However, as I mentioned before, these characters are the ONLY ones that are developed. Some characters appear for an episode or two and are never explained or developed in the time that they're there (the secret policeman comes to mind)

Enjoyment: After all the nitpicking, I enjoyed the series, mostly because of the few awesome tense moments and the sword fighting. This series has a lot of flaws, and is overall a disappointment for those expecting another Cowboy Bebop, but low expectations and a taste for fluid fight choreography can garner a good bit of enjoyment out of this series.

Overall: I'd say rewatchability is about medium. I wouldn't mind watching some of the major fights again, but unlike Cowboy Bebop, there are definitely skippable episodes upon rewatching for this show. Although enjoyable, Watanabe van do better - which leaves me still searching for the perfect samurai anime.