Samurai Jack


 * Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 | Main

Samurai Jack is an American adult animated action-fantasy science-fiction television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on Cartoon Network from 2001 until 2004 and on Adult Swim in 2017. The series tells the story of a heroic samurai finding the way to return to the past, when he was being banished into a distant, dystopian future ruled by the shape-shifting Aku, who is the demonic personification of evil and darkness.

Intro Dialogues

 * Aku: (Season(s) 1-4 opening narration) Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shapeshifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku!


 * Jack: (Season 5 opening narration) 50 years have passed, but I do not age. Time has lost its effect on me. And yet, the suffering continues. Aku’s grasp chokes the past, present, & future. All hope is lost. Gotta get back. Back to the past. Samurai Jack.

About

 * [A]lthough Tartakovsky is a good storyteller, in a silent film sort of way—expressing what’s happening moment-to-moment through picture and sound rather than in dialogue—I never watched either of these programs for their plots, and I don’t re-watch them for narrative, either. I re-watch them for the same reason that I visit art museums, attend live concerts, and pause during journeys from point A to point B in New York to watch dancers, acrobats, or street musicians: because I appreciate virtuosity for its own sake. And that’s what Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars and Samurai Jack give you, scene for scene and shot for shot .... [T]he plot was never the point. It was always about the visual music that Tartakovsky, his designers, and his animators created onscreen.
 * Matt Zoller Seitz, "No Respect Week: Seitz on Genndy Tartakovsky's Underrated Classic Samurai Jack", Vulture, New York Media LLC, (May 30, 2014). Retrieved April 9, 2016.