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While the classic series often tops conversations about the best anime ever made, its artistic counterpart, the iconic series, warrants comparable praise. The legacy of this period masterpiece continues to echo today, especially in Sony's flagship Ghost of Tsushima series.

Enhanced Tributes

This latest the new sequel, the successor to the original PlayStation 5 game, enhances its tribute to samurai cinema with the inclusion of Kurosawa Mode. This option offers grayscale imagery, textured effects, and old-school sound. Fresh features include the intense director mode, which focuses the view and amplifies gore and grime; and Shinichirō Watanabe Mode, featuring a relaxed urban music crafted under the anime director’s vision.

For those curious about the latter, Watanabe is the visionary who created the jazz-soaked the space opera and the urban-music-inspired the Edo-era adventure, among other celebrated anime.

Mixing Time Periods

Watanabe’s 2004 show Samurai Champloo combines Edo-period Japan with urban culture and current perspectives. It follows the unexpected group of Mugen, a untamed and erratic warrior; Jin, a reserved and formal masterless samurai; and the brave waitress, a brave waitress who recruits them on her journey to find “the samurai who smells of sunflowers.”

While the audio landscape is ultimately his work, much of Champloo’s music was influenced by legendary beatmaker Nujabes, who died in 2010 at the young age of 36. Nujabes deserves his flowers alongside Watanabe when it comes to the sound the anime is renowned for and references in Ghost of Yotei.

Style Mixing

Much of what made Samurai Champloo shine on the Adult Swim lineup was its perfect fusion of hip-hop and Asian culture. That fusion has been a mainstay in urban art since Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) in 1993, which itself stems from an entire generation being raised on martial arts films with Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba.

For many, the programming block and Samurai Champloo served as an introduction to lo-fi/experimental hip-hop, with musicians like Nujabes, Shing02, and Flying Lotus, the last one of whom went on to create music for the Netflix anime the historical series.

Artistic Narration

Stylized and symbolic, Champloo’s intro sequence introduces the leads through representative beasts in the scene — Mugen struts like a chicken, while Jin moves with the calm, graceful demeanor of a colorful fish. Although the show's central characters are the focus of the series, its secondary characters are where the real soul of the anime lies.

There’s pickpocket Shinsuke, who has a tragic tale of survival in a specific installment, and another character named the guard, whose interactions with the wild swordsman affect him so deeply that Yamane ends up in his diaries years later. In the eleventh episode, “the episode title,” Jin becomes enamored with a wedded lady sold into prostitution named the female character and helps her escape from a red-light district.

A Unified Narrative

At the outset, the full season appears to tell a fragmented story of the trio’s journey to encountering the elusive figure, but as Samurai Champloo progresses, happenings from previous episodes begin to weave together to form a connected plot. Every interaction our main characters experience along the way has an impact on both them and the main plot.

Era References

The series also references historical happenings (the same setting as Yotei), interpreted by Watanabe’s creative revisions. Events like the historical uprising and settings such as the mountain outpost (which Yamane protects) are integrated into the story.

In the beginning, ukiyo-e artist Hishikawa Moronobu appears and momentarily focuses on Fuu as his muse. After she declines his offer, his work later ends up with the hands of Vincent van Gogh, who, in Champloo’s fictional history, is inspired to create his iconic floral artworks.

Enduring Impact

All of these elements tie intimately into the anime's score, giving this samurai story the kind of distinct identity that other works have long attempted to emulate. Titles like the urban samurai series (featuring the renowned producer), Tokyo Tribe, and Yasuke all tried to capture its blend of style and sound, but with diminishing returns.

Ghost of Yotei has the opportunity to pick up where the classic anime concluded, triggering a fresh surge of inspiration much like the anime once did. If you’re diving into Yotei, it’s recommended watching the series, because without it, there’d be no “the special setting,” no wave of urban-music-inspired shows, and no continuing impact of Nujabes, from which the inspiration comes.