“Long ago, in a distant land…”

2015 was an exciting year for entertainment, with a solid combination of stellar productions and promises of good things to come. Furthermore, it marked a point where we all started to realize how a lot of good stuff from our past was coming back in full force. Star Wars came back. Mad Max came back. Doom is on its way back. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people have been very happy seeing all these franchises being handled with so much love and care, and being updated for modern audiences without losing what once made them so special.

Still, one thing caught me off guard. An announcement that seemed that seemed so detached from reality that I didn’t even dare getting my hopes up.

Samurai Jack gets a new season coming this year.

Damn!

Taking the form of a huge, epic tale about a lone warrior from a distant past trapped in a bleak future that is ruled by the shape shifting monster Aku, Samurai Jack has an extremely special place in my heart, and it just so happens to be my favourite cartoon show of them all. Yes, that probably does include whatever show you’d bring up if we were talking face to face. I’ve watched a lot of them by now, yet the stylish, minimalistic, sci-fi/fantasy/martial arts adventure show still comes out on top for me.

It’s a fairly popular show, and you may find that lots of people have buckets of praise for it. Sadly, despite its initial popularity (and the actual awards that it won), it never had a real conclusion. Four seasons of build up towards a spectacular finale, and it never arrived.

Okay, so there have been talks of a movie, but none of that ever went anywhere. Honestly, I would’ve been fine if that’s what we got. That said, if I lived in a world where beggars could be choosers, I’d definitely go for at least one more season of the show instead. It feels more natural that way, being one big narrative done in the same format. Having to suddenly watch a feature length movie to get a proper ending seems a bit strange by comparison.

Needless to say then, seeing as it is exactly what I wanted, this announcement blew my mind. Crucially, series creator Genndy Tartakovsky is back on board, ready to fill the gaping hole left in my heart by the Popeye movie’s cancellation. I’ve always been a massive fan of the man’s work, and I’m greatly looking forward to see what an even more experienced Genndy can bring to the table after all these years.

The show originally aired from 2001 until 2004, which means it’s actually starting to get somewhat old (sorry if the thought upsets you, but it’s true). I didn’t know what to think of it at first, seeing as it was so radically different from most cartoons I had enjoyed up until that point. Most of them were all comedy, with a simple setup that didn’t really crave any sort of resolution (most of us didn’t actually need to see Pinky and the Brain take over the world), and using this as a platform to tell silly jokes. It worked well, so that was the majority of what cartoon shows did. A few others, like Batman, took on a more serious tone, while still having plenty of goofier moments to balance out the drama.

Samurai Jack wasn’t unlike those more straight faced shows, but it went beyond simply being dramatic and character driven – it was largely focused on action. In fact, I feel it’s important to mention that the action in this show was something completely unheard of in western animation at the time. Other shows had explosions, punches and all that, sure, but Samurai Jack had extended scenes with detailed choreography, many of which largely carried entire episodes. These were memorable, cinematic fight sequences that were often heavily stylized and almost always very tense, with a real sense of danger towards an often struggling Jack, who had a tendency to take some surprisingly heavy hits himself.

So yeah, this show pretty much took action in cartoons to the next level, but that’s not all it did. Tartakovsky had previously shown a stunning ability to make his characters shut up and tell a story through visuals rather than dialogue (you will see that in certain episodes of Dexter’s Laboratory, for example). That still isn’t done very much, which is probably because it’s an inherently ballsy move that can be very difficult to do. You need to nail an atmosphere in order to pull this off, and Tartakovsky does just that. Sounds, shapes, colours, movement, pacing, it all works brilliantly, the result being the kind of “artsy” animation that actually entertains and engages.

It’s also worth pointing out that the show’s massive influence is easily measured by the amount of martial arts show focusing on Eastern culture that came out around the mid-2000’s, such as Disney’s American Dragon, CN’s own Juniper Lee and Nickelodeon’s little golden flower of a show named Avatar: The Last Airbender. All of these shared traits with Jack, even if none of them quite had the same distinct style and grace to them.

By now I’ve already covered the basic premise of the show (which is done better by the intro), yet it’s not nearly as serialized as you might think. We follow Jack as he attempts to find a way back to his own time and put an end to Aku, and on his journey, he encounters many different characters, situations and obstacles. Some of these are caused by Aku himself, while others are completely unrelated, and it leads to a wide variety of different stories. One would have Jack go up against three blind archers with brilliant hearing and even better aim. Another would have him try to escape a pair of bounty hunters on a train, or have him meet his equal on a massive bridge. Some would even change perspective, tell Aku’s origin story, or focus on some of Jack’s enemies while blurring the lines between good and evil. It’s actually pretty hard for me to pick a favourite, just because many of them are so outstanding.

The voice cast deserves plenty of credit as well, especially Phil LaMarr and the late Mako Iwamatsu as Jack and Aku, respectively. Jack is a kind and honorable man who’s worth rooting for, whose heroic actions make him allies left and right. Meanwhile Aku is the kind of villain that can change from hilarious to terrifying depending on the episode, and have both work pretty well due to his nature as an ancient, shapeless evil given a human-like mind. Mako’s voice acting here was actually so good that I’ve seen several fans online being concerned about his inevitable replacement.

Samurai Jack deserves this new season. It deserves a second chance at fulfilling its potential, because it holds up really well, and because I know it has even more unforgettable stories to tell before the eventual conclusion, which itself has been a long time coming.

Here is a show that gave us countless of things to love, everything from the hero, the villain, the side characters and adventures, to the visual style, atmosphere and soundtrack. It deserves so much more than to be an incomplete story. It deserves a second chance, and I couldn’t be happier that it’s finally getting one.

Oh, and it’s also nice to have something to distract us from the long wait until season 3 of Rick and Morty.