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Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 will murder your ass: Samurai 7
The number 7 holds quite a significance across all cultures, from Shakespeare’s 7 ages of man, The Seventh Seal film (A Swedish film from the 50’s, I recommend watching it), and the religious components from Christianity (7 deadly sins) to Hinduism (chakras) to even Celtic mythology (Cuchulan). Seven days in a week, seven seas, you get the idea. This also holds true to Japanese mythology, such as the 7 kami, or gods of luck. It is also considered a lucky number. They even have a proverb for it :
七転び八起き
Seven fall times, stand up eight. We all share the vicissitudes of life. Oh yeah, here’s my point: Seven Samurais are awesome.
Samurai 7 is an impressive rendering of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai film from the 1950’s. I watched both the movie and the anime series and I have to say, there’s rarely an anime (or film for that matter) that is poignant in all respects of action, comedy, drama, and tragedy. I’m surprised to find that there isn’t a bigger fan base for it on here.
I was introduced to it by my cousin’s husband who happens to be into anime and has a huge collection of it. He lend me these videos, and I definitely enjoyed them. The anime is slightly different from the movie in the respect that there are mechas anachronistically set in the Sengoku period of Japan, where the future meets the age of the samurai(or the merchant really), but other than that, follows the story line very well. A village is in constant trepidation of a group of bandits that terrorize the peasants, pillaging and raping as they please. The village sick of this decides to hire a group of formidable and highly skilled samurai to protect their village in exchange for payment in rice. Kirara, a water priestess and her sister Komachi along with fellow peasant Rikichi travel to the city to seek out these samurai, and after many letdowns, finally hire 7 of them to do the job: Kanbe (Kambei), the war-seasoned samurai master, Gorobe, a ronin who makes a living as a street performer, Kikuchiyo, an entertaining mechanical samurai, Katsushiro, a young man coming of age as samurai, Shichiroji, Kanbe’s long time buddy and partner in war, Heihachi, an engineer also trained with the art of the sword and Kyuzo, an shrewd and taciturn warrior. They are unique in personality, appealing and sundry, they are all equally loveable characters and I’m sure you’d have a hard time picking out your favorite. They battle it out with the daunting 40 bandits and the emperor in this thrilling series.
It is a great anime that is serious enough for adults to get into as well as young kids. (Well, maybe not too young since there is violence and the language part. ) With atmosphere both heavy and light, the vicissitudes of the plot will keep you on your toes and keep you watching.
Here's episode 1, part 1:
Again I also highly recommend watching the film The Seven Samurai. Kurosawa is a friggin genius
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