Highlights
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Samurai Jack
has a unique appeal due to its distinctive animation and long hiatus between seasons. - Characters like Scaramouche, the High Priestess, the Scotsman, and Ashi add depth and complexity to the show.
The saga of Samurai Jack still resonates with audiences more than 20 years after the first season aired. The Samurai Jack series has some features that set it apart from other serialized animated TV shows, like the distinctive animation of Genndy Tartakovsky, and the last season airing more than ten years after the previous one. This time gap was written as part of the story.
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The popularity of cartoon-inspired comic books and video and board games, and there was also the news about a live-action film that died before it even got to development hell. All of this historical drama makes Samurai Jack an even better show. The first four seasons aired on Cartoon Network, and the last season that aired on Adult Swim was some of the best animation and storytelling ever.
7 Scaramouche
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Debut Episode:
Season 5, Episode 1
A villain that lays waste with his savage jazz flute, Scaramouch is Aku’s most talented assassin and one of the main samurai antagonists of season five. He’s an android, but he doesn’t sound or act like one with all the quips and jokes that are often a part of his dialogue.
The whimsical songs and music of Scaramouch are in contrast to his murderous attitude. He appears in the first episode after massacring a whole village of innocent people just to get Jack’s attention. He also acts as an exposition character when he describes how much Jack has changed in the 50 years that he’s been trapped in the future.
6 The High Priestess
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Debut Episode:
Season 5, Episode 1
The High Priestess of the all-female Cult of Aku is another character introduced in the last season. She drank the essence of Aku and gave birth to human-demon hybrid septuplets as a result, and all of them have been raised and trained to despise Samurai Jack, hunt him down, and end his life.
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This character was not only strong enough to lead a brutal cult and give birth to seven children in one pregnancy but was one of the few villains that ever even came close to killing Samurai Jack. Even though the High Priestess trained all of her daughters personally, with the help of other cult members, none of them ever matched her in combat except for one.
5 The Scotsman
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Debut Episode:
Season 1, Episode 11
The Scotsman is a character who has stood by Jack, the famed samurai since the first season after their fateful meeting on a bridge. In the spirit of Arthurian legend, the Scotsman was blocking a bridge, armed with his deadly bagpipes, being insulting and belligerent to the usually quiet and reserved Jack.
The two make an incredible team, however, with the Scotsman and his legions of badass warrior daughters fighting at Jack’s side most of the time. In the final season, it’s the Scotsman who takes Jack under his wing, so to speak, to help him restore his memory and his sword.
4 Ashi
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Debut Episode:
Season 5, Episode 1
One of the seven Daughters of Aku who were trained since she was an infant to assassinate the noble hero. Ashi was the only one who ever broke free of her mother’s control and discovered that she could have her own free will. Her intelligence and willpower, added to her skill as a fighter, made her the most powerful of the High Preistess’ daughters.
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Ashi wasn’t introduced until season five and was initially just as fanatically devoted to the death of Samurai Jack as her sisters were, but in flashbacks, we see that she had a secret longing to see the outside world when she was a child. When she has an opportunity to kill a sleeping Jack, she resists her mother’s orders and refuses to do it.
3 Aku
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Debut Episode:
Season 1, Episode 1
An evil demon, the main big bad of the series, and the nemesis of Samurai Jack, Aku is a tyrant who wants to remake the world. He was on the verge of defeat when he opened a portal into the future and sent Jack through it, thinking the hero would not be able to survive in a world made by him and his equally nefarious minions.
Aku’s own pride was his undoing. He was so flattered by the attention lavished on him by the Cult of Aku that he gifted the High Priestess with a vial of his essence. She used this to give birth to seven daughters, all of whom had some of the same powers as their demon father. Ashi used the same time travel powers that she had inherited from Aku to defeat him in the final episode.
2 Samurai Jack
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Debut Episode:
Season 1, Episode 1
Samurai Jack was sworn to defeat Aku and free his family and people from the demon’s tyranny. The demon had nearly been defeated when he sent Jack into the future to battle a whole world made in Aku’s horrible likeness.
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Jack’s quest didn’t end after he was sent into the future, and when he finally caught up to Aku again, the demon almost escaped a second time but the samurai hero had become too powerful. Friendship saved the day, with all of Jack’s allies uniting to defeat the tyrant.
1 Giant Monster
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Debut Episode:
Season 5, Episode 4
It can’t be denied that the giant monster that swallows both Ashi and Jack in season five is one of the most powerful entities in the show when it comes to physical prowess. It seems neutral in its hostility to any living being it comes across since everything is small enough to be food, but its real power is turning bitter hate into true love.
Ashi and Jack have to work together to escape from the bowels of the Giant Monster, and they form a strong bond as they do. The episode ends with a passionate embrace and an escape through the monster’s blowhole.
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