This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Adam Conover (talk | contribs) at 20:40, 17 May 2004 (copyedit). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 20:40, 17 May 2004 by Adam Conover (talk | contribs) (copyedit)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Samurai Jack is an animated television show, created by Genndy Tartakovsky, that airs on Cartoon Network. It tells the story of a prince from the medieval orient, whose father's empire is destroyed by Aku (literally "evil" in Japanese), a demon who had previously been defeated by the emperor. The prince escapes with his father's magic sword, among the few weapons capable of injuring the demon, and begins training to defeat him. When he reaches adulthood, he challenges Aku to a duel and nearly beats him; however, near death, Aku creates a portal into the distant future and sends the prince through it, anticipating that he would be able to amass sufficient power to deal with the prince by then.
The protagonist arrives in a hostile, lawless, futuristic Earth, ruled by Aku and filled with his minions and robots. He adopts the nickname of 'Jack', and begins his search to find a way to travel backward through time, in order to kill Aku before he obtained power.
Samurai Jack is notable for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation style and also for its pacing, unusual for today's cartoons: the plot is frequently stopped to allow for the building of tension before combat or for the sake of humor. It is not uncommon for episodes to be almost entirely free of dialogue.