60-2 - Samurai Champloo - Episodes 21-22

The cliffhanger from last time pays off in a fight, and then the show detours into zombie treasure hunters and mushrooms.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Episodes 21 and 22 of Samurai Champloo: “Elegy of Entrapment (Verse 2)” and “Cosmic Collisions.”

“Elegy of Entrapment (Verse 2)” picks up with Jin ambushed on the rope bridge by Sara, the blind musician the group befriended. While Mugen has his own run-in with her, Fuu and Jin start to sense that someone is manipulating Sara, and Mugen and Jin end up fighting her back to back. Leading to one of the show’s more violent and sad episodes.

“Cosmic Collisions” opens with narration about comets as bad omens. The group spots a matsutake mushroom on the road, chases after it, and falls through the ground into an excavation site where a man named Shige hoped to dig up the buried treasure of the Heike clan. They end up among a horde of rotting zombie treasure hunters. It’s a complete tonal swerve from the episode before.

We discuss how the Sara two-parter handles its villain and what it adds to Mugen and Jin’s rivalry. We also cover how “Cosmic Collisions” might have more meaning than it first seems.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Samurai Champloo.

📌 Topics covered this episode:

– Samurai Champloo Episode 21 “Elegy of Entrapment (Verse 2)” recap & review

– Samurai Champloo Episode 22 “Cosmic Collisions” recap & review

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Toonami Absolution is a weekly podcast where Alyx, Jon, and Sam revisit the Toonami and Adult Swim shows that made them, and you, you.

From the block's early days with shows like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Transformers: Beast Wars to the imported anime that made Toonami and Adult Swim appointment television for a generation of kids, such as Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball.

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