The inspiration behind the latest episode of The Boondocks? SAMURAI CHAMPLOO
On watching the latest installment of The Boondocks, my Japanese-culture-loving sister pointed out that it bears a strong resemblance to an episode of cult-animé show, ‘Samurai Champloo’. Boondocks originator Aaron McGruder has been quite honest from the get-go about doing a ‘Tarantino’ and borrowing heavily from the animated Japanese series visually and conceptually. Plus there’s the pervasive presence of Hip-Hop in both. Replacing Baseball with Kickball, perhaps this latest offering is the first out-and-out homage to Mr McGruder’s inspiration…or a shameless rip-off? You decide.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Also worth checking out to hear the production-skills of late underground soulful-Hip Hop hero, Nujabes who died earlier this year.
‘rip off’ implies copying, and leaving the original unchanged. personally it never dawned on me that this could have been influenced by champloo, but looking at this episode, its hard to simply rubbish that theory off handedly.
personally i can only see that being a positive, as champloo was, and still is, one of the best anime series ever produced. besides which its all but very clear that aaron has taken directly from anime culture, in order to create what is in itself, a throughly entertaining study of hip hop, and black culture, in an intense pseudo japanese, martial arts style format… nothing wrong with a bit of idea swapping. at least aaron isn’t acting as if the boondock series has no direct influences. the wachowski brothers could learn a thing or two from him!
I agree TeeMax, Aaron should be commended for being up front about the influence of SC on The Boondocks. I think ‘Red Ball’ could be interpreted either way -the arc of the story is quite similar to that of ‘Baseball blues-but it helps to know McGruder has never tried to deny the impact of animé on his work. Thus it’s possibly just a ‘gift’ episode to those in the know about ‘Samurai…’. I admit if it wasn’t for my sister being a Champloo fan I wouldn’t have known otherwise.
Shalom x
ahhh…I’m surprised you’re watching Boondocks, you should talk to Fidel about this stuff.
A few Dragonball-Z references in this one too.
Bx
http://www.howaboutbeth.blogspot.com
Twitter Comment
@SoulCulture SAMURAI CHAMPLOO is DOPE!!! I miss it.
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
@SoulCulture …nothing can top Samurai Champloo!
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Definitely not a shameless rip-off. For ‘The Red Ball’ is a different story even with the obvious “sample” from ‘Baseball Blues.’ Didn’t McGruder and team do something similar with the Catcher Freeman episode in season two? I likes. thanks for sharing.