Afro Samurai

Introduction to the anime: Afro Samurai

“My aim is only to move forward.”

Afro Samurai begins with a young African American and his father living in a cave on a high mountain; the little boy is Afro Samurai.  His father is known as “Number 1” from the special band he wears on his forehead.  There are many other numbers in existence, but being number one put you up to be almost a god, with no one who could touch you but the Number 2 headband of course.  His father, being challenged by the Number 2, was bested (having his head cut off) and left his son scared and alone. The new Number 1 challenges Afro Samurai to come exact revenge for his father when he is ready.  Afro Samurai finds his way to a sword school where he spends his days learning the art of swordsmanship and his nights interrogating and searching for the new Number 2 with his friend Chino.  Eventually he finds out that his master, whom he had come to think of as his father, was Number 2, and he had to choose between his new family, or revenge for his real father.  Choosing the path of revenge he lives his life of killing, showing no emotion and rarely speaking.  Long story short he finds Number 1 on the top of a mountain, (first having to kill his closest friend Chino who is bent on killing Afro for killing their master) kills Number 1 and assumes his title as “God” of the samurai.

This highly bloody and stylized anime had me thinking, is this really how the North Americans turned the samurai into something that they could relate to? Most of the dialogue was short and very vulgar with lots of swears and sexual reference – something I did not expect to come from a samurai-based anime.

The anime seemed to want to portray the Edo-era samurai, but instead ended up portraying an earlier type of warrior in the 8th century.  The resemblance of 8th century warriors was shown in the way Afro would stop at nothing to win, even killing his own master to obtain the Number 2 headband.  Honour, so often associated with the Edo-era samurai image, was only ever mentioned once during the entire anime which seemed strange to me.  While this view is technically correct of the 8th century warrior, it is not correct of the “invented” tradition of the samurai.  What I mean by this is that the Samurai did not exemplify the stereotypes of modern thought.

Only during the Edo-era did “bushido” – or way of the warrior – come to existence.  Before this time, the samurai were simply lower class warriors who put more emphasis on saving their own life and winning at all costs, than honour or striving to achieve an honourable death.  One of the only similarities to the Edo samurai and their ancestors is loyalty to their master.

For this reason, Afro Samurai more accurately displays the ancestors of the warriors we come to know today as the samurai.