Samurai Champloo. by Shinichiro Watanabe. R1 USA DVD Boxset July 4th 2006.

I'm surprised no one on this site mentioned this series before. It's one of the best I've seen in the past few years! Cool characters, well-animated, great swordfights and just the right amount of humor......very highly recommended!

its been mentioned, back in october 2004 was out first time...

I've only seen the first disc, and while I loved the animation and cool, anchronistic style, the storyline seemed a little flimsy. Did it get stronger as the series went on?

Not really, no. The ending was ok but unfortunately there isn't a good involving arc and a lot of the episodes are more filler than anything else, although fairly enjoyable at that. Unfortunately, it's a lot weaker as a whole than Bebop was.
Personally I wouldn't pay $200 for the box, even half of that is a bit of a stretch.

It had one of the best first episodes anyone has ever done - that fight between Jin and Mugen is just mindblowing, the kind of style, grace and artistry most _series_ never achieve overall with almost as much kickass rock'n'roll spirit as Bebop managed - but it tailed off badly, starting with the second episode, never went anywhere with the story and never really establishing the kind of emotive personalities the characters desperately needed. It picked up when the second half resumed on a different channel, and did evolve into something resembling a coherent narrative, plus the pointless comedy tangent episodes were frequently very funny. Still, not anything like as good as that glorious opening seemed to indicate it was going to be. Worth a buy, though - Watanabe with a screw loose is still miles ahead of the competition. $200 is having a laugh, but $100 would be okay.

COWBOY BEBOP is more than one of Anime's all time greats, in my opinion it's one of TV's all time greats as well, and very few SF series, live or animated, can stack up to it. I started watching CHAMPLOO when the fansubs first started popping up. There's a whole lot to recommend in it, but it can't compare to BEBOP. I never finished watching CHAMPLOO, after it went on that extended hiatus in the middle. Ought to do that one of these days. If nothing else, it's well better than WOLF'S RAIN, the show that most everyone from COWBOY BEBOP worked on - minus Shinichiro Watanabe.

Samurai Champloo and Wolf's rain are twins in the sense that they both had great potential but in the end were botched one way or another; a shame.
If they ever get to releasing a nice, cheap box of Wolf's rain (think, UK GitS:SAC box-level cheap..) then I'd like to pick it up. Worth it for those nicely animated wolves alone.

Fabool....ask and you shall receive. There will be a Wolf's Rain R1 DVD boxset coming out on 7/25/06 retailing for $49.98. Probably $10 to $15 less once it gets listed and discounted.

$200 for a series with a decent beginning that slowly spirals downward resulting in a crap ending? No thanks.