In spite of the title, this is not exactly Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. It is, rather, an anime adaptation of the classic film, set in a dystopian future that contrasts the rural simplicity of the peasantry with a steampunk version of big city life in a universe in which not only the machinery but some of the people are put together from spare parts.
The bandits in this case are samurai who, during the last great war, traded their flesh for mechanical bodies. Some of them are formidable indeed, great towering hulks who float over the landscape, backed by hordes of smaller mechanical henchmen, expropriating the rice harvest from the peasants, leaving them barely enough to live on — if they are clever enough at hiding a portion. They also expropriate women.
The villagers of the hamlet of Kanna have had it. They come up with the idea of hiring samurai to dispose of the bandits, although all they have to offer is rice. The village’s water priestess, Kirara, her little sister Komachi, and Rikichi, a farmer whose wife was among those taken, set off for the city to find some samurai to help them. Their search is largely fruitless until they persuade Shimada Kanbe (who, as we know from the introduction, was a daring commander during the war) to their cause. Kanbe manages to find a couple more out of work samurai (Gorobe is making his living as a street performer, Heihachi chops wood for food), and gradually relents enough to allow Kikuchyo, a farmer who bought himself a mechanical body to become a samurai, and Katsushiro, a youth who begs Kanbe to take him as an apprentice, to accompany them. On the way they pick up Shichiroji, who is working at an inn in the pleasure quarter, and finally Kyuzo, one of the governor’s body guards.
This is not quite the merciless study that Kurosawa created, but there’s enough psychology to give it more than enough depth. There’s also enough of what I can only call “philosophy” mixed in to make it something more than mere entertainment.
It is, in spite of the constraints inherent in adapting an existing story, a character-driven work, and the central character is Kanbe. He’s a complex character, to say the least, given to noting that he’s only fought losing battles, not dwelling on the fact that he’s still alive — although at one point he confronts the idealist Katsushiro with the question “Do you think dying is something wonderful?” The relationship between Kanbe and Kyuzo is particularly fascinating: they first meet in the city, and their first duel is a draw, although Kyuzo is determined that he will be the one to cut Kanbe down. Thereafter, Kyuzo makes a habit of saving Kanbe’s life — it’s almost an obsession. There is a fine-drawn tension between the two that seems equal parts rivalry and desire, handled deftly and quietly.
Which leads me to a new insight: I’ve often talked about the acting as something distinct from the animation, but after watching Samurai 7 a couple of times and thinking back on the best anime I’ve seen, I realize that the two are intertwined. There is real synergy here, and it adds greatly to the experience. Character designs, as is so often the case, run the gamut from cartoony and sometimes grotesque to intensely realistic
The animation in general is of a very high quality — it’s obvious the studio had the time and money (reportedly ¥32.5 million per episode) to do a first-rate job. My only cavil in that area is that sometimes the CGI effects are too realistic — it jars against the context of the regular animation. Fight scenes, of which there are many, are superb, though. There’s something about a swordsman who has no concern for the law of gravity that is very special. And the general design concept brings together elements of modern Western animation, period costumes from Japanese and Chinese history, and even an Emperor who recalls strongly the God-Emperor Huon from Michael Moorcock’s History of the Runestaff.
The story carries on past the defeat of the bandits, as the samurai take on the emperor in order to destroy the whole rotten system (and if you don’t believe there can be pungent social commentary in anime, you haven’t been paying attention). For some reason, I remembered that portion of the story as less interesting than the earlier segment: I was wrong.
So, if you’re looking for a very entertaining Star Wars steampunk version of Kurosawa’s classic, this is it.
The extras include the usual text-free titles, promo video and image galleries, and a director/actor commentary.
(Funimation Entertainment, 2008)
