Samurai Champloo

Samurai Champloo is a 2004 action adventure anime with 26 episodes. It is an original story made by the studio Manglobe and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop. It is set in Japan during the Edo period, but it mixes in modern hip hop music, fashion and slang.

Fuu is a 15 year old girl who works as a waitress in a small tea house. One day, the son of a cruel local official causes trouble at the tea house and threatens her.

Two very different swordsmen end up in the fight. Mugen is a wild outlaw from the Ryukyu Islands. He fights with a strange style that looks almost like breakdancing, and he does not care about rules. Jin is a calm and serious ronin, a samurai with no master. He wears glasses and fights with perfect, classic sword skills. Mugen and Jin start fighting each other, and the tea house burns down.

Both men are caught and sentenced to death. Fuu helps them escape. In return, she asks them to help her with a personal mission. She wants to find "the samurai who smells of sunflowers", a man she has been looking for. Mugen and Jin agree, but they also promise to settle their own fight later.

Most episodes tell a single story as the three travel across Japan. The series follows Fuu, Mugen and Jin as they get into trouble on the road, meet strange people and slowly become a kind of family.