While this cult classic show is very old, it remains one of the best anime ever made; therefore it’s not bad that its fans want to see more shows like this.
If you also wish to experience the same sensations and action as found in Samurai Champloo, we have some recommendations for you. Let’s begin the list of the best anime like Samurai Champloo.
Best Anime like Samurai Champloo!
10. Gangsta (2015)
Nicholas Brown and Worick Arcangelo are mercenaries who will do anything for the right price. They work for both the mob and the police, exploring the underbelly of the city, a place that was once a haven for Twilights, people who were augmented by a special drug.
Let’s be honest, we like Samurai Champloo because Mugen was a thug. He was the coolest character, with a unique fighting style. Gangsta is also similar. While it does not do justice to its source material, it is about thugs with good hearts who also have some pretty hard fists.
If you like the calm and relaxed fighting style, this could be a good show to follow up with.
9. Michiko to Hatchin (2008-2009)
Director Sayo Yamamoto of Michiko to Hatchin shares significant hip-hop and psychedelic influences, inspired by the Samurai Champloo. Michiko, an escaped convict, is trying to save her ex-lover’s daughter from an abusive foster home in the fictional South American country of Diamandra.
After helping her escape, they both travel through shantytowns and jungles to reunite with Michiko’s ex and Hatchin’s father, Hiroshi.
The show combines Watanabe-inspired action with Yamamoto’s taste for underground culture, leading to an anime that screams vibrant. The underlying stories and style of the two shows are very similar.
The similarities between Hatchin’s search for her father and Fuu’s mission to find the Sunflower Samurai are not surprising, given Yamamoto’s participation in Samurai Champloo’s final episodes.
8. Gintama (2006-2018)
When the Amanto attack, the shogun of Edo surrenders, even though the samurai are ready to fight. He signed a contract that banned people from carrying swords. Although the foreigners grab everything and confiscate the swords, there are still people in Edo who have the heart of a samurai.
Gintoki Sakata is an idiosyncratic samurai who works odd jobs to pay his bills. He created a group called Yorozuya with Kagura and Shinpachi Shimura (his apprentice). As the story progresses, Gintoki and his friends face difficulties as they battle against the evil antagonist Utsuro, who is immortal, and his forces.
Similar to Samurai Champloo, where the three friends face different problems, Gintama has a similar plot. Furthermore, both series feature samurai as their main characters.
7. Black Lagoon (2006)
This may be a strange choice, but we think Black Lagoon crew has similarities to Samurai Champloo’s, which is made up of people from different backgrounds.
The plot follows the adventures of the Lagoon Company, a ragtag team of pirate mercenaries who smuggle goods into South Asia.
The anime sets during the mid-90s, when the pirates used the island of Ko Chang as their base of operations. Every international criminal organization in the world stops at the island, which leads to the Lagoon Company’s going on a series of increasingly precarious adventures.
It would be a spoiler to go into more detail, but at its core, Black Lagoon is an appeal to friendship. Both anime series have a lot of action and badass bloodthirsty characters, and they fight with awesome style.
So if you watched and liked one of them, and you are in the mood for an anime with terrific animation and lots of fighting, we suggest you to watch the other one as well.
6. Katanagatari (2010)
The story focuses on Shichika Yasuri, a swordsman who fights without a sword, and Togame, a female strategist who wants to collect twelve legendary swords for the shogunate. Togame seeks him out and convinces Shichika to accompany her on a mission to locate the Deviant Blades.
Togame and Shichika Yasuri, both, begin a journey together across Edo-era Japan, to collect the Deviant Blades, all wielded by formidable opponents.
Samurai Champloo and Katanagatari, both have some eye-catching action, with top-notch soundtracks and adventure sets in Edo Japan that involve exciting anachronisms.
Both of these series present a different setting and some different minor character interactions in each episode. There is also swordplay action and a bit of mystery and hidden agendas in the narrative, which are slowly peeled back as the story progresses.
5. Samurai 7 (2004)
If that title sounds familiar, it’s because Samurai 7 takes more than a bit of inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s highly acclaimed 1954 movie “Seven Samurai”. Every year, at harvest time, bandits come to the farming village of Kanna to steal rice and kidnap women and children.
The village elders are determined to fight back, and they are recruiting warriors who can train and protect them for a meager payment of rice. This is an amusing tribute to the memory of the great Kurosawa, with a modern-day and futuristic twist and turn.
The characters in Samurai 7 and Samurai Champloo have interesting backgrounds that have shaped them into the samurai they are now. They both involve a main female protagonist and samurai.
Badass sword fights, fascinating characters and humorous situations abound in these excellent samurai anime. Want to see astonishing fight scenes? Look no further, either of these shows will satisfy your desire for action and are very similar anime to Samurai Champloo.
4. House of Five Leaves (2010)
The main character of House of Five Leaves, Masanosuke Akitsu, is also a ronin, like Jin from Samurai Champloo. His employers often fire him due to his unreliability, even though he is a very skilled swordsman.
When he is at his worst stage in life, Yaichi hires him as a bodyguard. Masanosuke’s new job isn’t something he can be proud of. As he becomes aware of Yaichi’s illegal and unethical activities, he soon finds himself questioning his beliefs.
Samurai Champloo fans will enjoy the same type of action and fight scenes in House of Five Leaves. Moreover, the series also features many crimes that Fuu and his friends in Samurai Champloo sometimes get involved in.
3. Afro Samurai (2007)
When he was young, Afro witnessed his father being cut down by a man known as Justice. He took the number one headband and cast the number two aside after killing his father.
Years later, after working his way up to the number two headband, Afro was finally given the opportunity to challenge the number one, the man who had killed his father.
Samurai Champloo and Afro Samurai, are perfect examples of East-meets-West culture. They both have the fast-paced art of sword fighting mastered.
Afro Samurai shows, how you can add supernatural elements to a samurai show and still make something that’s truly extraordinary. It is a show you will never forget once you watch it.
2. Sword of the Stranger (2007)
A young boy and his dog find themselves the target of the Ming, a China’s dynasty that will stop at nothing. One day, a quiet and solemn warrior crosses their path, and the two become irrevocably connected. The warrior agrees to take the boy and his dog to a remote Buddhist temple, where a kind monk is waiting to take care of them.
After setting out on their journey, they soon realize that their path is fraught with danger, as a terrifying swordsman is sent by the Ming to capture Kotarou and fulfill a prophecy.
The Sword of the Stranger received an international award for its animation quality. Not only that, but the plot is something you would expect to see in a live-action samurai film, not an anime. It’s a film, not a series, which means you can watch the whole thing in one afternoon.
If you liked Samurai Champloo, you’ll love Sword of the Stranger, as they both feature some fantastic sword fighting. Another similarity, they share is the slow development of relationships between strangers. Throughout this journey, they fight together and strengthen their bond until the end.
1. Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999)
Cowboy Bebop is not a story of samurais like Samurai Champloo. Instead, it follows bounty hunters who help police the interplanetary solar system to maintain peace and harmony in the galaxy. Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are bounty hunters who live aboard the ship Bebop and hunt for bounties to collect rewards.
The journey usually takes place in solitude, but they end up meeting Faye Valentine, Welsh Corgi, and Edward Wong. As the story progresses, the band members are faced with dark truths about their past lives.
Although Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are quite different in most aspects, both shows have the influence of a similar genre of music. It’s not surprising that Cowboy Bebop feels similar to Samurai Champloo, since they have the same director.
Final Thoughts!
There you go, these are the top 10 anime like Samurai Champloo we loved watching, and we hope you’ll have the same fun binging them for a while.
So, do you have any additional recommendations for Samurai Champloo? Why don’t you let us hear them in the comments section below?
You might also like:
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