Samurai Champloo Manga

Samurai Champloo manga is an anime book first published on August 2004 by Kadakawa Shoten in the Shonen Ace manga magazine. An English-language version was released later in North America, Australia, and New Zealand by different publishers. Samurai Champloo Manga is based on the Japanese animated television series of the same name that was started just a few month prior in May 2004 and was broadcasted until March 2005. Masaru Gotsubo was the manga artist who was working on the Samurai Champloo manga.

The plot of the manga is about adventures of three young people who're travelling across Japan and looking for a mysterious Samurai, who is presumably smells of sunflowers. Three main characters of the Samurai Champloo are: Fuu, who is a teenage girl and an instigator of the quest; Mugen, who is a wondering sword for hire with very unusual technique of fighting, which is somewhat a cross between break dancing and capoeira; and Jin, who is a ronin and a typical samurai – mild-mannered, calm, and following traditions. The trio is to set on the quest of finding mysterious samurai, who is presumably (and as we'll find later is) Fuu's father. The heroes will have to overcome numerous obstacles on the way of completing the quest, in which they will build sort of a friendship and find more about each other's mysterious pasts.

Samurai Champloo manga has an interesting style as it employs elements from both worlds – from historical Edo period of Japan (as some real events happening at that time in Japan were mention), and from the modern time (including break dancing, graffiti, and some other elements).

The origins of the name "Champloo" lay in the word "chanpuru", used in Okinawa and meaning a stir-fry dish, containing bitter melons. Chanpuru on its own means "to mix" or "to hash", and the meaning of the Samurai Champloo manga then can be roughly translated as "Samurai Remix".

Both anime series and manga had a good acceptance by public and the series was translated and broadcasted in a number of countries. If you're a manga collector, or just like elements of Samurai culture, you may find Samurai Champloo quite interesting.

You can see current listings for Samurai Champloo Manga here: