First of all, this is definitely a high quality anime series that does have the blessings of the Kurosawa family.
At first I was unsure about the story being changed into some sort of fantasy future. The city setting and the "robots" are pretty impressive though.In fact the whole production is of the highest quality. This is one good looking anime series. The music and soundtrack are really good also. But it would be meaningless if the story and the characters didn't have something to offer the viewer. And they do. While not in league with the strong characters of other top animes, Samurai 7 has a well thought out and developed cast. The story is paced for a full series so your memories of the film have to be kind of tempered. There is a new sub-plot and a number of invented incidents.
The creators of this series do experiment at some points with mixed results. There are some other anime concessions (beautiful girls, mega destruction) but overall it doesn't hurt the series.
Some notes on the US DVD release: The video quality is excellent and so is the sound and translation . The dubbed track is different compared to the subtitle track. A lot of dialog is slightly different or changes the original intent of the Japanese writers. I recommend avoiding the English track for this reason although the voice actors are very well cast and do an excellent job. The sound mix is sloppy at times. With some episodes, the Japanese track has the sound effects turned way down but the English track has the music and sound effects overpowering the vocal track.
Overall, I believe the series is very enjoyable and fun while not being over the top...9/10
At first I was unsure about the story being changed into some sort of fantasy future. The city setting and the "robots" are pretty impressive though.In fact the whole production is of the highest quality. This is one good looking anime series. The music and soundtrack are really good also. But it would be meaningless if the story and the characters didn't have something to offer the viewer. And they do. While not in league with the strong characters of other top animes, Samurai 7 has a well thought out and developed cast. The story is paced for a full series so your memories of the film have to be kind of tempered. There is a new sub-plot and a number of invented incidents.
The creators of this series do experiment at some points with mixed results. There are some other anime concessions (beautiful girls, mega destruction) but overall it doesn't hurt the series.
Some notes on the US DVD release: The video quality is excellent and so is the sound and translation . The dubbed track is different compared to the subtitle track. A lot of dialog is slightly different or changes the original intent of the Japanese writers. I recommend avoiding the English track for this reason although the voice actors are very well cast and do an excellent job. The sound mix is sloppy at times. With some episodes, the Japanese track has the sound effects turned way down but the English track has the music and sound effects overpowering the vocal track.
Overall, I believe the series is very enjoyable and fun while not being over the top...9/10
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