I honestly don’t know about the economics that go into producing all this wonderful animated entertainment but, as it happens, the Wiki for SAMURAI 7 makes a point of stating that each episode of this series cost about $300,000 to make. With no point of reference, I’ll just go ahead and assume that’s a fairly high budget for an anime - - and then I’ll say that coin definitely shows here. Now that the money’s on my mind, I can’t not notice the higher level of detail in every frame, and the lack of rendering shortcuts that other productions would’ve taken.
Some of you lunatics probably know all about this matter of budgeting. Care to give a more cumulative breakdown to put this all in perspective for me?
Enough talk about boring financials, now. Let’s discuss the story. If the series adhered very closely to the beats of SEVEN SAMURAI in its first episode, it’s definitely gone down its own path with Episode #2. Even though it’s been a few years since I’ve seen that flick, I can state with confidence that there was no sub-plot about a spoiled aristocrat trying to trick one of the peasant girls into his harem (and you see that, kids? That’s what a harem actually looks like).
I also don’t remember one of the peasants ever jumping off a building in order to trap the veteran samurai into listening to his altruistic side. Actually, as I recall, the good guys just signed up for action right away in the original - - so kudos to the crew for addng some more complication and moral dilemma into this otherwise straightforward plot.
The robo-samurai is supposed to be Alphonse Elric playing Toshiro Mifune’s role though, right?
Watch this episode, "The Pupil” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk
Oh god the irony, Samuri Seven generally looks good but in a few episodes you will see the single cheapest and most ugly looking sequence ever to come out of a profesional animation studio.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2011/10/30-1/how-much-does-one-episode-of-anime-cost-to-make
According to an article Crunchyroll made, a 30 minute episode in 2010 cost 11M Yen or $139,456.75 on average. The range is probably crazy high though as I can't image that the same amount that gets you Kanokon level animation is the same that gets you Nichijou or a good Naruto/Bleach fight.
A lot of cartoons and TV shows use a high production for the first 2-3 episodes and then spread the funds about even for the rest.
@kashif1 said:
Yep, I think it was 2 episodes in total (maybe 3).
As I recall, the robot and his Seven Samurai counterpart have the same name.
I tried to watch this series and couldn't get into it. I'm currently watching Sengoku Basara based off of some capcom videogame franchise apparently. The animation is top notch and the production value is over the top, definitely has some videogame money in it.
@YotaruVegeta said:
Didn't all of them retain their names from the original movie?
@AgentJ: I don't know. I only paid attention to the comic relief. ;)
I would like to compare the personalities of the original characters to the cartoon.