History Recap / DeathBattleS05E09SamuraiJackVsAfroSamurai

To kick off the episode, Wiz and Boomstick cover the history behind Samurai Jack, who in the future, would be destined to slay the shapeshifting master of darkness, Aku. Long ago, a formless black mass of evil grew in the void of space, threatening to consume the entire universe; it took the combined efforts of the gods who would become Odin, Ra, and Vishnu to burn the mass out of existence. Unbeknownst to the deities, however, a minuscule fraction of this evil escaped their wrath, eventually crash-landing in the distant land of prehistoric Japan. Millennia would follow as this fragment grew in size and power until it began to unleash an unspeakable evil upon Japan's fledgling monarchy. The emperor of the time led an army to confront the ever-expanding mass and launched an arrow enchanted with a magical poison into the heart of the evil, but his efforts proved to exacerbate the cosmic menace instead. The spreading evil, empowered by the poisoned arrow, transformed into a colossal monster known only as Aku; it would take the return of the three gods to bestow upon the emperor a magic sword capable of slaying Aku entirely. Though the eldritch horror was defeated, it would only be a momentary victory as Aku swore to return and wreak further havoc upon the world. The emperor and his wife sent their son out into the world to train, mastering all manner of martial arts and armed combat; so impressive was the prince's skill, that at the age of eight, he singlehandedly defended a village in which he trained from an invading rival tribe. Almost two decades would pass before the prince returned to confront Aku once more, donning his father's gi and sacred katana. Before the final blow was struck in their ensuing bout, Aku tore open a portal in time and flung the prince into the future, where his evil was law. Adopting the name Jack from the slang used by the denizens of this new land, the samurai warrior ventured across landscape, seeking to return to the past and undo the future that was made in Aku's likeness.

Over the course of several decades wandering a world overrun by Aku's machinations, Jack has shown incredible proficiency in a number of situations. Helping those in need and defeating the myriad robot henchmen of Aku is a standard outing for the samurai prince, but even if his kind heart has provided solace to the downtrodden, it has also worked against him. Jack is gullible by nature, falling for Aku's various disguises despite the fact they all share the same color scheme as the overlord himself, and his journey to the past has been prolonged excessively due to his kindness. Several times, a time portal has presented itself to Aku, but the samurai gives up the opportunity to use it in service of others or for the greater good of the world. It would take fifty years of roaming the world until Jack could finally return to his home time and wipe Aku from existence once and for all; in doing so, he saved his world from ruin and ushered in a new era of peace by taking his place as the newest emperor of Japan; a poetic ending in the tale of a warrior pure of heart defeating the embodiment of pure evil.

->'''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack:''' (bellows violently while slicing several robots apart, causing them all to explode) ''Who else wants some!?''

Among the soldiers of history, the samurai is one of the most prestigious and dangerous; so two of the best of them may as well be pit in a fight to the death.

WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack, the warrior-prince lost in time. And Anime/AfroSamurai, who's one cold-blooded [[Creator/SamuelLJackson mother-effer]].

-->'''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack:''' (bellows violently while slicing several robots apart, causing them all to explode) ''Who else wants some!?''

-->'''[[Anime/AfroSamurai Lead assassin]]:''' (as Afro lights a cigarette surrounded by several corpses) Why you gotta kill all my men? Why you gotta kill me?\\

-->''(Watch out!) Gotta get back, back to the past, Samurai Jack''

-->'''Boomstick:''' In the end, Jack was just too fast, too strong, too tough, and too well-trained for Afro to... ''hand''-le.\\

** While describing the myriad of experts Jack received training from in his youth, Boomstick entertains the idea that the Robin Hood that taught Jack archery was [[WesternAnimation/RobinHood the talking fox from the '73 Disney film]].

* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Boomstick is quite perplexed at the idea that Afro Samurai's name is literally Afro. His patience only wears thinner as he learns the names of the other characters in the series (such as the Sword Master "Sword Master" and the ninja "Ninja Ninja").