History YMMV / SamuraiChamploo

* WhatAnIdiot: Mugen gets called an idiot and a fool by many viewers for actually trusting Mukuro again.

*** The beginning of the episode, which pans in on [[TheLostWoods a dark, mist-shrouded forest]]. A young man, clearly terrified and running for his life, pursued by ninjas from what seem to be several different clans working in tandem. There's no music, either tense or cheerful, and the ninjas [[AmbiguouslyHuman clearly aren't all human]], especially the ones with [[GlowingEyesOfDoom yellow eyes]] and glowing red fingernails.

** Mugen and Jin, bordering on FoeYay. One such example is the very first episode, when Mugen dreams of Jin being naked in a bathtub during their fight, and he doesn't fail to point out "his dong hanging out" when he recalls the dream to him.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: A recurring theme in the series is the criticism of Japan's historic and government-supported xenophobia, so much so that [[spoiler:it forms a large part of the overarching arc with the Sunflower Samurai]]. "Stranger Searching" deals with hostility to foreigners, "Lullabies of the Lost" deals with the persecution of the Ainu and how they're killed for preventable and flimsy reasons, and "Unholy Union" [[spoiler:and Fuu's arc]] deal with the crackdown on Japanese Christians.

* CastingGag:
** Creator/KazuyaNakai once again voices a [[Anime/OnePiece hot-headed swordsman that invented his own fighting style]].

* CrazyAwesome: Mugen's nonsensical style of fighting works perfectly for him, and is pretty damn impressive to watch.

** Creator/KazuyaNakai once again voices a [[Anime/OnePiece hot-headed swordsman that invented his own fighting style]]

* MagnificentBastard: [[CulturedBadass Kagetoki Kariya]] is a {{master swordsman}} and wise old man, his skills renowned so much that he is known as the "[[PowerOfTheGodHand Hand of God]]". A dignified and intelligent {{samurai}}, Kariya realized that the world was changing and allied with the shogunate, allowing the shogunate to believe he is a puppet when reality, he is [[DragonWithAnAgenda using the empire to further his own agendas]]. Tending his garden while making comparisons to life and defeating Mugen in combat with the same amount of exertion, Kariya fights Jin and defeats even him, giving pointers on his fighting style the entire time. Ordered to eliminate the legendary "Samurai who Smells of Sunflowers", Kariya uses Fuu to lead him to the Samurai, kills the man after offering him last words with [[spoiler:his daughter Fuu]], spares the Samurai's elderly caretaker, and then tries to kill Fuu as well, offering her the chance to honorably take her own life in the process.

** "Lethal Lunacy": [[SerialKiller Shoryu]], born Ukon, was a samurai who ended up in China and learned the art of "Hakkei". Growing [[ArrogantKungFuGuy arrogant]] upon his return to Japan, Shoryu murdered another student in a sparring match before wandering the land and killing other dojo leaders. Seeking to enhance his skills, he hunted down countless samurai and brutally slaughtered them with Hakkei to satisfy his ego and [[BloodKnight lust for blood]] until attempting to do the same to Mugen.

* CompleteMonster: The bloodthirsty pirate Mukuro raided a ship for gold, while ordering all of the sailors aboard murdered. [[TheCorrupter Corrupting Mugen]] into becoming hired muscle, Mukuro later abandons Mugen on a cargo ship after he himself makes off with the goods. Slaughtering an entire village with his gang, Mukuro keeps the young men alive to use in the raid of a gold-bearing government vessel. During the raid, Mukuro uses his followers as CannonFodder for his trap, before trying to use explosives to kill [[BadBoss friend]] and foe alike, [[{{Greed}} just so he can keep all the gold]]. Even his own family is not safe from Mukuro, who [[{{Matricide}} killed his mother]] and constantly abuses his sister.

* HilariousInHindsight: In a world full of dangerous swordfighters, Fuu is... decidedly not one of them. A little over a year later, however, her [[Creator/AyakoKawasumi Japanese voice actor]] would go on to play [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight one of the most famous swordswomen in all of anime]]. Her [[Creator/KariWahlgren English voice actor]] would follow suit [[LightNovel/FateZero five years later]].

%%* TheScrappy: Kawara Sosuke

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: With Nujabes's involvement in the soundtrack, it's no surprise. There's also the haunting song that Sara sings as part of her traveling performer act, and the one by Ikue Asazaki that plays over Mugen's flashbacks to his youth with Kohza and Mukuro.

** Also Kohza, whose exact motives aren't revealed. Money, companionship, both? Or was she just confused?
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: With Nujabes' involvement in the soundtrack, it's no surprise. There's also the haunting song that Sara sings as part of her traveling performer act, and the one by Ikue Asazaki that plays over Mugen's flashbacks to his youth with Koza and Mukuro.

** The zombie episode ("Cosmic Collisions"). It starts off with Jin and Mugen eating rare mushrooms, and ends with [[spoiler:a nuclear explosion and the villain leaping out of his grave]], and it is ''never mentioned again.'' The operative word here is {{mushroom|Samba}}.
** The Baseball episode ("Baseball Blues"), as the bizarre plot involves the gang playing baseball against a bunch of Americans intending to invade.
** Episode 9 ("Beatbox Bandits"), at least towards the end, where the conflict is resolved... by a burning field of weed, which gets the anatagonists all chummy with each other while completely forgetting about whatever they were supposed to do.

--> '''Mugen:''' "I don't give a rat's ass about going to hell. I guess it's because I feel like I'm already there."

** Mugen, who is rude a good chunk of the time. Despite that, he doesn't remember having any parents and appears to have lead a life of crime since young. In particular is him being once tricked into a life of piracy in the past by Mukuro who betrayed him.

* MagnificentBastard: [[CulturedBadass Kagetoki Kariya]] is a {{master swordsman}} and wise old man, his skills renowned so much that he is known as the "[[PowerOfTheGodHand Hand of God]]". A dignified and intelligent {{samurai}}, Kariya realized that the world was changing and allied with the shogunate, allowing the shogunate to believe he is a puppet when reality, he is [[DragonWithAnAgenda using the empire to further his own agendas]]. Tending his garden while making comparisons to life and defeating Mugen in combat with the same amount of exertion, Kariya fights Jin and defeats even him, giving pointers on his fighting style the entire time. Ordered to eliminate the legendary "Samurai who Smells of Sunflowers", Kariya uses Fuu to lead him to the Samurai, kills the man after offering him last words with [[spoiler: his daughter Fuu]], spares the Samurai's elderly caretaker and then tries to kill Fuu as well, offering her the chance to honorably take her own life in the process.
* MoralEventHorizon: Umanosuke chased down Fuu, [[spoiler:molested her, knocked her out, then [[RuleOfSymbolism tied her to a cross]] and beat her in the semi-final episode]].

** The zombie episode, especially the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kFy8AiSEPX0#t=1378 credit ending]] which includes a JumpScare.
** Episode 15 "Bogus Booty".
*** The way the counterfeiter was going to torture the secret police. It involved molten gold and a funnel. TruthInTelevision in case you were wondering.
*** The beginning of the episode, which pans in on [[TheLostWoods a dark, mist-shrouded forest]]. A young man, clearly terrified and running for his life, pursued by ninjas from what seem to be several different clans working in tandem. There’s no music, either tense or cheerful, and the ninjas [[AmbiguouslyHuman clearly aren’t all human]], especially the ones with [[GlowingEyesOfDoom yellow eyes]] and glowing red fingernails.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: A recurring theme in the series is the criticism of Japan's historic and government supported xenophobia, so much so that [[spoiler:it forms a large part of the overarching arc with the Sunflower Samurai]]. "Stranger Searching" deals with the hostility to foreigners. "Lullabies of the Lost" deals with the the persecution of the Ainu and how they're killed for preventable and flimsy reasons. "Unholy Union" [[spoiler:and Fuu's arc]] deal with the crackdown on Japanese Christians.

** "Hellhounds for Hire" involves a yakuza gang trying to take over a town by cheating the residents at dice. While the gang is ObviouslyEvil, it's kind of hard to feel bad when all the residents know that they're cheating, and all they have to do to stop their take over is to NOT GAMBLE WITH THEM!
** "Artistic Anarchy" involves a different yakuza gang involved in human trafficking. The episode ends with the leader, the quirky old man revealed to be the boss and he's taken to jail, his exit met with a [[GracefulLoser dignity]] and a feeling of sorrow from his underlings and wife with even the narrative giving him a somber tone. It's jarringly unfitting for a man who sold dozens of women into sexual slavery overseas, not to mention the other gang members aren't arrested.

* EarWorm: Several. Nujabes' "battlecry" (the opening theme), MINMI's "Shiki no Uta" (the closing theme), tsutchie's "pretending to…" and "sincerely", Nujabes' "mystline" and FORCE OF NATURE's "vagrancy" are some select choices. Nujabes' "Counting Stars", which concludes "Gamblers and Gallantry", appears only on a compilation for his record label and not on the soundtracks, making it one of the most sought after songs of the show. Many ''Champloo'' fans have even stated that they thought the worst of hip hop music before this series came along and changed their minds about the entire genre.

* {{Reconstruction}}: There are those who see ''Samurai Champloo'' as a reconstruction of the JidaiGeki genre.

* SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing: The English and French dubs have been very well received, the latter being considered the best French anime dub EVER, especially considering France's history of dubbing anime in general REALLY BADLY.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: A recurring theme in the series is the criticism of Japan's historic and government supported xenophobia,so much so that [[spoiler:it forms a large part of the overarching arc with the Sunflower Samurai]]. "Stranger Searching" deals with the hostility to foreigners. "Lullabies of the Lost" deals with the the persecution of the Ainu and how they're killed for preventable and flimsy reasons. "Unholy Union" [[spoiler:and Fuu's arc]] deal with the crackdown on Japanese Christians.

*** To be fair, it ''is'' a burning field of weed. The fumes probably made half the prefecture high.

** The way the counterfeiter was going to torture the secret police in Episode 15 ("Bogus Booty"). It involved molten gold and a funnel. TruthInTelevision in case you were wondering.
*** Hell, Bogus Booty starts out pretty nightmarish too, panning in on [[TheLostWoods a dark, mist-shrouded forest]]. A young man, clearly terrified and running for his life, pursued by ninjas from what seem to be several different clans working in tandem. There’s no music, either tense or cheerful, and the ninjas [[AmbiguouslyHuman clearly aren’t all human]], especially the ones with [[GlowingEyesOfDoom yellow eyes]] and glowing red fingernails.

** "Artistic Anarchy" involves a different yakuza gang involved in human trafficking. The episode ends with the leader, the quirky old man revealed to be the boss and he's taken to jail, his exit met with a [[GracefulLoser dignity]] and a feeling of sorrow from his underlings and wife. It's jarringly unfitting for a man who sold dozens of women into sexual slavery overseas, not to mention the other gang members aren't arrested.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: "Hellhounds for Hire" involves a yakuza gang trying to take over a town by cheating the residents at dice. While the gang is ObviouslyEvil, it's kind of hard to feel bad when all the residents know that they're cheating, and all they have to do to stop their take over is to NOT GAMBLE WITH THEM!

* FandomBerserkButton: "Hey guys, who would win in a fight, Mugen or Jin?" Cue intense arguments all around.

* HilariousInHindsight: In a world full of dangerous swordfighters, Fuu is... decidedly not one of them. A little over a year later, however, her [[Creator/AyakoKawasumi voice actor]] would go on to play [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight one of the most famous swordswomen in all of anime]].

** Sara: unfortunate AntiVillain or boring, overpowered VillainSue?

* CompleteMonster: Mukuro is the EvilCounterpart to the AntiHero [[SociopathicHero Mugen]]. A particularly bloodthirsty pirate, Mukuro is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first seen]] leading an attack on a ship for its gold, killing the sailors onboard and shoving a lit grenade into the mouth of a subdued man who was begging for mercy. Through flashbacks, it's revealed that Mukuro was the one who talked Mugen into piracy, and used him as muscle to kill the guards of a sugar shipment only to leave Mugen to die once he'd stolen the cargo. In the present day, we discover that Mukuro and his band slaughtered nearly an entire village, including the [[WouldHitAGirl women]] and [[WouldHurtAChild children]]. The only ones who were spared were the young men that could be used as muscle for his biggest heist yet: a raid on a government ship carrying 60,000 ryo in gold coins. He talks Mugen into joining up with him again, but it's another setup. Using his crew as cannon fodder to lure the government security onto the pirate ship, Mukuro then uses a mass of explosives in an attempt to kill everyone, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness his own crew included]], just so [[{{Greed}} he can keep the gold for himself]]. Mukuro also proves to care little for his "sister" Kohza, since he's spent his life controlling her, murdered her mother, and expresses an unreciprocated sexual interest in her. A {{sadist}} with a propensity for [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder betraying everyone he knows]] and [[LeaveNoSurvivors leaving no survivors]] in his attacks, Mukuro knows exactly what a bastard he is and [[CardCarryingVillain relishes the darkness within his soul]].

* FandomBerserkButton: "Hey Gaiz, who would win in a fight, Mugen or Jin?" Cue intense arguments all around.