Characters / Samurai Jack - Jack

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"Samurai Jack" ("The Prince")

"They call me... Jack."

^{Click here to see Jack in the first half of Season 5.}

Voiced by: Phil LaMarr, Jonathan Osser (child, "Jack in Egypt" episode), Keith Ferguson (Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion)

"It always seems bad at first. But then, I find a way."

Our hero, an unnamed samurai prince, and the son of the Japanese emperor who initially released (and then defeated) the demon Aku. But when Aku later returned for revenge and ravaged Japan, the prince escaped and spent his youth training in every country in the known world, in preparation for the final battle. With a magic sword in hand, he stepped forth to oppose the demon... but before the final blow was struck, Aku flung him far into the future. Taking the alias of "Jack" from some jive-talking locals, he must now Walk the Earth, seeking a way to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku... not that this will stop him from setting things right in this future as well.

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A-F

• 100% Heroism Rating: Aku's forces are the only ones who hate Jack. Everyone else adores and respects him for the good he's done; Episode XCVII is one big Continuity Cavalcade devoted to how much everyone Jack has ever helped and inspired see him as a beacon of hope in a world dominated by Aku. Even the bounty hunters at Da' Samurai's Bad Guy Bar who Jack defeated in the past respect Jack despite all of them being physically crippled by him in some way. To drive the point home, in the Grand Finale, Aku captures Jack and announces his plan to publicly execute him to make an example of him and crush everyone's hopes. The exact opposite happens; rather than be disheartened, everyone Jack has ever helped storms Aku's fortress en masse to rescue him.
• Abandoned Catchphrase: Downplayed. Jack still shouts "Aku!" when he encounters his Arch-Enemy, but it's not as much in the previous seasons.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His sword was forged by the gods, so of course it can cut through anything... except another enchanted sword.
  • However, the blade's ability to cut is limited by Jack's more-or-less human strength. Jack needed a powered gauntlet to slice through six of the seven Ultra-Robots, and when that ran out of power, the direct intervention of the three gods that created the sword in the first place.
• The Abyss Gazes Also: While fighting his Evil Counterpart in "Jack versus Mad Jack", their blades cross, and Jack sees his eyes reflected: they look just like Mad Jack's. Realizing that Mad Jack was born from his inner rage, Jack immediately stops fighting, causing the forest fires to die out. He calmly tells Mad Jack that he has lost, and the anger that created him is now gone, therefore Mad Jack no longer exists.
• Accidental Pervert: In episode 8 of season 5 when he unintentionally sees Ashi naked. He blushes, and uses his gi to cover her up so he doesn’t get distracted by her nudity.
• The Ace: He's seen learning more and more, and as the show progresses, he's always getting better at things.
• Action Hero: He's a trained warrior, this is a given.
• The Ageless: Apart from growing a beard, he hasn't aged at all during the 50-year-long Time Skip to Season 5, as a side-effect from traveling through time. Even Aku doesn't understand how his time travel magic accomplished that. But of course, Jack never wanted to stay in the future forever and he still feels like a tired old man.
• Agony of the Feet: "Jack's Sandals" deals with Jack having his wooden geta run over by a wild robot biker gang. He tries to teach them a lesson, but soon learns going into battle in one's bare feet is a no-no after encountering broken glass, a hot blast furnace exhaust, and stubbing his toes with each kick.
• All Abusers Are Male: Averted in terms of his own intent. When he killed one of the Daughters of Aku, he apparently felt with much guilt in doing so due to his moral code of not killing any actual living being, especially if it's for no reason at all, yet he still has to fight against every single one of those ladies in order to defend himself, though he also gave each of the living members a chance to change their moral paths. Thankfully, he made an atonement for his apparent guilt of killing Ashi's sisters by sparing her life after she was chastised from targeting him.
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: But this Asian knows all martial arts after spending his entire adolescent training with the best warriors from every major country in the known world of his time, picking up more fighting styles, technology, weapons, and animal taming techniques after being trapped in the future for 50 years.
• All-Loving Hero: In a sense. With the exception of Aku and his allies, there is almost nobody Jack doesn't care about, as he is always happy to give up whatever chances he has to return to the past to help someone out in need.
• Aloof Ally: Jack is one to most of the characters, including the Canine Archaeologists, the Woolies and even the Scotsman, despite the latter being his best friend.
• Amazon Chaser: The two women Jack's shown interest in, Ikra^note who was really Aku in disguise and Ashi, are both incredibly skilled and deadly warriors.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: He declares his love to Ashi just as she was being consumed by Aku's essence. She eventually broke out of it.
• Animal Motifs: Wolves, although it becomes more prominent in season 5. He meets an unnamed White Wolf who is similar to Jack in many ways.
• Appropriated Appellation: Calls himself Jack after some street kids refer to him as such. (They said it in a way to mean "pal" or "dude", but he didn't know that.) His real name has never been given in the series.
• Armor Is Useless: In Season 5, he is clad in Samurai armor and new gear. It gets shredded piece by piece during the first two episodes of the season. The first episode sees him lose an oni mask right off the bat and two daggers, but he manages to recover the rest of his armor that gets taken off during fighting. The second episode sees it irretrievably dismantled and his clothes both stripped away and flung off by force. He also has his helmet knocked off three times in a row.
  • This also applied to him in "The First Fight". He got some cool armor, but the beetle drones managed to destroy it.
• Art Evolution: In the pilot episodes, his head is very curved and slim. In the episodes to follow from the first season, his head becomes a lot wider and the curves become more angular. By the later seasons of the series, his head is almost square-shaped. However, in the final season, his design is slightly revamped, removing the outlines around his eyes and giving him a pronounced chin. His skin tone is also less yellowish (quietly pushing away from Asian racial stereotypes) and more of a realistic Oriental flesh tone.
• Artifact of Hope: His sword was literally forged from his father's capacity for good by a trio of Top Gods. It's indestructible, sharp enough to slice through steel, is incapable of harming anyone if used by a villain and is the only thing capable of killing Aku. In fact, the sword is the only thing Aku is afraid of, Jack nothing more than an insect he would have stepped on without it.
• Artistic License – History: Honestly the only things Jack has in common with historical samurai are that he's Japanese and can use a katana. Real Samurai were basically mercenaries hired by a Daimyo (a Feudal Lord, which Jack seriously outranks already as a Prince) for an extended period. They also wore armor.
• Asians Love Tea: Being a Japanese nobleman, Jack drinks green tea every chance he gets, despite living in a post-apocalyptic society. In the Adult Swim revival he also performs a tea ceremony while trying to regain his lost sword.
• Aside Glance: He's somewhat prone to this, on occasions when he is so perplexed that a simple confused stare wouldn't be enough.
• Assassin Outclassin': Aku has had a hit out on him for 50 years, and many bounty hunters, contract killers, and mercenaries have attempted to carry it out. Only one group of them, the Imakandi, ever actually defeated Jack, but they spared his life due to respect for their Worthy Opponent and cultural nobility; the rest are usually left in pieces. Stand out example is when Jack faced a team of the world's best bounty hunters who conspired near flawlessly to defeat him, and yet still curbstomped all of them before a drop of water could fall to the ground all because he managed to make a move that none of them expected.
• The Atoner: It's implied that his guilty conscience over killing 6/7 of the Daughters of Aku drives him to spare and protect their sole survivor (Ashi), despite how irrational that is (she's still trying to murder him, even after being rescued). Though it pays off after Ashi eventually snaps out of her brainwashing.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: He ends up standing atop a mountain of robot corpses after destroying them in "The First Fight".
• Back-to-Back Badasses:
  • He and the Scotsman ever since the first time the two started working together.
  • With the 5th Spartan King. Jack even trusts him with his sword just as the king trusts Jack to be his shield.
  • With Ashi in the fight against the green tiger men in "Episode XCIX". It overlaps with Ship Tease, because they keep making physical contact with each other.
• Badass Adorable: While he's not adorable in the strictest sense, he has his moments of vulnerability and heroism that qualify. Besides that, his adventures as a child, particularly "Young Jack in Africa", showed how much of a badass he was even as a cute kid.
• Badass Back: Just trying to attack him from the back will get you sliced in half.
  • Best shown in his 'fight' with Da' Samurai: Jack intentionally keeps his back to the guy most of the fight. He still completely stomps him into the ground without even trying.
• Badass Biker: In Season 5, with a killer Cool Bike that he uses to dismantle Aku's Mecha-Mooks. Sadly, it was wrecked by tripwire bomb set by the Daughters of Aku.
• Badass Boast: "I am the lost son of the land you have pillaged. I am here to reclaim it."
• Badass in Distress: He becomes this in "Episode CI". After the events of the penultimate "Episode C", we see that Aku has captured him and chained him to a wall in order to broadcast his execution to the whole world and break the world's hope.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: In "Jack and the Gangsters", he wears a very snazzy suit and hat when he teams up with the titular gangsters. Naturally, he's able to kick a lot of ass in it.
• Badass Long Robe: He is a samurai, so he always wears a long white robe.
• Badass Normal: Jack has fought all kinds of high-tech or supernatural villains with nothing but his skills and his divinely-forged blade. Needless to say, he makes Batman look like a plebian Red Shirt.
• Barbarian Long Hair: He always had long hair, but the fifth season replaces his Samurai Ponytail with an unkept mane. The gods remove it after they give him his sword back in "XCVIII".
• Bash Brothers: With The Scotsman in the first 4 seasons.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: As of Season 5, Jack has been stuck in the future for fifty years and no longer has any issues using a gun, grenades, and other futuristic weapons. This is because he lost his magic katana, so he's forced by necessity to use any weapon he can get his hands on.
• Battle Couple: He becomes one with Ashi in Season 5. They fall in love as they protect each other and fight enemies together.
• Battle Trophy: In Season 5 he collects weapons from defeated foes, though out of necessity rather than as a form of gloating.
• Beard of Sorrow: 50 years wandering the future with no success will do that to you.
• The Beastmaster: Jack has a kinship with animals and is quite good at training them into being steeds for terrains he can't conceivably walk over.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Despite his typically aggressive facial expression, he's really one of the nicest guys one would ever meet.
• Because Destiny Says So:
  • It's heavily implied that he will be able to go back to the past... eventually. But for some reason the Powers That Be have decreed it will be a very long time before that actually happens.
  • Confirmed by Season 5, which premiered in March 2017: it takes place 50 years after season 4 and culminates in Jack returning to a point seconds after being banished.
• The Berserker:
  • While Jack usually keeps his emotions in check, he has a couple of moments where he completely loses his temper, especially when his Inner-Self is in control of his negative emotions. Aku exploits this twice. First, in an episode when he created a dark version of the samurai in an attempt to finish Jack. Jack defeats Mad Jack by simply meditating. Second, when Aku destroyed the last time portal that will get Jack back to the past. Jack loses it and kills three sheep out of anger.
  • Messing with his belongings (his sandals, his gi, etc) is a good way to slowly piss off the Samurai.
• Berserk Button: It's not the fact that Ashi insulted Jack. It's the fact that she was praising Aku and calling him all types of nice things, which caused Jack to snap at her and rant about Aku's true wicked nature.
  • Do not fuck with his sandals. He'll hurt you.
• Beware the Nice Ones: HOLY SHIT SHOULD YOU EVER!!! He puts the comfort and life of any innocent being he meets before his own, but getting on his bad side is a death sentence.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He's usually reserved and quiet, but that doesn't mean he's a wimp. In fact, his few words make him more dangerous when he's threatened.
• Big Damn Kiss: With Ashi at the end of XCIX.
• Big Eater: In "Jack Under the Sea", Jack happily indulges in lots of sushi and seafood while the aliens look at him strangely. Though of course, given his lifestyle, he probably doesn't get the chance to eat tasty food often enough.
• Big Good: In Season 5. As the polar opposite of Aku, of course he is.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: They help to accentuate his scowl.
• Big "SHUT UP!": In episode 4 of season 5, Jack gets fed up with Ashi's rants about Aku being a benevolent deity. So he shouts "ENOUGH!" to get her silenced, then he rants about Aku's true nature.
• Blessed with Suck: It turns out that Aku's time travel spell gave Jack biological immortality. This means that Jack can still fight at his physical prime for (potentially) forever... not that he ever wanted to spend an eternity in a dystopic future anyways.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Well, it's oil instead of blood, but Jack regardless blatantly and commonly gets the same concept applied to him in his battles with a color change to be PG. As of Season 5 however, Jack plays this trope very, very straight, due to the series becoming Darker and Edgier and premiering on [adult swim]'s Toonami block.
• Break the Cutie: Chronologically, he witnessed his father kill several bandits trying to kill him, and one of the bandit's blood spattered on his face after his father cuts him in half from the waist. His father tells Jack the actions and decisions he makes will reflect on who he is. And then once Aku awakens after being sealed by his father, his home becomes ravaged by the demon, setting off several years until he fights him in his prime. He gets the worse of it in Season 5.
• Broken Ace: By Season 5 he has become this. Jack is the same skilled samurai he was in their first four seasons and has even Taken A Level In Badass by then. But he's also suffering from PTSD, has lost his sword, is in despair over not being able to return to the past, and has even been contemplating suicide.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: He develops this dynamic with Ashi after her Heel–Face Turn in Season 5. Ashi brings Jack back from the depths of despair and with her love and support, gives him the hope he needed to regain the will to fight on.
• Brought Down to Badass: His magic sword is his best, most deadly weapon and capable of cutting through pretty much anything and killing supernatural evils. Without it? He's still the World's Best Warrior and a One-Man Army. Best shown in Season 5 where he lost the sword during the time skip but still able to annihilate an army of beetle drones with less effort than he originally did and defeat a powerful bounty hunter.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: A more pragmatic example (especially given that he mostly uses his own katana whenever he's fighting against different opponents, including Aku). Throughout the show, Jack has often been showing a rather stoic facial expression even to the nicest people he met. In reality, however, he's more honorable than what it suggests, further proven by his less-than-common non-stoic expressions, which are also apparently genuine.
• Butt-Monkey: In more comedic episodes, Jack tends to suffer various humiliating events. Take the episodes "Jack Is Naked", "Jack's Sandals", and "Chicken Jack" for instance.
• Cannot Talk to Women: He clumsily says to Ashi after opting out of seppuku that he likes her new hairstyle and dress. He also acts awkward when Ashi gets her clothes eaten off.
• Catchphrase: Whenever the two have an encounter, expect Jack to yell out: "AKU!"
• Character Development: Several times during the show.
  • In the first few episodes of Season 1, though he was still calm and level-headed, he was also short-tempered, and quick to anger. In "Jack vs. Mad Jack", his anger grew consummately, and was seen losing his temper and morals. However, after fighting Mad Jack for some time, he realizes that it's just an illusion of his anger. Afterwards, Jack learned how to control his anger, he is seen being a lot less hot-headed, and is very slow to anger.
  • By Season 5, he looks and sounds very tired. 50 years of basically zero progress on his quest has obviously taken its toll on him.
  • Also by season 5, Jack has begun using more modern technology to help in battle, something he was adverse in the beginning, though he still can't figure it out.
  • In "Jack and the Warrior Woman", he falls for Aku's lies easily; when Aku tries the same gambit in "Jack and the Swamp Monster", he sees through it instantly and turns the tables.
• Celibate Hero: He's got at least four valid motives for avoiding romance: it would distract him from his quest, he's a danger magnet, he'd have to return to the past, and he's been burned before. That doesn't stop the fangirls, though. But as of "XCIX", he enters into a relationship with Ashi, thereby subverting the trope. Still though, he ends up being conflicted because of his newfound love for her.
• Cheerful Child: Despite witnessing his father taken and his home ravaged, the boy who would become Jack was shown to be rather happy and studious during his youth while traveling the world. This stands in stark contrast to his serious demeanor as an adult.
• The Chosen One: Revealed to the viewers by the Guardian, but not known to Jack. Though as of "XCVIII", he might be getting hints from the Gods — even if the Guardian's intended scenario never played out like it was supposed to.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: He does many astounding, even 'impossible' things, all as a result of his years of training. For example, he learns to "jump good" by training with the contents of a small avalanche as training weights.
• Child Prodigy: Implied. Flashback into Jack's childhood shows he was clever and capable of impressive strategies.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He might be able to get home faster if he ignored the suffering of those around him. Shoot, because this future might cease to be if he succeeds, no one would ever know. But, if he were able to ignore the suffering of those around him, he just wouldn't be Jack.
  • Averted in the first episode of Season 5, which goes to show how broken he's become. When he sees a village in danger, he simply turns away without looking back. It takes severe attacks from his conscience to get him to do so, and by the time he shows up, the village has already been destroyed.
  • This attitude returns in the fourth episode of Season 5, when Jack insists on saving Ashi despite her actively trying to kill him, and his own better judgement pointing out it's a horrible idea.
  • Season 5 did reveal he might have other reasons to stay on the straight and narrow; the one time he finally gave into his anger and killed three innocent lambs, his sword rejected him as its master and left the mortal world. Jack is only a hero BECAUSE he continuously saves as many lives as he possibly can.
• Clark Kent Outfit: His white robe conceals his impressive and muscular physique.
• Clothing Damage: Very frequently, he gets his white robe dirty or torn up from many battles. How he cleans, fixes, or replaces his robes is a mystery, though Divine Intervention might be at least partially responsible.
• The Coats Are Off: The Clothing Damage he suffers is usually a sign he's in for a serious fight, which he'll oblige by ripping part all of his robes off. Being Jack, you can probably expect the other combatants to get their ass handed to them soon.
  • Subverted Trope in "Jack versus Mad Jack", where his robe gets torn, but he keeps it on throughout the fight. It fits with him ending the fight instead by simply calming his anger and causing the hatred that Mad Jack was born of to no longer exist, rather than defeating him in combat.
• Combat Parkour: Jack is extremely agile, running and jumping all over the place during battle. He later improves his leaping skills in the aptly titled "Jack Learns to Jump Good".
• Combat Pragmatist: Seems to have become this by Season 5, which is in stark contrast to his Honor Before Reason tendencies in earlier seasons. He's ditched his robe for armor and has no problem using weapons such as guns, grenades, and tridents. This is no doubt a result of being trapped in a Bad Future for decades. And of course, there's the small matter that he's lost his sword.
  • It really shows during his second fight with the Daughters of Aku. He kills two of them with sneak attacks, forces them to fight him on a narrow log on the edge of a cliff, depriving them of their advantage in numbers, and at one point, during the middle of a fight, he simply grabs one of the daughters and throws her off a cliff.
• The Comically Serious: A good part of the series' humorous moments are how the odd situations he's thrown into are contrasted with his serious demeanour. He does have a sense of humor himself and gets some witty one-liners, but these moments are few and far between. This and his Deadpan Snarker tendencies are amped up in Season 5, where he's much more talkative. Even when there's no one else there.
• Compressed Hair: Don't be fooled by that tiny topknot. Once that pin's gone, you get some long, flowing locks that couldn't possibly fit into his tied-up hairstyle.
• Cool Helmet: Wore one in the pilot and another one in Season 5.
• Cool Sword: His sword is made of the magic that can hurt those who have evil in them.
• Costume Evolution: Inverted, Jack's appearance backslid from pure-hearted samurai to tormented ronin. in Season 5, and it seems like he scavenged battlefields obtaining his gear. For the most part, Jack has a much grittier and futuristic getup to reflect his shift in personality from hopeful to hopeless and how he lamentably embraced living in the future. Unsurprisingly, this is forcefully and even literally stripped away in the process of returning him back to the way he was.
• Cultured Badass: He's very well-mannered and would personally prefer to drink some tea, rather than constantly fight all the time. It makes sense given that he's a nobleman.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Witnessed his home being destroyed and taken over by Aku, including his father being kidnapped by the demon. He then spent the next decade training in order to prepare for his destined fight against the shapeshifting monster. He also witnessed his father and people in agonizing slavery before he went off to fight Aku.
• Dark Is Not Evil: In the first half of season 5, Jack is wearing a dark armor with horns and a mask with a very devilish look resembling a Japanese Oni. Also, in the promotional picture, Jack has a very menacing Kubrick Stare, all topped off with him being covered in blood. Of course, Jack still manages to be a rather heroic man depite his fatal flaws.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not that often but he does occasionally throw out some good one-liners.
  Scotsman's Wife (yelling very loudly): WELL HOW DO YOU PLAN ON GETTING ME OUT!
  Jack: I hope silently.

  Da' Samurai: Didn't you hear who I am!
  Jack: I believe everyone heard who you are.

  Ashi: Die! Die! Why won't you die? Scum! Aku will be triumphant! I will undo the evil that is you, samurai! I will kill you as long as I have breath in my body! I will strike you down! Long live the glory of Aku!
  Jack: You are very troubled and very confused.
• Death Seeker: Not yet, but as the 2nd episode of Season 5 makes clear, he's contemplated killing himself more than once, his ordeal having nearly pushed him over that brink.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Jack himself is a deconstruction of the Determinator. Ever since he was flung into the far future by Aku, Jack has made it his sworn mission to return to the past and undo Aku's tyranny before it ever began. Season 5, however, brutally demonstrates what happens when someone attempts the same goal for 50 years with zero success. With the loss of his sword and the destruction of all known time portals, Jack had fallen into a deep depression, reducing him to a shell simply going through the motions while being plagued by nightmares and hallucinations about his guilt. Also, as Inner Jack shows, he has contemplated suicide at some points. This all comes to a head in "Episode XCVI", where Jack believes he had caused some children to be killed. This finally pushes Jack over the edge and he follows The Omen to a place to commit seppuku. However, it is reconstructed in the next episode when Ashi reminds him of all the good he had done during his quest. Knowing his actions inspired hope, and most importantly, that the children he attempted to save in the previous episode were still alive, ultimately gives Jack the strength to fight back against the Omen and regain his Heroic Resolve.
  • Jack also deconstructs Chronic Hero Syndrome and Honor Before Reason. While Jack's desire to do good is admirable, part of the reason he hasn't been able to succeed in his quest to return to the past is because he always puts the needs of others before his own, even when it's not pragmatic. Also, because he's so well known for his heroic acts, the villains have managed to turn his desire to save others against him. The Ultra Robots went on a killing spree, slaughtering village after village knowing it would lure Jack to them. Scaramouche decimated a village to draw Jack to him, and the Dominator kidnapped a village full of children and used special microchips to sic them on Jack, knowing he would Never Hurt an Innocent.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Only this one moment in Jack vs Aku.
  Jack: I knew, that you knew, that I knew, that you knew that I knew you would cheat.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • He appears to have hit it by Season 5. Having wandered the future for fifty years without aging or getting any closer to finding a way home has visibly worn him down. As of the 2nd episode of Season 5, he's even contemplated committing seppuku at least once.
  • In XCVI he flat out tells Ashi that it's impossible to defeat Aku, showing just how bad it's gotten. He crosses another in that same episode when the children he tries to save seemingly die in front of him. He reacts with a Big "NO!", and now chooses to follow the armored horsemen from his nightmares to somewhere else.
    Jack: I've fought Aku for ages. I've seen countless innocents die. I've lived this nightmare for what seems like an eternity. There is no way to defeat him. There is no hope. No way out.
    • Subverted. After Ashi reveals the children did live and reminding him of all the good he's done (saving people, changing people for the better) he finally realizes he HAS made a difference.
• Determinator:
  • The above quote says it all. Aku will fall. No matter how many obstacles are in Jack's path, no matter how many enemies attempt to destroy him, no matter how many times he fails.
  • The Season 5 story arc deconstructs this. With the loss of his sword and the destruction of all known time portals, Jack had fallen into a deep depression, reducing him to a shell simply going through the motions while being plagued by nightmares about his guilt. Also, as Inner Jack shows, he has contemplated suicide at some points. This all comes to a head in "Episode XCVI", where Jack believes he had caused some children to be killed. This finally pushes Jack over the edge and he follows The Omen to a place to commit seppuku. However, it is reconstructed in the next episode when Ashi reminds him of all the good he had done during his quest. Knowing his actions inspired hope ultimately gives Jack the strength to fight back against the Omen and regain his Heroic Resolve.
• Did Not Get the Girl: After finally killing Aku after years of trying, he was about to marry Ashi until she ceased to exist due to being born from Aku's essence. Poor Jack. It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good, but with his mission completed, he could eventually move on.
  • The true ending of Battle Through Time retcons her death.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Jack keeps trying to use his holy sword to destroy Aku once and for all, and he's come very close to doing that many times, but he has still yet to succeed.
  • He finally accomplishes this in "Episode CI".
• Discard and Draw: Jack has his entire futuristic arsenal stripped from him just two episodes into Season 5 and spends the next few episodes struggling to get his hands on replacement weapons and clothing without losing them as well, until he finally snaps out of his funk and makes a triumphant return in his classic appearance.
• Disguised in Drag: In the episode "Jack Is Naked" when he wears a blonde wig, two apples in his shirt, and a dress.
• Doom Magnet: Jack is constantly under attack by Aku and his minions, leading to a lot of side casualties. Most notably, the Ultra-Robots went around destroying places at random in their search for Jack, and Scaramouch decimated an entire village just to lure Jack out into the open.
• Double Weapon: One of his Season 5 weapons is a retractable trident with an electrified rod on the other end.
• The Dreaded: To all the baddies and bounty hunters who know of him and aren't a Challenge Seeker, Jack is this. He's feared as the most dangerous man on Earth because of his skill.
• The Drifter: He doesn't stay in one place for long in his never-ending quest to return to the past and keep out of Aku's sight.
• Drink-Based Characterization: "Hot water please".
• Driven to Suicide: At the bottom of his Despair Event Horizon, he tries to commit Seppuku. Luckily, Ashi is able to snap him out of it in time.
• Drives Like Crazy:
  • In the episode "Jack Is Naked," he makes a failed attempt to operate a floating train shaped like a caterpillar. He ends up crashing the vehicle. Justified, as Jack almost certainly has no idea how to drive any machine by that point, much less the bizarre Alice in Wonderland-style vehicle.
  • In "Jack and the Flying Prince and Princess", Jack attempts to drive a getaway vehicle to get the titular Prince and Princess to their ship, but he ends up almost getting all of them killed. Princess Verbina bluntly asks him if he even knows how to drive at all, and Jack sheepishly replies that he prefers to walk. Verbina then takes over the driving and has Jack navigate.
  • Averted in season 5 when he's able to operate a motorcycle, having been stuck in the future long enough to learn how to drive.
• Dual Wielding: Jack uses two knives against Scaramouche.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Not as severe as most examples, but Season 5 Jack's design is noticeably more proportionate ^note (his head is constructed less like a vertical rectangle to show a prominently sculpted jaw) than his previous seasons' self, while still retaining the angular look. His eye outlines were also removed to appeal to the outline-less look of the art direction, and his skin tone is less yellow. This is greatly demonstrated whenever Season 1-4 Jack's design is adapted to Season 5's upgraded art style (in flashbacks or physical manifestations of Jack's conscious) where he can look off to some perceptive viewers. Also in Season 1, Jack tended to have goofier facial expressions that were downplayed in later seasons, such as squinting his eyes shut as hard as he could when fighting.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of suffering, being mocked, tormented and nearly killed numerous time, Episode CI ends with Jack finally returning to past, killing Aku, and saving all the people who died and suffered under Aku's tyranny. And even though it came at the cost of the first love of his life, and that the people he met in the future may or may never exist, he is at peace with their passing and will continue to fight to make sure that such a terrible future never comes to pass, and eventually love again.
  • Played even more straight in Battle Through Time where Ashi doesn't fade from existence, thus allowing her and Jack to marry each other and live together in peace.
• Easily Forgiven: While it's true that Jack was forced to kill the Daughters of Aku in self-defense, and they brought it on themselves, the Sole Survivor Ashi bears no resentment towards Jack for killing her sisters; instead blaming their evil mother for sending them on a pointless suicide mission.
• Empowered Badass Normal: When wielding his sword, as it is the only thing that can harm Aku.
  • Also, during the rematch against the Ultra-Robots. Their adamantium chassis meant that Jack's raw strength wasn't enough to cut them, even with the superior power of his sword. This problem was resolved when the robots' creator, Extor, granted Jack a power gauntlet which increased his physical strength enough to where he could slice through the robots. It broke before he could defeat the last one (a sword wielder), forcing Jack to call on the gods of righteousness to aid him.
  • The Season 5 premiere reveals that, due to the side-effects of time travel, Jack is now biologically immortal. It is unknown if he has retained this after finally slaying Aku and preventing his future from happening.
• Empathic Weapon: Season 5 reveals that his sword is this. It "left" him after Jack gave into his anger and sadness, which threw his balance off and made him no longer worthy of wielding it.
• Everything's Better with Samurai: He is a samurai, he is The Hero, and he kicks tons of ass.
• Evil Knockoff: Mad Jack, a being that was created from Jack's negative emotions.
• Experienced Protagonist: Jack has trained since childhood to defeat Aku and is now a master swordsman. His skill and experience has only grown during the 50 years he's been fighting in the future.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: As of Season 5, he's grown his hair out into a shaggy mane. Once he regains his sword, He's Back! to his original hairstyle.
• The Expy With No Name: While more indirect than most examples, Jack does share some elements of The Man With No Name such as being a lone warrior of few words, known only by their nickname, passes quietly through various places with no permanent residence, defeats the bad guy and then moves along. Phil LaMarr even described his voice for Jack as being a Japanese version of Clint Eastwood. Jack even fights two Western bounty hunters in one episode named after The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
• Fatal Flaw: Jack's greatest flaw is his occasional bouts of wrath.
  • In the episode "Jack vs Mad Jack", after spending most of the episode relentlessly hunted by bounty hunters, Jack's anger grows out of his control, something Aku readily takes advantage of by creating Mad Jack, a malevolent manifestation of all of Jack's rage and hate. After a prolonged battle, Jack ultimately defeats the dark doppelganger by simply controlling his anger.
  • Happens again in Season 5. Jack gives into blind, ravenous anger after being told there are no more time portals, and launches into a violent attack against three innocent sheep that Aku corrupted into giant demons. Because the sword can harm evil, it inflicts fatal wounds on the spot, but then the sheep revert back to normal... as corpses. Not only does this cause Jack to realize he's killed innocents for the first time, but the sword rejects him as its master and leaves the mortal realm because nobody of good character would do what he just did. Jack has to overcome his inner anger to get the sword back, excising him of his fatal flaw.
  • Another flaw of Jack's is that he can be too trusting of others too soon. This is shown best in the episodes "Jack and the Warrior Woman" and "Jack Under the Sea" in Season 1. In the former episode, he meets and trusts a woman named "Ikra", only for Ikra to be discovered to be Aku, despite the obvious signs of Ikra at least being evil. For the latter, he trusts a few aliens underwater too easily. They end up betraying him when they form a secret alliance with Aku. Aku later betrays the aliens, which prompts Jack to team up with them to save their city. Then again, in fairness, the aliens do realize their mistake and apologize to Jack. Jack does, however, realize the error of this later in the series.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: A resident of the distant past trapped in the distant future. He's managed to adapt pretty well, all things considered, though he does spend a lot of time looking confused. As of Season 5, he's fully adapted, now riding a Cool Bike and using guns.
• Fool for Love: Jack is often wary of entering romantic relationships because he doesn't want anything holding him back, and because of the trouble that follows (considering one incident which involved Aku deceiving him). When Ashi entered the picture, he eventually couldn't help falling in love with her the more he had her around. Nonetheless, he still understood the risk that this would carry, and didn't want to put her in danger.
• Force and Finesse: The Finesse to the Scotsman's Force. While both are Master Swordsmen, Jack is the faster, more skilled, and cunning of the two, while the Scotsman is stronger, tougher, and better with modern weaponry.
  • Reversed when it comes to Jack and Ashi. He has the edge in terms of strength, but she seems to be more agile.
• Foregone Conclusion: The ending of the episode "Jack and the Traveling Creatures" reveals that, while it will be at least a few years before then, Jack will eventually return to his own time. He does, just not the way it was foretold.
• Free-Range Children: Flashbacks of his childhood before Aku entered, showed that Jack was free to play and roam around the outskirts of his hometown despite being a prince. However, Aku destroying his home forced Jack to spend the rest of his childhood living like a nomad, moving from one country to another across the world.
• Friend to All Children: While he doesn't interact with children often, he'll help out any he comes across.
  • In "Jack is Naked", he sympathizes with the orphan girl who stole his gi, and retrieves some robot slug tusks so that she can sell them for money and be able to afford food.
  • In "Jack and the Haunted House", he tries to comfort and protect a frightened little girl whose house was being haunted by an evil spirit.
  • And in "Jack and the Baby", he rescues a baby from being eaten by ogres, and spends the rest of the episode getting the child back to her parents, while also doing everything he can to tend to the infant's needs and keep her from crying.
  • Believing one of his missions led to the death of an entire village of children was the Despair Event Horizon that got him to finally give up and decide to attempt seppuku. Learning that they survived was similarly the only bit of good news that convinced him to live on.
• Friend to All Living Things: Unless he absolutely needs to (such as hunting for food or fighting in self-defense), Jack generally shows animals enough respect that he doesn't harm them; usually horses, horse-like aliens, deer, the wolf, and a ladybug. The latter convinced Ashi that he's not the evil she was raised into thinking he was.
  • However, a flashback to 50 years ago showed that, while in a fit of extreme rage over Aku destroying the last time portal, Jack attacked and killed three cute little sheep that were transformed into vicious monsters by Aku. Jack is shocked by his mindlessly unnecessary killing of innocent wildlife, which led to him losing his sword out of shame.
  • However, disgusting and monstrous creatures are fair game, like the giant beast he got swallowed by, or the creatures inside said beast.
• Fundoshi: He wears one as underwear, going along with the rest of his traditional Japanese clothing. After suffering Clothing Damage, he'll often wear nothing but this.
• Future Badass: Shown briefly by the Guardian's time portal. Not that we needed any confirmation, but Season 5 shows that he's still awesome fifty years later.

G-L

• Gaining the Will to Kill: At the end of "Episode XCIII", he kills one of the Daughters of Aku, and spends a good portion of the next in a Heroic BSoD over having taken a human life. While recovering from his wounds, Jack recalls an incident as a child where his father killed some bandits who attacked their carriage, along with a speech from his father about how actions prove who we really are. He remembers that as a Samurai, he must kill if necessary. With this, Jack manages to pull himself together, killing all but one of the remaining Daughters, this time repeatedly warning them that their actions would lead to their end and following through when they refused to retreat. He's still quite bummed about doing so.
• Gatling Good: During the Time Skip he's added a laser gatling gun to his already gigantic variety of weapons.
• Genius Bruiser: Jack has demonstrated a strategic and planning mind that goes along with great skill and strength.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: Downplayed, especially given his rather limited academic experience. Nonetheless, Jack's own philosophy, as well as his numerous travels throughout the show (which can fall into the category of sociology), has him being fairly qualifiable as such.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Up to Season 5, everything he's seen has been black and white, and while he clearly believes humans have free will, he overestimates the power of such a concept. The idea that anyone could be influenced by outside forces (as the Daughters clearly have) is new to him, and until he actually manages to talk to Ashi, he's almost as bad at understanding how it works as she is.
• Good Is Not Dumb: While he's not being hindered by Chronic Hero Syndrome, he's shown he can be very clever.
• Good Is Not Soft: A sworn protector of the innocents and the biggest threat to all evil villains.
• Good Wears White: Jack is always shown wearing a pure white robe with a grey trim, which shows that he is a fundamentally good person out to stop the evil Aku.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Poor Jack. After trying to keep a low profile for 50 years after he lost his sword, he slowly lost his sanity due to not having much company.
• Gullible Lemmings: One of Jack's flaws is how gullible he can be.
  • When it comes to the women he meets (Ikra and Jill from the comics, to be precise), he ends up being easily fooled by them (mainly because he ignores or acts oblivious to the obvious signs of them at least being evil) and not realizing that they are Aku in disguise until it's too late.
  • Also in "Jack and the Gangsters", he actually believed that the criminals whom he had stolen a prized jewel for was really going to abide by his request to return the jewel to its rightful place. The criminals end up using the jewel to sell water for $500 an ounce.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Jack has had the same ponytail hairstyle from when he was a boy.
• Hand Cannon: His pistol in Season 5 is so powerful that it can one-shot Beetle Drones and easily blow off the head of a golem.
• Handicapped Badass: Jack deliberately blinds himself to fight against the Three Archers. And he wins.
• Happily Married: The Golden Ending of Battle Through Time indicates that, based on Ashi surviving erasure, Jack got to marry her.
• Has a Type: All three of the women he's shown interest in (Ikra, Jill, and Ashi) have either been Aku in disguise or Aku's daughter. Though of course, poor Jack had no knowledge of their relations to his arch-enemy until it was too late.
• Hat Damage: Whenever he wears one, it's usually the first thing to go.
• Heartbroken Badass: After finally killing Aku after years of trying, he was about to marry Ashi until she ceased to exist due to being born from Aku's essence, leaving him heartbroken as a result.
• Hero Ball: Pretty much anytime he came close to destroying Aku, he makes the mistake of giving a long dramatic pose and often a righteous talk down, almost always giving Aku time to find a means to escape. This error in fact allowed Aku to teleport him to the future in their first battle. It says something that after finally reaching the past after fifty years of attempts, he seemingly has learned from this mistake and just tears Aku to shreds without wasting a second of time.
• Heroic BSoD: The entire first half of Season 5 has Jack teetering between hopelessness and sheer stubbornness. With a little help, he recovers from it in "Episode XCVII". But he crashes back into this once more at the very end of "Episode C".
• Heroic Build: Besides being The Hero, Jack also has an impressive physique. It gets even more ripped in Season 5.
• Heroic Fatigue: At the start of Season 5, he's suffering badly from this. 50 years without any progress in his quest haven't been kind to him, and as a result he's become borderline suicidal and showing signs of PTSD.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: The Season 5 premiere shows him sinking heavily into this and doubting his purpose, only to claw himself back up and regain it.
• The Hero: He was designed to be a very simple example of the classic hero.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Because his enemy rules the entire world, he's public enemy number 1 (on top of there being a cult of assassins determined to kill him). Played with in that, other than that, he's generally gained the good graces of the people at large.
• He's Back!:
  • Finally regains his resolve to destroy Aku in "XCVII", when Ashi reminds him of all the good he's done and the hope he's spread, after which he defeats the Omen before resolving to reclaim the sword and destroy Aku once and for all.
  • In "Episode XCVIII", he calms his inner turmoil, and the gods reward him with his sword and his classic gi and topknot.
  • In "Episode CI", whilst about to be executed by Aku when the latter captures him, corrupts Ashi against him and confiscates his sword, Jack manages to break Ashi free of Aku's control and helped by her back to his own time after 50 years of overcoming everything Aku at his strongest could throw at him. Past Aku, before Jack finally kills him, even lampshades what the penultimate result of Jack's suffering through hell in the future amounted to:
    Aku: What?! You're back already?!
• Hidden Depths: In addition to his Omniglot understanding and comprehension of many languages, his Tranquil Fury at the Scotsman's infamous 20 second rant implies that he understands Scottish slang quite well.
• His Heart Will Go On: After Ashi is Ret Goned from existence after he kills Aku.
• Homeless Hero: He's an exiled former prince who became a nomadic warrior, wandering around the world just to fight evildoers and save innocents whenever possible.
• Honor Before Reason: Which makes sense, since honor pretty much defines what a samurai is all about. Of late, Jack realizes that doing what's honorable isn't always practical.
• Hope Bringer: He's given the oppressed masses someone to rally behind against Aku, with Season 5 establishing him as practically a messiah-like figure who's encouraged hope under Aku's reign. The Scotsman states outright that Jack has inspired numerous people to oppose Aku, and an entire episode is devoted to Ashi learning from the various people Jack has helped, from Da' Samurai to the former Portal Guardians, how much the Samurai impacted their lives.
• Horse Archer: The old Cartoon Network game Way of the Warrior shows him as a young boy learning to shoot arrows while mounted on horseback, taught by a Robin Hood-like mentor.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The "Huge Guy" to Ashi's "Tiny Girl", especially after he spared her life and officially teamed up with her.
• Humble Hero: He is generally soft-spoken and will often apologize to those who have offended him, in hopes of averting violence. (This is an action series, so you can guess how well it works.) He doesn't brag about his accomplishments and hardly ever brings up the fact that he's a prince.
• Iconic Outfit: Jack is always associated with his white robe.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When he kills almost all of the Daughters of Aku, he hallucinates several crows calling him a killer and a murderer. Jack screams that they chose their fate. He ends up taking this back later in the episode though, after discovering from his experience with Ashi that they were basically brainwashed into hating him and therefore how much choice they had in things is nebulous.
• Idiot Ball: While Jack is usually fairly smart, he has had a few moments of really stupid mistakes:
  • In "Jack and the Warrior Woman", he didn't recognize that his new friend "Ikra" was actually Aku, until it was too late. To elaborate on the hints: Ikra shared Aku's color scheme (black, green, and red), gave off many suspiciously sinister vibes, and in the end she even demonstrates shapeshifting powers. But Jack still didn't realize his errors until Ikra changed back into Aku. However it is implied that was the whole point; he COULD have realized it but he was so lonely and trusting he didn't. It also helps that it was the first time he'd interacted with Aku since their battle in the past.
  • Played for Laughs during the first third of "Jack Tales". Jack encounters a giant two-headed worm monster, and he easily buys into their claims of having magical wish-granting powers. After Jack solves their riddle, he allows himself to be devoured whole. He even cheerfully asks "When does the magic begin?!", before realizing that he's only sitting inside a monster's stomach.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: It's shown a few times that Jack doesn't really enjoy traveling alone, and he sometimes craves companionship.
  • Unfortunately, Aku exploits this by pretending to be a woman named "Ikra" in one episode, preying on Jack's loneliness and gullibility for one of his evil schemes.
  • Aku exploits him again in the comics, by pretending to be a woman named "Jill" simply to prank Jack for the hell of it.
  • Thankfully, Jack does make friends with the Scotsman, and he proves to be a very loyal ally and true companion.
  • This is even shown in Season 5, when he attempts to save and befriend Ashi (before she turned good), despite how much she hated his guts. Though she does eventually warm up to him.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: He tries this with Ashi when Aku takes control over her. When it doesn't seem to work, Jack doesn't dare to fight her anymore as he couldn't stand losing another loved one.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Being able slice through anything comes from the sword's magic, but he also blocks gunfire on a routine basis, even at close range.
• Impoverished Patrician: Jack was born and raised in a royal household, until Aku destroyed it and forced him into exile. Ever since then, he's lived a nomadic lifestyle, and he very rarely has any money on him, surviving with nothing but the clothes on his back and sword.
• Improbable Weapon User: In Season 5, after losing his entire arsenal, he can and will resort to using anything he can get his hands on as a weapon.
• In a Single Bound: An episode has Jack going through Training from Hell to massively boost his leg strength and match the incredible jumping skills of a tribe of monkeys. Jack also provides the quote from that episode for this trope.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Not Jack himself: one terrifying incident had him fighting The Corruption in his own body, and it was a mighty struggle. Jack's sword, however, fits the trope more closely: it can't even scratch the innocent or righteous in the hands of an evil being. If anything, it only had the effectiveness of a club in such situations. When Jack gave into his anger to kill innocent possessed rams and lost his righteous inner balance, it abandoned him until he could defeat that anger.
• Insistent Terminology: Briefly shown in XCIX. When he gives his robe to Ashi, he insists it's a gi.
• Interspecies Romance: With Ashi, who is a Half-Human Hybrid conceived by Aku.
• It Gets Easier: Jack is horrified when he makes his first human kill, one of the Daughters of Aku. But Jack soon comes to the realization that it was justified, and proceeds to kill off the girl's other sisters without batting an eye. Even then though, Jack feels no pleasure in doing this, and still feels a little guilty after killing all but one of the Daughters (Ashi).
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: After realizing his feelings for Ashi, he attempts to leave her so that he won't have to lose her to Aku too.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Not as a rule (enemies' katanas don't get any special treatment.) Jack's particular sword has a divine heritage and considerable backstory, though. Two other magic swords, a broadsword and what can best be described as a BFS, appear in the series, but Aku doesn't seem terribly worried about them. One belongs to The Scotsman and is an example of Like Cannot Cut Like, the other was created by a race of Yeti in the hopes of defeating Jack. They fail.
• Kill the God: His ultimate goal is to kill Aku, who is a God of Evil with power at a cosmic scale.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Jack is put in this position by Aku, who has complete control over Ashi, who begs him to kill her, but he can't do it.
• Killing in Self-Defense: What he did to the majority of the Daughters of Aku when they were targeting him (with Ashi being the only Sole Survivor from them), even when he felt remorseful in doing so (since they're all legitimate living beings)
• Knight Errant: He wanders the land, dispensing justice and hope.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He's hit this trope by Season 5. While he still fights Aku's forces, he's been completely and utterly broken. Having been trapped in the future for fifty years without aging or finding a way back home, he's essentially just a shell going through the motions, and even finds himself arguing with his own subconscious over how hopeless his situation has become; in Episode XCVI, he even tells Ashi point-blank that defeating Aku is impossible. This is visually reflected by his new outfit, a suit of dark-colored samurai armor that has replaced his original pristine white kimono. Fortunately Ashi helps him regain his faith.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: The jaw's half the length of his face, and the man it's attached to is decisively just indeed. Judging by the looks of Jack's father (see below), it seems to run in the family. Both the jaw and the justice things, that is. His updated Season 5 design makes it more pronounced, giving him an actual jawline rather than simply drawing his whole head as a rectangle.
• Leitmotif: Prior to Season 5, his theme is pretty much a remix of the opening credits to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
• Light Is Good: Besides wearing all white and being contrasted against dark enemies, he apparently also knows a very specialized form of ninjutsu that allows him to blend in with the light. His Evil Knockoff, naturally, replaces the white and darker grey in his robes with Red and Black and Evil All Over.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's not only incredibly strong, he's also extremely swift.
• Limited Wardrobe: Always appear to be wearing the same white gi - it's even unlimited in its limited-ness, because he keeps suffering Clothing Damage! He changes it up in Season 5, starting with heavy armor before having to scrounge for new armor and even a tossed together pimp suit before going back to the gi. In general, he just can't have anything beyond his gi.
  • Season 5 may also explain this trope in episode 7. When the gods deem Jack worthy of wielding the sword again, his gi is magically restored. This seems to imply that the gi, just like his father's armor, is a magical outfit bound to the sword. This would explain why he starts every episode with it even though it keeps getting destroyed: the sword's magic just regenerates it offscreen.
• Living Legend: He's a massive Hope Bringer to all those oppressed by Aku, to the point where a Japanese family he met referred to his adventures as his legend.
• Luminescent Blush: In XCIX, he goes bright pink when he sees Ashi naked after her grass clothes were eaten by the alien leeches.

M-S

• Made of Iron: A variant. It doesn't matter how intense the battle is; he always comes out of it alive, even from feats like falling from orbit, and without permanent damage - but he takes a lot of flesh wounds.
• Magnetic Hero: Aside from Aku and his minions, Jack's deeds have made him beloved by everyone, and he is now seen as a beacon of hope under Aku's tyranny. He is even revered in outer space, by the Tech Astronauts he helped escape Earth, by the Imakandi hunters Aku once set on him, and the prince and princess of an alien world who were stranded and held captive by Aku, preventing them from saving their homeworld with reinforcements. The latter even builds a statue of Jack on their world after their mission succeeds. This pays off when a horde of his allies come to rescue him when Aku has him prisoner.
• Manly Tears: Despite his demure nature, Jack sheds these two times throughout the series.
  • He sheds these in the episode "Jack Remembers the Past" when he finds his home land destroyed.
  • He also sheds these at the ending when Ashi is Ret-Gone at their wedding, and all she left was her dress.
• Martial Pacifist: Jack doesn't actually like getting into fights, but don't push him into one. If he sees no other way out, he might as well just kick your ass.
  Jack: (To the crowd at the Dome of Doom) "I will no longer do battle for your amusement. You will have to get your entertainment elsewhere!"
• Master of All: In the time skip he has genuinely become this, as in addition to the vast number of weapons he's already proficient in using, he's added modern firearms to his arsenal and is just as good with a gatling gun and pistol as with any of his other weapons. He's also extremely well versed in taming giant animals to ride on.
• Master Swordsman: While Jack is talented at many things, nothing compares to his swordsmanship, with which he can slice through bullets with ease.
• Maybe Ever After: Based on the ancient legend of the ladybug, with his mission to save the world Aku completed and the past corrected, there's still hope for another chance at love, even with Ashi gone.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Jack is approximately 75 years old at the start of season 5 while Ashi is in her late adolescence/early adulthood, but they fall for each other in XCIX. Though it kinda helps that he is The Ageless.
• Meaningful Name: While it is not his real name, per se, "Jack" is a Jack of All Trades regarding all the survival skills and fighting styles he's learned across various cultures.
• Messianic Archetype: Jack's tirelessly heroic resistance against Aku's tyranny has earned him a lot of admiration from all non-evil people on Earth, giving them hope for a better world.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Not only does Jack get his sword back in XCVIII, but due to being officially declared worthy by the gods, it's implied his sword is now more powerful with the strength and purity of Jack's own spirit added to that of his father's in the sword. By the finale, it does far more damage to Aku than it ever did, burning larger masses in just one stroke.
• Modest Royalty: Despite being the prince of ancient Japan, he prefers a simple white gi as his usual outfit. Even as a boy, he is never seen wearing anything more ornate. In Season 5, he does try to get pretty elaborate armor, but it doesn't take and gets shredded.
• Moment of Weakness: How he lost his sword, or rather, it left him. When Aku destroyed the last time portal after pulling Jack out of it, in his anger, he killed the 3 Aku-infected sheep that had moments before helped him. Which began a 50 year slump of a broken Jack.
• Morality Pet: Do not threaten him around Ashi after her Heel–Face Turn. You will live just long enough to regret it.
• Moses in the Bulrushes: As soon as Aku attacked their kingdom, his parents sent him out of the country on a twenty-year journey to master every form of combat on (the known parts of) Earth.
• Mr. Fanservice: Oh so much. He frequently suffers Clothing Damage and will sometimes end up in nothing but his Fundoshi, and his body is shown to be very well toned underneath his robes. He's even got some fangirls in-universe!
• Multi-Melee Master: He's proven skilled in every weapon he's picked up, though he rarely has cause to use anything but his sword. As of Season 5 he's started carrying multiple weapons, such as twin daggers and a polearm, to make up for the loss of his sword.
• The Musketeer: If it's a type of weapon that existed in his time, he can pick it up and use it expertly. The same goes for when he only has his bare hands. He was also taught a number of other skills, such as sailing, hunting, jumping good, and horse-riding, and is very good at all of them. While he doesn't use firearms in the original series, this changes in Season 5 due to having lived in the future long enough to become accustomed to them.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After spending fifty years trapped in the future only destroying robots, he then later kills one of the Daughters of Aku and subsequently discovers that she's human, he's absolutely horrified at having taken an actual living being.
  • Had this reaction when the Aku-infected sheep returned to normal after he in anger killed them.
• Named by Democracy: It's what the first people he talks to call him and they introduce him as Jack to their friends... then Jack is put up on his wanted posters...
• Nice Guy: Don't let his scowl fool you. While he does have a temper, you have to work really hard to set it off. Ordinarily he is humble, polite, kindly generous, and helps those in need with no expectation of reward.
• Nerves of Steel: Downplayed. While he can show shock, if he's in the middle of combat he'll settle into a determined expression a second afterwards.
• Ninja: He doesn't show it much, but he's not just a Samurai, he's well trained in ninjutsu and breaks it out when he needs to, such as against the Ninja in "Jack vs. the Ninja", and against the Daughters of Aku. This is Truth in Television, since in Real Life many samurai were also trained as ninja.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: The Noble to the Scotsman's Roguish. Jack is calm, clean-cut, and polite while the Scotsman is hot-tempered, rough-and-tumble, and obnoxious.
• No Name Given: "Jack" is an alias he took in the future, inspired by a group of urban youths who called him "Jack" the same way one would call someone "dude" or "pal". His real name has never been revealed.
• Not Quite Flight: He learns to "jump good" from a tribe of apes. After their training, he can jump so good that Aku mistakes it for flight.
• Not So Stoic: By Season 5, even though he still keeps a cold and controlled exterior, a subconscious Jack shows what he really thinks.
  Jack's subconscious: NO! I WON'T SPEND ETERNITY IN THIS FORSAKEN TIME!
• Odd Friendship: The Scotsman is pretty much his closest friend. They're about as different as they come.
• Official Couple: With Ashi as of "XCIX."
• Older Than He Looks: As of Season 5, he should be 75 ^note Rothchild III checks his age as 25 years old at the very least, but hasn't physically aged due to a side effect of traveling through time.
• Omniglot: Due to his travels around the world in his native era, Jack was taught by many different cultures, including the Chinese, Mongols, Africans, Egyptians, Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Norse, English, and more. As such, he likely knows many languages in addition to his native Japanese.
• One-Man Army: In the series premiere he takes down a whole army of killer robots by himself and wins, and in other episodes he routinely destroys multiple opponents at once.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Jack's real name is never mentioned in the series, not even by his parents! When Jack tells Ikra (who, as Aku, is almost the only being in the future that could know Jack's name) that he is called Jack, her expression is priceless. Of course, had she accidentally let slip his real name, she would have blown her cover right then and there.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jack generally favors weapons and equipment that existed during his time period, preferring to avoid more modern tools like guns and motorized vehicles. Season 5 has him using guns, bombs, and even a motorcycle. It's a pretty good indicator of just how BAD things have gotten since he lost his sword. An even bigger indicator is when he sees smoke of a burning village and refuses to go there twice before his guilt of fifty years of failure forces him back.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • In the episode "Jack is Naked, he dresses in a costume akin to Dorothy to keep the angry mob from catching up to him. The disguise fools everybody, until some kids rip his costume off.
  • In "Jack and the Rave", Jack disguised himself as one of the hypnotized dancers. While the other brainwashed dancers didn’t recognize him right away, DJ Stylbator immediately saw through Jack’s disguise and commanded the other hypnotized dancers to attack Jack.
• Papa Wolf: In the (initial) final episode of the series, "Jack and the Baby", he bonds with the titular baby after saving him from hungry monsters and finding his mother. When they meet those same monsters again, he personally ensures they won't harm the boy anymore.
• Perpetual Frowner: While he is known to smile from time to time, he's iconic for his "world famous scowl".
• Phrase Catcher: Aku usually labels him as a "Foolish Samurai!"
• Please Put Some Clothes On: His reaction to seeing Ashi naked in XCIX of Season 5. Since Ashi still has some issues with modesty, Jack gives her his robe to cover herself.
• Positive Friend Influence: Becomes this to Ashi, where she would eventually change for the better.
• Pragmatic Hero: Is very much capable of using almost anything, not just his katana, to fight against enemies.
• Prongs of Poseidon: One of his weapons as of Season 5.
• Protagonist Title: "Jack" isn't his real name, it's just an alias he picked up when he was sent to the future — but it is how he introduces himself and is universally identified.
• The Quiet One: Usually speaks only a few lines each episode; there are even a couple in which he appears, but has no dialogue at all.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ultimately, this is how Jack lost his sword. When he had the chance to jump in the last time portal, Aku drags him out and destroys it. Consumed by anger, he lashes out at Aku, who decided to turn the three small rams that had helped him up the mountain into monsters and Jack ends up killing them. Due to his My God, What Have I Done? moment, he drops his sword and it falls. By the time Jack realizes, the sword left him, and he had to be worthy again to gain it back.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: It's easy to forget that he's a prince, but he clearly plays this trope straight.
• Red Baron: "Samurai Jack" is his badass nickname by definition. Or even just "Jack" or "The Samurai". In certain episodes, there's also "Jackie the Blade", "Two Sandals the Trecherous" and "Brent".
  Bounty Hunter: Samurai Jack is the toughest SOB out there!
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The calm, stoic blue to the Scotman's boisterous red.
• Riddle for the Ages: Whatever his birth name is. According to "Jack Under the Sea", it starts with G; that's all we know.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Once Jack returns to the past and defeats Aku, the memories of all his adventures in the negated future remain intact due to being unstuck from time with Aku's time travel spell.
• Rōnin: Technically, Jack is one, as he is a samurai with no liege. He still holds himself to his father's code of honor and to bushido, though.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Jack is a prince, technically, but has lived in exile most of his life, due to Aku having destroyed his father's kingdom; he's devoted his life to defeating Aku and undoing the hellish future he's turned the world into.
• Same Character, But Different: In Season 5. Highly justified since there's a long Timeskip between Seasons 4 and 5 and Jack has taken several levels in cynic since then.
• Samurai Cowboy: In Season 5, he packs a pistol and is as good with it as he was with his katana.
• Samurai Shinobi: Despite being a Samurai (well, a Rōnin to be more specific), Jack is willing to use the same level of stealth and Pragmatic Heroism you would expect more from Ninja. This is touched upon more openly in "Episode XL: Jack vs. the Ninja", where Jack modifies his gi into a white ninja suit to blend into the light to fight a black-adorned ninja sent to kill him.
• Samurai Ponytail: Jack fits pretty clearly into the first variation of the trope with his noble attitude.
• Sanity Slippage: He's begun suffering from hallucinations in season 5, due to the guilt of having failed to stop Aku for decades.
• Saved From Their Own Honor: In mid-season 5, Jack attempts to commit Seppuku after believing that he killed a horde of mind-controlled alien children. Ashi races to find him in time to stop him, in the process meeting several people Jack helped in previous seasons and giving her the information to pull him out of his Despair Event Horizon.
• Screaming Warrior: He's typically fairly reserved, but can be a fierce screamer in the heat of battle. Especially when Aku is involved.
• Seen It All: By Season 5 he's become this trope. Earlier in the show, he was openly confused and perplexed by the new world around him, with the show playing him up as being a stranger in a strange land. In Season 5, he's attacked by a flamboyant Musical Assassin robot, and doesn't even bat an eye.
• Seppuku: Inner Jack suggests that he do this in Season 5, but he refuses. He does eventually attempt to carry it out, with the Omen serving as his kaishakunin. Ashi snaps him out of it.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: His primary goal is to find a way back to his own time so he can destroy Aku before the Bad Future comes to pass.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Decades of constant warfare against Aku's forces have left Jack becoming an extremely anxious, depressed, and paranoid Nervous Wreck. It's not helped at all by him being a firsthand witness of Aku's countless atrocities against innocent people, and now believes that he's ultimately powerless to stop all the evil and cruelty in the world when he loses his sword.
• Shirtless Scene: Not so much during the first season, increasingly as the show goes on, almost qualifies as a Walking Shirtless Scene at some points.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In the Time Skip between seasons 4 and 5, Jack ditches his iconic white gi for a dark set of samurai armor, reflecting the shift in mindset from idealistic to dour. When he reclaims his sword, he gets it back, symbolizing his newfound resolve.
• Significant Birth Date: As shown in "The Birth of Evil," he was born the very same day that his father originally defeated Aku.
• The Silent Bob: Jack rarely has much dialogue, and many episodes show him going through long scenes without talking at all. More often than not, his actions speak far louder. This is very much in contrast with his enemy; Aku never shuts up.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • In the episode "XLVI: Scotsman Saves Jack - Part 2," Jack takes the time to change his clothes back to his regular clothes when he regains his lost memories... while the Scotsman is about to get eaten by the monster the Sirens morphed into.
  • While it was understandable that Jack didn’t want to be embarrassed by Ashi’s nudity in episode 8 of season 5, he took the time to use his gi to cover her, rather than to concentrate on defeating Lazarus 92, which was a danger to his and Ashi’s lives.
• Slipknot Ponytail: Also a magnet for this after season one (not as much as the Clothing Damage example, but it does happen).
• Smug Smiler: In the episode "Jack vs Aku," Jack did a Batman Gambit that involved placing around fake swords to trick Aku. While Aku frantically looks for Jack's real sword, the latter has a smug smile on his face.
• Socially Awkward Hero: While Jack is not totally lacking in social skills, he's become a very shy and lonely man. This is the result of spending most of his life traveling alone to fight evil, being severely traumatized by his experiences, and barely remembering what a stable and peaceful lifestyle is like. As such, he can be rather awkward around friends, foes, and strangers alike.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Ashi. The penultimate episode reveals she's the literal daughter of Aku, Jack's Arch-Nemesis, and they are forced to fight when Aku takes control over her. Ashi manages to regain control of herself in the final episode, but after killing Aku, Ashi ceases to exist just as they were about to get married.
• The Stoic: Most of the time when he's traveling around and nothing noticeable or sight-interesting things going around him. Only two people have ever made him lose his temper; the Scotsman (by insulting him as a means to goad him into a fight) and Ashi (with her overzealous rants about how Aku is good and Jack is evil). That said, he's not completely emotionless and isn't above expressing his feelings.
• Strong and Skilled: He is a trained warrior with impressive strength. He is also one hell of The Ace to boot.
• Strong as They Need to Be: He can consistently fight armies of enemies, but his limit varies depending on what the plot requires, along what his sword can cut through. It can hurt Aku, when almost nothing else can, and bring down giant robots, but it can almost never cut through the weapon his enemy uses.
• Strong Family Resemblance: As an adult, Jack looks near identical to his father.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: He occasionally displays skills that he hasn't used before, like blind-fighting to battle the Three Blind Archers, using sunlight to conceal himself to fight the Ninja, and so forth. Such untapped skills are generally easy to justify (see Tyke Bomb.)
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Jack is reserved, stoic, and serious. He also is a genuine Nice Guy who goes out of his way to help those in need. He's also good with kids.
• Super-Reflexes: When Jack goes to the Three Blind Archers' tower, his first step causes them to deliver an arrow that lands between his forward foot's big toe and the one next to it while he spreads them out. He takes another step and proves that wasn't luck with reacting to spread his toes out on his other foot to avoid the next three arrows that are fired at him. This is just a taste of his lightning-quick reflexes - naturally, he's also capable of deflecting or slashing high-velocity projectiles traveling through the air.
• Super-Speed: He once moved so fast, that a team of six assassins (all ludicrously superhuman themselves, e.g. the Gentleman being able to throw knives at supersonic speeds) weren't even able to perceive his movements before being cut down. To put it another way, he defeated them all within the same time it took for a single drop of water to fall a few feet.
• Super-Strength: Jack is insanely strong. He regularly punches robots to death with his bare hands, sends people flying with his blows, and leaps dozens of meters into the air. This is best shown in the episode where he learns to 'jump good'; his training involves leaping hundreds of feet vertically with a 10+ ton boulder strapped to his back. And it works.
  • His fistfight with a (human form) Aku has them both shattering foot-thick stone pillars with their blows.
  • Shown more in Season 5. To wit, Ashi is strong enough to literally bulldoze her way through hundreds of armored 7-foot tall orcs and toss them like softballs. Yet she's so incredibly weak compared to Jack that he not only can subdue her in seconds without effort, he can take out her (physically nigh-identical) sister with one punch. As in, punching her once snaps her neck like a twig and kills her instantly.

T-Z

• Talking to Themself: In the 2nd episode of Season 5, he argues with his dark side, who's sick of all the fighting and all but demands that Jack just put an end to his miserable life already.
  Jack's subconscious: There's no way home! There's nothing to fight for! There's no more honor! Come to think of it, the only honorable thing to do is—
  Jack: Quiet!
  Jack's subconscious: NO! I WON'T SPEND ETERNITY IN THIS FORSAKEN TIME!!
  Jack: What do you want from me?
  Jack's subconscious: ...I want it to end. Aren't you tired? Wouldn't it be great to be free of all of this?
• The Teetotaler: Every time he enters a bar or a canteen, he orders tea or water (sometimes used to make tea).
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: It's come up in a couple of desperate situations.
• Time-Passage Beard: In Season 5, he sports a large and prominent beard, which is also the easiest way to show he's been wandering a long time since Season 4. Aku personally thinks it's stupid-looking rather than badass, though. It got cut a bit while avoiding the Daughters of Aku, and he fully loses it after the gods restore his sword and classic look to him.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • If we count the first episode, we see a little boy training to become a skilled warrior as he enters manhood.
  • At first, he couldn't jump up high enough to reach Aku. However, after meeting the Monkey Man, he teaches him how to jump that high, or as they say, jump good.
  • Throughout the series, Jack's experience with constantly fighting in Aku's Bad Future only makes him even better at kicking ass since he first arrived.
  • In the Battle Through Time game, which canonically takes place in Season 5, he actually fights the Imakandi head-on and delivers enough damage to them to force them to retreat, while he failed to even give them a significant scratch in the episode they starred in.
• Took a Level in Cynic: In Season 5, due to spending 50+ years unsuccessfully trying to escape a Bad Future.
  Jack: I've fought Aku for ages. I've seen countless innocents die. I've lived this nightmare for what seems like an eternity. There is no way to defeat him. There is no hope. No way out.
• Trademark Favorite Food: It's implied in "IX" of season 1 that Jack's favorite food is sushi. It also helps that he indulges on food akin to sushi throughout the series.
• Tragic Hero: Loneliness and loss are Jack's tragedy. Jack tells Ashi that he has lost everyone important and all that is left are their memories. In the finale, he gets back everyone he has lost previous, but Ashi disappears at their wedding because of the effects of defeating Aku in the past. Jack wanders in depression having lost Ashi but is reminded of a memory of her and is able to find peace in the end.
• Tragic Time Traveler: Just as he's ready to get rid of Aku once and for all, the demon sends him in the far future where he has already won and his will is rule. The rest of the series is spent with Jack trying to find a way back to the past to stop Aku from taking over the world. The final season makes this even worse by revealing not only that Aku has destroyed all time portals, but the Jack has become The Ageless, so he can't even die to escape the future he's trapped in.
• Trapped in the Past: Inverted. Aku rips open a portal in time and flings Jack into the future, where he must find a way to return to the past to undo the temporal damage done by Aku. Season 5 reveals Aku destroyed all the time portals, leaving Jack trapped in the future forever. Later on, Jack has decided to come to terms with this fact and move on, accepting that his loved ones from then are as good as dead.
• Tranquil Fury: Jack does this during his battles channeling whatever rage he has to efficiently take his enemies down.
• True Companions: Jack is determined to get back to his own time period as soon as he can, but he'll apparently make time when it comes to the Scotsman, such as when he agreed to a number of competitions with him for the privilege of rowing the boat off the island. The fact Jack humored his challenges without complaint and was uncharacteristically smug about it the entire time just goes to show how close he really is to him. Jack even grips his sword once the Scotsman starts arguing, knowing that a competition is brewing (although the challenges ironically did not involve swords).
  • After meeting for the first time in 50 years, they take a moment from the massive final battle against Aku to have a Man Hug and catch up.
• Tyke Bomb:
  • Non-evil example; Jack began training with numerous combat styles and many different warriors as a child, after he and his mother fled Aku's second attack on their homeland. Unlike most other examples, he was still brought up as a benevolent samurai with a code of ethics.
  • Flashbacks scattered thorough the series' run show that despite the rigorous training, Jack made many friends in the different countries he visited, played, and learned with the different people and cultures he met. Some people should take notes from this series on how to properly raise a One-Man Army.
• The Unreveal: Still wondering what Samurai Jack's real name is? The entire series, including the Grand Finale episode, never bothered to reveal it; nor has Genndy Tartakovsky stated anything about it.
• Unstoppable Rage: If you push Jack to this state of anger your best hope is to run, as nothing can stop him when he gives in to his wrath.
• Vocal Evolution: Phil LaMarr's vaguely Japanese accent for Jack starts off sounding like... well, an African-American man trying to do a Japanese accent before solidifying into something more distinct by the second season. Of course, the character never spoke much to begin with.
• Walking Armory: By Season 5, he is equipped with Samurai armor, armed with various weapons, such as an electric trident, Bowie knives, minigun, grenades, and a motorbike. He loses them all in the first two episodes of the season. It seems he can't have anything beyond his gi and katana, both of which he gets back in Episode XCVIII.
• Warrior Prince: The son of an Emperor, and trained in the arts of war.
• Waterfall Shower: Gets in on this from the leaking coolant of the crashed prison ship in "C." Ashi finds him in the middle of his shower and smiles to herself.
  • He did this in the season 2 episode "Jack is Naked" after a fight with a swamp monster, and it's one of the defining moments of his Mr. Fanservice status.
• Weak, but Skilled: He isn't very large or physically powerful, but he's one of the most badass warriors in the entire world because of his mastery of swordsmanship and martial arts from all over the world. One example is the episode where he meets the Scotsman's clan and is forced into a stone-throwing contest to test his worth. Unfamiliar with the sport, he did poorly in the first attempt, but after noting that his mocking opponent was much heavier than the stone, he used a martial arts move of redirecting balance and energy to fling him an equal distance.
• We Help the Helpless: During his arduous journey to find a way back in time to defeat the weakened Aku, Jack helps the weak and the unfortunate with no expectations in return, while battling villainy to protect others.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Has a sad mournful expression on his face when he encounters the remains of the Three Little Sheep and later, the Guardian.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Likely as a result of fighting them for so many years, Jack has developed this mindset in Season 5; he doesn't consider any of the robots that he's fought to be sentient beings, just "nuts and bolts" in his own words. He's MOSTLY right, as Aku usually sends swarms of mindless mooks at him who don't seem to have any capability of sentience, and those that do often seem to be Always Chaotic Evil. That being said, the existence of robots such as X9 show that this rule isn't universal, and probably shows just how bad Jack's experiences with robots has been to make him adopt this mindset. There is also the fact that Jack's sword, which is crafted by three different gods out of pure righteousness, cannot harm the innocent or truly good. So he doesn't have worry about accidentally killing an innocent life... ...unless the innocent been turned into something "evil" due to circumstances outside their control, under which circumstances the sword will still be able to work. This happens twice in Season 5, and both times Jack is horrified to find that he is capable of such a thing. Jack displays significantly more remorse over the killing of living things than robots, however, in the case of robots they are often not totally beyond repair, so perhaps it is justified in that respect.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Having eternal youth isn't so great when it's being spent by living indefinitely in Aku's futuristic hellhole.
• Widowed at the Wedding: In the final episode, just as he and Ashi are about to get married, Ashi vanishes from existence before she reaches the altar because without Aku, she would have never been born. Technically, it happened before they could even say their vows.
• The Wise Prince: He's actually a prince, and the day Aku appeared signaled the end of his sheltered childhood.
• World's Best Warrior: The number of enemies who can genuinely match him one-on-one can be listed on one hand. The Guardian is one of the few who is his superior one-on-one, but the time portal implies Jack is destined to one day surpass him and the Scotsman is thought to be his equal. If nothing else can be said, Aku has outright stated there doesn't exist a fighting style superior to his, thus why he made Mad Jack.
• Would Hit a Girl: As shown when fighting Josephine, Princess Mira, and the Daughters of Aku, Jack won't hesitate to attack women. His first human kill also happens to be female (though that one was accidental, because he thought she was a robot). Subverted with the Daughters of Aku when he did show some hesitation in killing them (in one scene, you can see him closing his eyes when he punches one of them in the face, snapping her neck, and killing her instantly). Jack was also really horrified by his actions, which may have been why he gave the remaining Daughters of Aku a chance of leaving unharmed. They refused, which led to Jack having to kill them for self-defense.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Even though he was at the brink of being killed by mind-controlled children, Jack still refuses to do any serious harm to them.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Throughout the seasons, Jack has been toyed with the chances to return to the past, and a few times, even kill Aku, only for something to ruin them. The worst one was the day he lost his sword, as he managed to enter the very last time portal in existence, only for Aku to pull him out of it.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Paraphrases the trope in Season 5 when Ashi keeps trying to kill him, even as they're both plummeting into the gullet of a titanic monster.

Alter-Egos

Mad Jack

"I am the son of Aku's magic. He has looked deep within you and has spawned me from your own burning hatred! I am your dark side, and I possess all the powers that you wield. And I have only one purpose in my existence: to DESTROY you!"

Weary of those worthless bounty hunters, Aku created a dark version of the samurai in an attempt to finish Jack. Mad Jack is defeated when Jack meditates to seal him off, since he existed only as a manifestation of Jack's negative emotions.

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• An Aesop: Jack does much better at containing his anger after the Mad Jack incident.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: As if being an evil Jerkass wasn't enough, he's also very arrogant and rude.
• Ax-Crazy: He has shown to be unhinged, violent, and rather psychotic, and even attacks Jack when the latter meditates to seal him off for good.
• The Berserker: He's a brutal, psychotic fighter.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Aku and the High Priestess for season 5. He has been unconsciously haunting Jack in the decades since he lost his sword and the last time portal was destroyed, driving him to acts of violence, making him lose all hope in his cause, and even nearly driving Jack to suicide. While he is in many respects a product of Aku's scheming, he ultimately caused as much harm to Jack by himself as Aku ever did. He effectively serves as the Disc-One Final Boss of season 5, and Jack cannot defeat or even fight Aku until he beats Mad Jack.
• The Bus Came Back: He "returns" in Season 5, having resurfaced within Jack's subconscious when Jack lost control of his hatred for Aku, who had destroyed the last known time portal. However, it's not clear that Jack's subconscious projection and Mad Jack are one and the same until his last appearance.
  • Before that, he was also brought back by Aku as the penultimate boss of "The Shadow of Aku".
• Dark Is Evil: Being a direct Evil Counterpart to the real Jack has him wearing a black gi with red accents on it (especially given that Aku is his creator).
• Determinator: He exists for only one reason, one purpose, one goal: To destroy the good in Jack.
• Enemy Within: How Jack had become virtually emotionless and cold to the point of simply abandoning hope and relinquishing himself to despair in Season 5? That'd be the result of this side of him, driving his actions in the interest of simply doing all he could to survive.
• Enemy Without:
  • He's a manifestation of Jack's negative emotions. Specifically, his anger.
  • Inverted during Season 5, wherein he acts as a hallucinogenic shoulder devil urging Jack to betray his character anywhere from simply acting in selfishness to committing suicide.
• Evil Counterpart: Take a guess. He even provides the trope image.
• Evil Me Scares Me: As Jack struggled with his dark half, he saw the reflection of his own eyes in his sword and to his horror saw they bore great resemblance. Finding his peaceful center, Jack stepped back and calmed himself, causing all of his negative emotions to fade away.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Since he was born of regular Jack losing his temper. Let's not forget that during their battle against each other, Mad Jack's own hair even got cut off by the real Jack.
• Hearing Voices: How he tries to steer Jack deeper into despair after resurfacing in his consciousness.
• Jerkass: He's rude, obnoxious, and possesses none of Jack's nobility or manners.
• Psychotic Smirk: Gives a rather unsettling smirk when he's about to attack Jack.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red eyes that represent his nature.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: He wears a dark version of Jack's robe with red trim. Oh, and he sports blood-red eyes that represent his Ax-Crazy nature.
• Samurai: Physically, at any rate, although he has none of the discipline of bushido.
• Shadow Archetype: Aku used a spell to create this duplicate of Jack, theorizing that Jack could not defeat himself in combat, which proved to be true. Jack prevailed by becoming peaceful and calm, proved his mastery over his own anger and drew the Shadow into himself.
  • This happens again in the final season as Jack is faced with his own insanity, a walking image of himself that tries to get Jack to kill himself and calls out all the things people should be doing for Jack. Ultimately, Jack has to stand up to him and remove his anger to destroy it.
• Sheathe Your Sword: How Jack ends up defeating him.
• Unstoppable Rage: He isn't called "Mad Jack" for nothing.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Jack saw the reflection of his own eyes in his sword, he backed out. Jack then claims the fight was over, stating that the negative emotions that formed Mad Jack were gone, meaning Mad Jack didn't exist. Refusing to let Jack look down on him, Mad Jack boasted that he was real and charged toward Jack to deliver the final blow, but Jack remained in a meditative position, not even bothering to defend. As he was to strike Jack down, Mad Jack was instantly in Jack's control, able to do nothing except scream in impotent fury and defeat before he was sealed off by Jack.
  • He has an even bigger one when Jack confronts him again in the spirit world, telling him that the reason he lost the sword in first place was because of him. Mad Jack shouts back that he's the reason they're both alive now, but Jack refutes that he did nothing but blind him with anger and frustration but he can see now. Before he disappears, Mad Jack screams, "YOU NEED ME!!!"
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that he "returns" in Season 5.

Chicken Jack

During the episode of the same name, a jerkass wizard transforms Samurai Jack into a chicken. Chicken Jack soon gets abducted by a greedy and amoral man named Cacciatore, who forces him to participate in an animal fighting arena.

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• Animorphism: Turned into a chicken.
• Forced Transformation: Jack gets cursed for the crime of accidentally bumping into a short-tempered sorcerer. Though eventually, Jack's back to normal after the same wizard turns Cacciatore into a chicken.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Jack survives a lot of injuries from the various creatures and monsters that he's forced to fight. It doesn't help that his asshole owner won't give him adequate food, water, or medical attention.
• Killer Rabbit: Because nobody would expect a small bird to be a deadly martial artist.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He beats down many creatures that are much bigger than he is.

Jack-Aku

A hideous hybrid that was born when Samurai Jack was corrupted by the essence of Aku. See Aku - Other Forms for more information.

---

Brent Worthington

"Uh, like, you must be confused. My name's Brent Worthington."

The result of Jack's initial run in with some sirens; Brent is a dumb surfer dude who works as a waiter on a ship servicing a variety of travelers, one of which (fortunately) turned out to be the Scotsman. He has no memory of the incident that led him to being a waiter, so the Scotsman has to drag him across the ocean to put his memory back together.

---

• Amnesiac Hero: Brent is the result of Jack's memory being wiped by a trio of Sirens. He insists that the Scotsman is confusing him for somebody else, and since he's forgotten all of his various skills he's absolutely useless in a fight.
• Distressed Dude: His memory loss results in a reversal of Jack's normal role, with him in need of saving and the Scotsman trying to help him.
• Just a Kid: It speaks volumes how sucky Brent is compared to Jack when people view him so lowly as to call him kid because of how infantile he behaves, when Jack never received that level of jabbing from anybody, being a mature and composed samurai.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: How Jack became Brent in the first place; the Sirens erased his mind when he threatened them, and then sent him off somewhere where he wouldn't cause them trouble.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: Along with already speaking like a Surfer Dude, he tends to use the word "like" a lot.
• The Load: Due to being unable to defend himself, or do anything else that's useful while the Scotsman protects him.
• Non-Action Guy: Absolutely worthless in a fight, much to the Scotsman's frustration.
  Brent: "Like, I don't believe in weapons."
• Omniglot: Can understand and translate for the Fish People he and the Scotsman come across.
• Totally Radical: He talks like a stereotypical Surfer Dude.

Inner Jack

^{Click here to see the primal form of Inner Jack.}

^{Click here to see the balanced form of Inner Jack.}

"It's time to end it, don't you think?"

An embodiment of Jack's despair and guilt over his failure to stop Aku. He shows up from time-to-time to convince Jack to end his quest or make him feel guilty about his actions. Depending on Jack's mental state, this fractured version of him might show himself. He can appear as the spitting image of Jack that doles out annoyance and biting sarcasm in one of his tamer moments, to a psychotically warped version of him that is anything but approachable and looks about ready to rip everything apart when he doesn't get his way. After Jack gains a sense of balance over his emotions, Inner Jack mellows into a reflection of Jack's former, weary self.

---

• Ax-Crazy: His second appearance has him act notably more unhinged and maniacal, due to the guilt Jack's feeling over killing one of the Daughters of Aku combined with his wound-induced delirium. His fourth appearance is even worse, as he turns into a berserker.
• Bishounen Line: Played with. He originally appears as a copy of Jack that is completely blue in color. He then gains fangs, wild eyes, and Off-Model animation after Jack kills a Daughter of Aku. As Jack decides to help Ashi, he gains the past robe colors of Jack and a normal skin tone. In his fourth appearance, however, he becomes a blood-red, monstrous thing that puts even his second form to shame. Once Jack finds peace within his mind, however, he simply appears as his former bearded self.
• Blood Lust: He tempts Jack with this as something to look forward to upon killing a human for the first time, trying to make him stop holding himself to principle and just cut loose with bloody mayhem already.
• Burning with Anger: He's been blinding Jack to the truth, on how to reclaim the sword, and return to the past. Even when Jack practically Lampshades this to him, all he can do is respond with more wrath.
• Climax Boss: Jack coming to terms with his anger and sorrow is represented by his defeat, finally allowing Jack to regain his sword.
• The Conscience: Finally, fulfills this role, when all of his positive and negative emotions and all his thoughts are balanced.
• The Corruption: After Aku destroyed the last (known) time portal, he takes over Jack's mind, writhing in fury, much to Aku's delight. When he can't take out his rage upon the demon god, he goes after the three (corrupted) little rams. When Jacks snaps out of it, he's horrified, and the sword abandons him.
• Deadpan Snarker: It's still Jack, so he does pull it off at times, usually when he realizes that Jack is about to do what he wants regardless of his words.
• Death by Irony: The fact that he's really Mad Jack in disguise makes his ultimate demise from the real Jack's dissatisfacton for the former surprisingly effective.
• Death Seeker: He wants nothing more than for Jack to end his life so that he may join his ancestors.
• Defiant to the End: YOOOU NEEEED MEEEE!!!
• Deranged Animation: While his first appearance has some hints of it, his second appearance outright has his body contorting in strange poses, his presence shown in Dutch Angles, and his face looking quite nightmarish as it wildly changes proportions between angles. He changes back to normal in his third appearance. His fourth appearance is this in full force.
• Despair Event Horizon: Personifies this within Jack's mind. With the sword gone and all time portals gone, he just wants Jack to kill himself so his pain will finally end.
  Inner Jack: Who cares anymore?! There's no way home! There's nothing to fight for!
• Driven to Suicide: He wants Jack to end his life so that his suffering will finally be put to an end.
• Enemy Within: He's the embodiment of Jack's current lack of anything resembling hope. As such, his end goal is to make his host Driven to Suicide as a way of ending the pain. He's also the key reason why Jack lost his sword, and after he's been destroyed, Jack regains his weapon.
• Fangs Are Evil: In his second appearance he has serrated teeth, gushing over how good it felt to kill another human instead of a robot and taunting Jack over the lack of difference. It's even worse in his fourth appearance.
• Foil: To Mad Jack, an Enemy Without who was created by Aku in order to kill Jack in battle. Inner Jack is an Enemy Within who behaves in a passive aggressive fashion and tries to drive Jack to suicide. And then it turns out they are the same being.
• Four Is Death:
  • He's red with livid anger here rather than blue with sorrow and guilt, and makes his second appearance self look tame in comparison. Not only that, but the revelation of what he is is finally shown, just before he dies, all of which happens in his fourth appearance.
  • He appears one more time after this, however. But the destructive rage is gone, and Inner Jack remains as a pacified conscience.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Jack purges the "Mad Jack" persona out of his mind, his subconscious is now much more calm and friendly.
• Helpful Hallucination:
  • Becomes this in his third appearance, when he informs Jack that the tied up Ashi is gone.
  • Ultimately, the hallucination does seem to want as much of the best as possible for his host given that he's the embodiment of repressed negative feelings. Or at least that's what he appears to be — Inner Jack is really just there to preserve his own existence and keep Jack from being happy. Though he gets better by "Episode C" having achieved balance.
• Hypocrite: He frequently guilt trips Jack and tries to get him to commit suicide just to end the suffering of being trapped in the future, but once Jack calls him out on it being his fault he lost his sword and him being the reason he can’t get it back he claims that he is the one who has kept Jack alive for all these years and Jack needs him.
• Imaginary Enemy: He often serves to either antagonize Jack, or fill his head with morally questionable advice.
• Imaginary Friend: When he's not being hostile to Jack. Especially after Jack purges the inner darkness from his mind.
• Irony: He's basically a newer form of Mad Jack, especially given how he's very much prone into expressing a significant amount of anger, but his ultimate demise heavily involves the actual Jack's own frustration towards the former.
• It's All About Me: While frequently sending Jack down guilt-trips for all the death and destruction, when it boils down to it, he only cares for his own survival. He advocates abandoning Ashi to her fate, pointing out Jack's own logic that she "chose" her own fate and has to live and die with the consequences.
• Knight of Cerebus: His first appearance has him try and convince Jack to end his life, setting the much darker tone of Season 5.
• Leitmotif: A series of psychotic musical screeches and groans to represent his unhinged nature.
• Light Is Not Good: Is unhinged and outright malevolent but as Jack's self-reflection he still wears white. This is particularly ironic, considering the fact that he's really Mad Jack reborn, who was originally shown wearing a black gi.
• Love Hurts: Balanced inner-Jack calmly warns Jack (who is too happy for his own good, and thus blinded to the imminent danger) to be careful. He asks Jack what he intends to do about this dilemma. The Samurai chooses a It's Not You, It's My Enemies course of action, but Ashi follows him into disaster.
• Never My Fault: Embodies Jack's negativity and self-harming urges and yet also claims to have been keeping Jack alive. Jack ultimately calls him out on it by telling him they lost the sword because he let himself be consumed by him and their rage, and they're not going to get it back until Jack gets rid of him by coming to peace with himself.
• No Indoor Voice: Consumed with frustration, he's nearly always screaming when things don't go his way. When he attains balance, he always speaks calmly.
• The Reveal: That he's Mad Jack isn't apparent until his final appearance.
• Rule of Symbolism: He's mostly blue, the color of sorrow and grief. In his last appearance, he turns red, to signify Jack's anger.
• Sanity Slippage: His warped appearance after Jack killed one of the Daughters reflects Jack's disoriented state of mind as the result of guilt, fear and blood loss. And, in general, it's been shown that Jack talking to himself has left him in a rather sorry mental state. Gets even worse with his fourth appearance, where he actually starts getting physical with Jack.
• Split Personality: He is a part of Jack's psyche that has given into despair and anger.
• Took a Level in Kindness: "Episode C" shows he still has a place in Jack's mind, but reflects a more healthy concern for his active self's desires and safety now that his anger and hatred is purged. His appearance taking the form of bearded Jack, a wiser experienced figure, highlights this change. This continues into Battle Through Time where, in the opening of the Prison Ship level, he comforts a despairing Jack after he killed Ashi (or so he thought), assuring him that all within Aku's pocket between time is not real and that he musn't let the demon break his spirit.
• Turns Red: Literally. In his last and worst appearance, he turns absolutely demonic and goes from being a tame and controlled blue to an angry and bloodthirsty red.
• Villainous Breakdown: As he realizes that his number's up, he drops his previously calm behavior and threatens Jack.
• Wild Card: Inner Jack can be anything from a sadistic tormentor to a pragmatic voice of reason, all depending on Jack's mood and situation — which makes sense, since he's just a reflection of Jack's suppressed emotions.

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