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General Examples
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Afro and Justice are both enormous bait for this. Since it's a story about revenge, and it is only told from Afro's perspective, it gives a lot of interpretation over who the true villain is of the story. Afro wants to avenge his father's death, and leaves a path of destruction on his way to do that. Jutice is completely power hungry, but is using his power to bring order to an unruly world.
- This also stretches to Afro's father, the least focused on and developed character in the series despite being the source of Afro's motivation. It's implied that Justice kills him because his father refused to do anything with his authority and instead wanted to quietly retire.
- Designated Hero: The only thing that makes Afro even slightly heroic is that he's avenging his father's death. The only reason he gets any sympathy from the audience is that this is his story and so he gets the sympathetic point of view. The story itself plays with this trope due to Ninja Ninja's lines, and the contrast with Justice; I.E. the dissonance at the core of the trope is fuzzier than the standard.
- Designated Villain: Justice himself points out that he is only a villain from Afro's perspective due to the father killing, and that Afro has done worse than he himself. Thus, because this is Afro's revenge narrative, the story paints him as a villain.
- Friendly Fandoms: There are many fans of Afro Samurai and Samurai Champloo that get along pretty well, because of both shows' Japanese meets hip-hop asthetics and art style.
- Jerkass Woobie: Afro. Though he loses the "Woobie" part after committing too much evil deeds.
- Narm: The whole thing with the teddy bear head. Really, Kuma?
- Stoic Woobie: Afro. Though he commits so much atrocities towards those who didn't deserve it that the Woobie part becomes almost non-existent.
- Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The main character is a borderline sociopathic Villain Protagonist with little redeeming moral features who cares about nothing but killing the person who killed his father, resulting in him killing large amounts of people just to find his father's killer. The person who killed his father, Justice, while having well-meaning but not necessarily morally good intentions, is very morally gray. The only reason the audience only sympathizes with Afro, in spite of his goals being identical to those he fights, is because we saw his backstory, and didn't see theirs.
- The Woobie: Jinno. Life just doesn't seem to want to be kind to this guy. The closest he gets to a happy ending is dying for Afro. Which isn't much of a happy ending at all, depending on who you ask.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Because of all the innocents he has slaughtered, and all the lives he has ruined with his own actions, sympathizing with and rooting for Afro is easier said than done.
Manga-Only Examples
- Magnificent Bastard: Ninja Ninja is the "Collective Will of the Universe" guiding Afro to take up the mantle of saviour of the world. Overseeing Afro's journey, Ninja Ninja ruthlessly tests his mettle against thousands of opponents before leading him to the lair of his hated foe Justice. Forcing Afro to confront the reality of Justice having died long before he could take his revenge for his father, Ninja Ninja uses his loss of purpose to force him to take up Justice's mantle bringing the planet peace and prosperity.
- Moral Event Horizon: You may think that it doesn't get much worse than using a young boy as a human shield against a group of ninjas, until Afro uses the dead boy's crippled sister as a shield against a man toting a minigun.
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The series is often accused of stealing the whole "hip-hop meets samurai action" concept also found in Samurai Champloo. That is, until you tell them about the original 1999 doujinshi of the same name that served as the framework for the series. Furthermore, the "hip-hop meets Asian folklore" concept was around before either series existed.
Anime-Only Examples
- Jerkass Woobie: Sio. Really, you can't help but feel bad for her because of all the losses she's had to face. And her desire to get back at Afro is quite understandable, considering he's murdered everyone she loves, and it indirectly responsible for how she turned out.
- Magnificent Bastard:
- Justice is the former Number 2 headband-bearer and a man who wishes to use the Number 1 headband to change the world that he will rule as God himself. Challenging Afro's father years ago, Justice concealed his third arm so he might outwit and behead Afro's father, telling the traumatized boy to challenge him one day when he is ready. Converting the world as its new messiah in his philosophy of using "absolute power to bring absolute peace", Justice acts through proxies against Afro before attempting to trap him as well, declaring the nobility of his purpose before Afro cuts him down. Even in the end, this is not enough to stop Justice permanently, who appears with a mysterious new scheme at the end of Resurrection.
- Resurrection: Lady Sio is the younger sister of Jinnosuke who concocts a plan to get revenge on Afro. Enraged by the maiming of her beloved brother and the mass deaths caused by Afro, Sio steals the Number 1 headband and arranges for Afro's father to be resurrected as a battle android, intending to make Afro suffer before being killed. Manipulating the whole cast and even the betrayal of her subordinates to her advantage, Sio succeeds in temporarily having her android kill Afro, her plan ultimately only failing when Jinnosuke regains his humanity and tries to fight to save Afro.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Justice is supposed to be sympathetic because he wants to bring order to the world. However, what little we see of him has him acting like a Ax-Crazy Blood Knight who gleefully kills Afro's father in front of Afro, then mock Afro being upset by this. Not helping is that he causes the entire plot by giving Afro the Number 2 headband he needs, seemingly just to pour salt in the wound for Afro. However because of this, Justice needed to steal it back leading to a lot of avoidable death. Not helping is how his more noble traits are Informed Attributes we never get to see.
Game-Only Examples
- Ensemble Dark Horse: For a game-exclusive character that's only the first boss of the game, The Daimyo leaves quite a lasting impression with his Warrior Poet Death Seeker musings ("With each men you kill it becomes harder to sleep. And I am so very tired").
- Narm: One series of objectives from Revenge of Kuma are trying to be serious and grim... but the fact that they're objective pop-ups
◊ takes the wind out of their sails.- Objective: Confront the pain of failing to save your family
- No Problem with Licensed Games: The first Afro Samurai game is considered a decent or good use of the license for fans and most critics. The sequel on the other hand...
- The Problem with Licensed Games: Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma is an example of a horribly broken action game. It landed on many worst-of video game lists for 2015, such as Angry Joe's. The release of Volume One had such poor reception that the publisher took responsibility for it and refunded willing purchasers of the game. They also canceled the other two planned volumes. The Xbox One version was also never released.
- Sequelitis: Revenge of Kuma, for the reasons listed above.
