The fifth season of Samurai Jack is the final season of the animated series. This season follows Jack on a journey that concludes his story. It premiered on the Toonami programming block of Adult Swim on March 11, 2017 and concluded its run on May 20, 2017. The announcement of the season came in December 2015, eleven years since the series was originally concluded on Cartoon Network. Genndy Tartakovsky, the series' creator, returned as a director, writer, and storyboarder for this season.
Voice Cast
Phil LaMarr – Samurai Jack, Host, Frog
Greg Baldwin – Aku, Triseraquin
Mako Iwamatsu – Past Aku
Grey Griffin – The High Priestess, Flora, Olivia
Sab Shimono – The Emperor
Lauren Tom – The Empress
Tom Kenny – Scaramouche, Chritchellite
Kari Wahlgren – Ami, Aki
Chris Parnell – Mud Alien, Scientist
Tara Strong – Ashi, Avi, Vision
Keone Young – Bandit, Monk
Corey Burton – Crows
John DiMaggio – Scotsman
Aaron LaPlante – Dominator, The Omen, Odin
Kevin Michael Richardson – Woolie, Demongo
Keegan-Michael Key – Da' Samurai
Rob Paulsen – Rothchild
Daran Norris – Orc Army, Ra, Rama, Spartok, Max
Billy West – Walrus Merchant, Tiger Men
Jeff Glen Bennett – Monkey Man
Story
Fifty years have passed, but I do not age. Time has lost its effect on me. Yet the suffering continues. Aku's grasp chokes the past, present, and future. Hope is lost. Got to get back—back to the past. Samurai Jack.
— Jack, in the opening sequence
The story takes place fifty years after Aku cast Jack into the future, although Jack himself hasn't aged at all as a side effect of time travel. Aku has destroyed all the time portals in existence, but he is deeply distressed over the prospect of battling Jack forever and has stopped pursuing him directly. Jacks previous actions have inspired many to oppose Aku's tyranny, among them being an elderly Scotsman, who is organizing an uprising to finally bring an end to the demon. Unknown to Aku, Jack has lost his sword, and he is troubled by hallucinations of his deceased family, his former self, and the victims of Aku, almost to the point of suicide. Now a wandering warrior with little purpose, a now bearded Jack uses a suit of armor and futuristic weapons and vehicles to fight the forces of Aku.
A set of septuplet girls, the "Daughters of Aku", are born into a cult of Aku worshipers and raised as assassins with the sole purpose of killing Jack. When they come of age, the Daughters of Aku find and overwhelm Jack, destroying his equipment in the process, but he manages to kill all the Daughters but one, Ashi, who he spares out of remorse upon learning of her upbringing.
Accompanying Jack on his journey, Ashi comes to see Aku as evil, and helps Jack through his emotional and spiritual journey, talking him out of commiting suicide and helping him reclaim his lost sword. The two eventually become romantically involved as they journey to defeat Aku. Aku is eventually informed by one of his assassins that Jack lost his sword and confronts him, not knowing Jack has recovered it in the interim. Before leaving, Aku senses that Ashi has part of him inside her, and possesses her body to attack Jack. Jack refuses to kill Ashi, and lays down his sword in defeat.
Aku takes Jack prisoner and prepares to kill him, but the people Jack helped all over the planet rally to his defense. When Jack tells Ashi that he loves her, she regains control of her mind and helps Jack regain his sword. Realizing she possesses Aku's powers, she opens a time portal to return Jack and herself to the moment Aku sent Jack to the future. more specifically, ten seconds afterwards. Weakened from their first fight, Aku is unable to defend himself or flee and is finally killed by Jack, saving his homeland and family.
With peace restored, he prepares to marry Ashi, but on her way to the altar she suddenly collapses, and Jack rushes to her side. She tells him that she realizes that since Aku is now dead, she would never had been born in the future, and she fades away, erased from existence. Saddened, Jack travels despondently to the countryside, but his spirits rise upon seeing a ladybug, which lands on his hand. It reminds him of the good times he and Ashi spent together. He lets the ladybug go free and contently looks upon his homeland, having returned to everlasting harmony and tranquility, under a sakura tree.
Episode Summaries (FULL Spoilers)
53 1 "XCII"
Fifty years have passed since Jack arrived in the future; his sword is lost, he has given up hope of returning to his time and he is tormented by hallucinations of his parents, his kingdom, and a mysterious armored figure on horseback. Jack, now using futuristic weapons and armor, rescues a mother and her two children from several bug robots, and wanders the land on a motorcycle. Scaramouche—a fast-talking musical assassin robot styled after the late Sammy Davis Jr.[14]—has destroyed a village and killed all of its people to get Jack's attention. Jack delays in arriving to the village, but eventually defeats Scaramouche. Meanwhile, seven young girls are raised and trained from birth by an Aku-worshiping cult led by the High Priestess to become the Daughters of Aku, a team of assassins with the sole purpose of killing Jack.
54 2 "XCIII"
Aku has grown tired of pursuing Jack and is starting to give up hope of ever defeating him, especially since he has stopped aging. Elsewhere, the Daughters of Aku overwhelm and disarm Jack; while hiding from them, he hallucinates an argument with his younger self about the point of keeping on living and fighting. He flees to a nearby temple ruin, pursued by the Daughters. One of them stabs him in the side as he kills her, and he discovers the Daughters are human, not robots as he assumed. Jack uses Scaramouche's tuning fork-like dagger to make the temple walls explode, and escapes into a river flowing past it. The episode's climax is an homage to the musical composition "The Ecstasy of Gold".
55 3 "XCIV"
Jack floats downriver and takes shelter in a cave, while the six surviving Daughters of Aku track him. He hallucinates an argument with himself over whether he can bring himself to kill all the Daughters if necessary as he had never before killed a human. A wounded wolf joins Jack in the cave, and they both recuperate from their injuries. Jack recalls an incident from his childhood when his family was accosted by assassins, where his father gave the assassins a choice: leave, or "face your destiny". They attacked, and were killed by Jack's father. As the Daughters of Aku close in on Jack, he gives them the same choice, echoing his father's words. When they stay, he quickly kills three and lures the others onto a branch hanging over an abyss. One by one Jack drops them into the abyss, but before he can return to solid ground, the branch breaks and he too falls into the abyss.
56 4 "XCV"
Jack awakens and finds one of the Daughters of Aku lying bloodied in the snow. He is attacked by one of the Daughters, Ashi, but he quickly subdues her and binds her with the chain from her own chain-sickle. They are both suddenly swallowed by an enormous creature. As they fall, Ashi again attacks Jack, but he saves her from the deadly fall into the creature. Jack hallucinates an argument with himself over saving Ashi or leaving her to die. He protects her and carries her with him as he makes his way out, despite her barrage of threats and ongoing attempts to kill him. They eventually make it out of the creature and into a body of water, where Jack saves Ashi from drowning and carries her to a small island. She prepares to attack him again, but relents and drops her sickle upon seeing Jack gently release a ladybug that landed on his hand, in contrast to the High Priestess, who had crushed a ladybug for not being "a part of Aku's order".
57 5 "XCVI"
The Scotsman, now elderly and wheelchair-bound, leads an attack on Aku's tower. Aku easily obliterates two of the three assembled armies. The Scotsman stalls Aku to allow his army, consisting of his daughters, to retreat. He is killed, but returns to life as a specter, and instructs his daughters to regroup, find Jack and destroy Aku. Elsewhere, Ashi has a troubling vision of the High Priestess, who is disgusted and disappointed at Ashi's insubordination. Ashi asks Jack to prove his claims of Aku's evil nature. They journey to several places destroyed by Aku, and eventually come upon a razed village whose children are forced to attack them through a mind-control device. As Ashi destroys the mind-control device, Jack is horrified to see the children collapse, believing them to be dead. The mysterious figure on horseback appears, and Jack willingly follows the figure into the fog. Ashi arrives as the children start coming to, and finds that Jack is gone.
58 6 "XCVII"
As Ashi searches for Jack, she comes across many grateful people that Jack had helped in the past. Ashi finds Jack in a graveyard surrounded by the spirits of great warriors. The horseman that has been haunting Jack, the Omen, announces that Jack must face the consequences of his failure or be dishonored. Jack prepares to commit seppuku, while the Omen attacks Ashi to keep her from interfering. She pleads to Jack not to lose hope and tells him of all the lives he saved, including her own and even the children from the previous episode. Jack confronts and defeats the specter, then tells Ashi it's time to find his sword. Meanwhile, Scaramouche, who was reduced to a head after his defeat by Jack, sets out to inform Aku that Jack lost his sword.
59 7 "XCVIII"
Jack recounts to Ashi the circumstances surrounding the loss of his sword. He fought Aku atop a mountain at the last time portal in existence when Aku destroyed the portal. Angrily, Jack fought and killed three innocent goats transformed into monsters by Aku. Traumatized after killing living creatures, Jack dropped his mystical sword which fell into a deep pit. In the present, Jack and Ashi return to the mountain, but they cannot find the sword. Jack realizes that the sword abandoned him because of his consuming anger. As Jack meditates to determine its whereabouts, Ashi keeps watch over him. She slaughters an army of soldiers trying to kill him, and foils a sneak attack by the High Priestess, killing her with an arrow. Jack's meditations take him on an astral journey to an old monk, who tells him after a tea ceremony that he has lost his sense of spiritual balance. Relinquishing his anger, Jack regains that balance and is transported to a heavenly realm where the gods Ra, Rama and Odin give him his sword, samurai gi, and restore his appearance from the last four seasons. After he returns to the material world, he and Ashi set out to confront Aku.
60 8 "XCIX"
A spaceship is knocked off course by an asteroid and crashes on Earth. Elsewhere, Jack and Ashi travel together and board a giant beast that carries passengers across the desert. The other passengers attack them, so the two escape and continue traveling on foot. They get caught in a sandstorm and find shelter in the crashed spaceship. They encounter thousands of leech-like creatures that band together as a creature named Lazarus and attack them. They escape, and come upon a weapon designed specifically to counter the creature, however they do not know how to operate it. Jack and Ashi fight the creatures and try to activate the weapon, without success; as they are almost completely engulfed by the creatures Jack manages to activate the device and it electrocutes the creatures. After Jack and Ashi recuperate, there is a smash cut of the two passionately kissing as Dean Martin's "Everybody Loves Somebody" starts playing. The song continues to play over the end credits.
61 9 "C"
Ashi bonds with Jack as he tells her of his life before Aku. During the night, Jack ventures off alone, and by day happens upon the location where he unsuccessfully fought the Guardian of a time portal Jack was destined to use. He finds the portal destroyed as well as the Guardian's broken red glasses, confirming Aku's claim that he destroyed them all. Ashi catches up to Jack, who explains he left her behind out of fear of losing her to Aku as he did many others of his loved ones. Ashi reassures Jack that together, they will defeat Aku. At that moment Aku appears with Scaramouche, who has finally informed Aku about Jack losing his sword. Upon seeing Jack does have his sword, Aku destroys Scaramouche and decides to leave before sensing his own power inside of Ashi. Confused, Aku recalls visiting the Daughters of Aku and leaving part of himself in a goblet for them, and assumes the High Priestess must have drank it and given birth to her seven children, making Ashi his biological daughter. Noticing Jack's affection for her, Aku possesses and transforms Ashi, and forces her to fight Jack. Jack tells her to resist, but she is unable to do so. When Jack wounds Ashi, she briefly comes back to her senses and desperately begs Jack to kill her. Unwilling to do so, Jack drops to his knees and lays down his sword, which Aku then holds up triumphantly.
62 10 "CI"
Aku imprisons Jack in his fortress and begins to broadcast the samurai's capture to the entire world. After the villain ponders on how exactly he is going to destroy Jack, many of the closest allies and good friends Jack has made over the years come to battle Aku and rescue Jack. Jack faces off against the possessed Ashi and manages to free her of Aku's possession by telling her that he loves her. Being half-demon, Ashi then discovers that she's inherited Aku's powers, and uses them to send herself and Jack back to the past to the moment right after Aku had sent him into the future. Jack finally destroys Aku for good, rescuing his family and preventing the tyrant's rule over the future, which effectively rewrites the timeline. On the day of Jack and Ashi's wedding ceremony, Ashi suddenly collapses and fades out of existence, as Aku's destruction in the past has prevented Ashi from ever being born in the future. Some time later, a despondent Jack wanders a misty wood alone, but gains hope for the future when he sees a ladybug land on his hand, reminding him of his time with Ashi. He lets the ladybug go free and stands under a full blooming sakura tree, looking out as the mists disperse to reveal his now peacefully harmonious realm.
The Verdict:
As you may know, I already covered the premiere here, so I'm going to cover the bulk of the remaining episodes while focusing a lot of this review on the arching theme for this "season".I thought the backstory and build-up to Jack facing off against the Daughters of Aku was very well done with a nice symbolic throwback to the classic days that this series is known for, especially with the wounded animal being forced to slaughter those for his own survival. Genndy Tartakovsky has never shied away from powerful usage of symbolism and he definitely doesn't skip a beat here. I'm sure that long-time fans will catch the subtle nods towards previous benchmarks from this series, such as Jack's debut in the first episode is a homage to his confrontation with the Spider Drones from the premiere movie that kicked off this series, the influences from Jack's confrontation with the eight Assassins and the contrasting white/black color balances from his battle with the Black Ninja, and the minions of Set during Jack's Egyptian adventure. I enjoyed the backstory and conflict of interest with Jack debating on whether or not to kill the Daughters of Aku when he found out that they were human. That kinda threw me off a bit when the series did pit Jack against mortal opponents in the past. Not everything that he faced in the original 4 seasons weren't "demons" or mere machines. Hell, there was an entire episode devoted to the face that there was human/mortal assassins after his very life. So this whole premise of Jack having a moral dilemma about having to kill/strike down mortal opponents was a little lost on me.
That being said, they made Ashii's redemption story a bit too obvious. She was only one of the Daughters of Aku that showed any hint of goodness from their upbringing and flashbacks from their training. I felt these episodes telegraphed that a bit too hard and took the wind out of the sails on that revelation. I was thinking that Ashii would end up becoming Jack's successor in the future timeline after her redemption storyline played, but the narrative shoehorned her into a love interest for Jack. One of the biggest gripes from the original series was in the first season where Akra was setup as a love interest for Jack in one of the earlier episodes of this series, only to be made out to be another Jack ploy. That was the main reason I wasn't surprised when Ashii was made into a pawn to stand in Jack's way when he finally confronted Aku once and for all. But I'm getting ahead a bit here... Before we go into that confrontation into detail, I want to discuss Ashii's "transformation" a bit more in detail.
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| I have to agree with Scaramouche on that one. |
Ashii found herself inspired by Jack's devotion to do good and his sacrifices to save others and cleansed herself - physically and mentally - of her hatred of him. At the same time, she didn't abandon her skills that made her such a formidable opponent for the Samurai in the first place. Ashii versus the hordes of Aku stood out as establishing her as Jack's equal - I felt that episode was her equivalent of Jack's iconic battle against the Spider drones that stands out as one of the series' best episodes - even to this day. That's why I was holding onto my hope that she would end up being Jack's successor of sorts instead of falling into a love interest trope.
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| Something that fans were asking by the end of Season 4... |
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| Jack always finds a way. |
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| The fan-fictions and fans shipping them together online went NUTS when this happened live when this episode premiered... |
While we're at it, let's discuss the ending in detail. Jack's spirit is broken after he could not bring himself to kill Ashii that stands in his way of defeating Aku - Ashii has been consumed by Aku's darkness and serves him loyally as his new lieutenant. Aku holds Jack hostage within his lair with the sword outside of his reach, but ALL of Jack's allies come to his aid and stage an all-out assault on Aku - including the Scotsman (who was killed by Aku in a previous episode but manages to continue to fight on as a ghost) and his hundreds of daughters, Mr. "Jump Good" and his gang of monkeys, the gentleman dogs from the Spider drone two-parter, the Archers, the Woolies, and even the Atlantians to name a few. Hell, even the robots from the giant mecha episode even came to help Jack with their giant robotic Samurai. All of these cameos were a treat to see, especially Jack reuniting with the Scotsman and turning down his proposal to marry one of his daughters, but ultimately, Jack's allies didn't make much of a lasting impact in this battle. It came down to Jack helping Ashii overcome Aku's darkness with their love for each other and regaining his sword. That whole revelation about Ashii having Aku's powers as a result was rather stupid AND careless of Aku, but it instantly rushed this confrontation to the moment that we've all been waiting for since the premiere of this series - Jack returning back to the past and destroying Aku once and for all.
What transpired afterwards was best described by folks on social media as the "Gurren Lagann" ending, whereas viewers were expiring the happily ever after ending where Ashii and Jack were set to get married in front of Jack's family, mentors, and peers in his own time as the world returned to peace now that Aku was gone, only for that moment to be robbed from Jack as Ashii disappeared before his very eyes. Much like Simon's love, Ashii failed to exist after dispatching the major villain (in this case, Aku... in hers, the Anti-Spirals), leaving Jack to mourn her loss in the closing moments of the show. In his time of mourning, Jack sees a ladybug and he is reminded of Ashii and the happier times of his journey as we fade to black.
This is where fans have been split on their reception of the series' ending here. At first glance, I was on the fence about it but after having a week to think it over and rewatching the marathon as part of Memorial Day weekend on the Toonami block tonight, I feel like this was a copout. Genndy Tartakovsky made us wait for eleven years for an ending that most people guessed that would happen and never really answered a lot of the questions that were left unanswered, nor issues that were left unresolved. Shades' purpose never was truly revealed, nor was Demongo's revival along with what happened with Jack's allies in the future now that Aku was deposed of. I know people were more happy to see Jack and Ashii getting married and Jack being reunited with his family and mentors in his own time was rewarding enough for the perils that his adventure had put him through, but it ultimately felt so rushed and abrupt. I'm not going to give the creator a pass for time and make excuses that they could have extended this finale out with another episode to wrap things up in an epilogue of sorts, but it just comes down to lazy writing wrapping this up.
I felt that the first portion of this journey up to where Jack got his sword back was done masterfully, but everything after that felt like Cliff Notes to a bigger and better written story. It reminds me how Inuyasha: The Final Act was rushed along to hit all of the major points of the manga before setting Inuyasha and his allies to their final confrontation with Naraku. It's the same thing here, where I feel like viewers were shafted for this rushed narrative in favor of just getting it out there for wrapping up the story to an ending. At least Inuyasha's ending is satisfying to an extent, but viewers were robbed of the addition content and events that transpired that were omitted and skipped over from the manga.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
Eleven years is a long time to be away from something and to be dragged back into the fold to complete something you thought you would never have the opportunity to finish. That being said, after seeing this from start to finish, I'm kinda leery about wanting Tartakovsky cooking up a proper ending for Sym-Biotic Titan next.Whether you liked the original or just here for the ride for the first time, Samurai Jack Season 5 is worth the ride, despite being an emotional roller coaster in its closing moments. Some people will absolutely love it, others will absolutely hate it, but we can all agree that Samurai Jack will always have a place in history as one of finest examples of American animation.
Jack's back, but I couldn't help but wonder was this a journey worth revisiting when it was all said and done. As much as I would love to see a revival/continuation to Sym-Biotic Titan in a similar fashion, I'm unsure if I would want to see Genndy Tartakovsky return to another one of his previous works if its going to end in another lackluster effort in the long haul. Then again, at least this didn't turn out as bad as those last few seasons of Dexter's Laboratory or the Powerpuff Girls reboot.
Despite how I feel about how this ultimately went down, I have say one thing to Genndy Tartakovsky and Cartoon Network as they didn't have to do anything to resolve and finish Samurai Jack's journey. Not many CN Originals get a chance to go out on their own terms, but at least we got to see Jack's quest come to an end. With that, I only have to say this...
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