Movies - Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7

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	Movies - Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7

Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7 is a 2004 anime series based on Akira Kurosawa's classic 1954 movie The Seven Samurai
. The series was directed by Toshifumi Takizawa and produced by Shouji Murahama. There are 26 episodes, each costing around ¥32,500,000 ($300,000USD) to produce. FUNimation has acquired the dubbing rights for the North American release.

Story

Kanna is a friendly rice village with a problem. Every year during harvest, huge mechanical robots, known as the Nobuseri, come and steal away almost all of the rice that had been harvested that year. Not only that, the Nobuseri are becoming more demanding, now taking women and children in addition to rice.

The elder of Kanna has declared that to protect the village they must hire samurai. However, they have no money and thus must find samurai willing to protect the village for the price of all the rice that he/she can eat. He sends three members of the village out to the city to begin looking. And thus the journey begins...

Characters

Villagers

;Kirara: A Mikumari ("water maiden", something like the village priestess) from the village of Kanna. She decides to go to help find the samurai to bring back to her village. She possesses a special water in a necklace which allows Kirara to detect the flow of groundwater. In addition, the necklace glows when a pure-hearted samurai is near. When Katsushiro left Hotaruya after a heated argument with Kambei, she followed him. He kissed her before leaving and she was powerless to stop him. It is implied that she slapped Katsushiro in the Hotaruya. She became depressed about Katsushiro that even Yukino noticed when she went back to the Hotaruya.

;Komachi:Kirara's sister who follows along to see the city as well as help locate the samurai. She takes a liking to Kikuchiyo.

;Rikichi: A peasant from the village of Kanna who is the first to step up and agree to go look for samurai in the city. His wife was kidnapped in a previous raid from the bandits.

Rikichi is derived from the movie (although there are some differences to the anime version); Kirara and Komachi are original characters.

Samurai

All the samurai are derived from the original movie, and they retain their core personalities. Several changes have been made to each of them in order to accommodate the new environment the story is placed in.

;Kambei Shimada: The wisest of the seven samurai. He is the samurai who assumes the leader position and comes up with the plan(s) to defend the village. He's brave, strong, and has wisdom beyond his years that has come from the many battles he has fought in his life. However, all the battles he fought were for the losing side, and Kambei lives in the shadow of his painful and stigmatic past. He uses a stylized katana, which he gives to Katsushiro at the end of the series (on several occasions, however, he uses two swords at once).

;Katsushiro Okamoto: A young samurai who has never been in a true battle but believes in the honor of the samurai code. He wishes to become Kambei's student. He promises to protect Kirara no matter what. He likes Kirara and stole a kiss from her before leaving for Kanna Village. At the end of the series, he is granted Kambei's sword and leaves the village to find a war to fight in. He gains steadily in skill throughout the series; at the outset he cannot defeat a simple thug, but by the end he can defeat several Nobuseri at once.

;Gorobei Katayama: A skilled samurai who has made his living by entertaining people. Because of his skill in battle and acrobatic ability, (among them, the ability to pull arrows and dodge other attacks out of the air) Kambei makes him his "left hand man" in defending the village. He is killed in the Bandit's first attack on Kanna village after deflecting a large bullet.

;Shichiroji: Kambei's "right hand man." Kambei and Shichiroji fought in the Great War side by side and thus have become the best of friends. He temporarily leaves behind his successful post-war business, and with it, his "girlfriend", to join Kambei in battle once again. Unlike the other samurai, Shichiroji does not use a katana and prefers a spear-like weapon. He has a prosthetic left hand.

;Kikuchiyo: A robot, once a man, who paid to have his body forged with a mechanized exoskeleton, much like the Nobuseri. He is often looked upon as a clown or a bother; he gets angry easily and often causes trouble. He carries the biggest of the swords, which also acts as a chainsaw when need be. At first rejected by the other six, Kambei accepts Kikuchiyo into the fold when he reveals his reasoning for helping the villagers; that he too came from a family of farmers. He dies at the end of the series wielding a giant sword against an enormous ship; the friction of the blade melts his robotic body. Prior to his death, he had promised to marry Komachi.

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Movies - Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7

Story

Characters

Villagers

Samurai

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