Let’s talk for a moment about anime and music. A few anime series are almost more famous for the music than the visuals. Yes, I can hear you saying “Cowboy Bebop,” and yes, I agree. Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts definitely brought awesomeness to that show–so much so that, hell yeah, I bought the soundtrack boxed set. “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” while not nearly as famous for the music as “Bebop,” had some beautiful pop, classical and chamber pieces to go along with giant EVAs ripping angels limb from bloody limb. “FLCL” had some crazy indie rock style courtesy of The Pillows.

“Samurai Champloo” beats ‘em all when it comes to mixing in the music, and it’s apparent at the opening credits when the vinyl starts spinnin’.

Shinichiro Watanabe’s hip-hop-chambara-road trip anime comes to us in a 4-DVD set collecting all 26 episodes, filled with vicious fights set to scratchy block rockin’ beats and poignant drama backed by chilled down-tempo trip-hop. In “Champloo” we’re introduced to an odd trio of companions. Fuu, a sweet but bumbling waitress, saves the lives of two battle-drunk swordsmen: the cerebral, centered Jin and the frothing wild child Mugen. In return for their rescue, she requests their help in order to find “the samurai who smells of sunflowers.”

Mugen and Jin’s hilariously competitive “friendship” always threatens to boil over into a fight while Fuu is always keeping them from killing each other–when she’s not getting the three of them into constant trouble. Well, okay, the other two excel at finding trouble, too. So off they go on a road trip across Edo-period Japan, and what a Japan it is. I guarantee you haven’t seen it quite like this. During their travels they enter an eating contest with disastrous results, face down warrior priests who dress as tengu and devote themselves to a “magical herb” (think Cheech and Chong) and challenge the pompous crew of an pre-Perry American trading vessel to the “new” sport of baseball. We see samurai who rap and beatbox, samurai sporting Adidas stripes and what appear to be Oakley shades, and one with an Elvis haircut. Mugen himself appears to be breakdancing when he fights.

It’s just one great mashup of culture, fashion and music–who cares about historical accuracy?

Okay, time to pray: I pray they never make a live-action remake of this anime. There’s just no way to equal the exaggerated slapstick, violence or flat-out weirdness the way it’s captured here. Sometimes sweet and funny, sometimes grisly and violent and always set to head-nodding nu-jazz hip-hop, “Champloo” stands as a truly absorbing series. The pacing of the series is brilliant, the compositions are beautiful and the characters are elegantly drawn.

Man, I wish they would do a feature-length film with these guys. I miss them. Okay, wait, prayer change: no live-action remake, just a big juicy “Champloo” anime movie. Amen.