An extremely powerful samurai with an afro, hell bent on revenge, accompanied by a companion voiced by Samuel L Jackson himself, what's not to like. Story is a pretty straight forward revenge tale with some past mistakes and connections thrown in the mix. Great art style/graphics and often awesome gory/brutal action. Soundtrack is pretty good too, hip hop and whatnot, reminded me of Samurai Champloo.Samuel L Jackson voice acting was the best, typical nigga style with lots of humor. 7.5/10

This is a revenge series set to a hip-hop soundtrack.Afro, as a young boy, sees his father slain by his fathers best friend. This "friend" named "Justice" tells Afro to come seek revenge when he's worthy.1> The head-bands > the two head-bands. the number one head-band means the guy that wears it is "god" - the only one that can challenge him is the one that wears the number two head-band >>> the only thing about that is whoever wears the number two head-band can be challenged by anybody.2> This isn't a cut'n'dry series, i.e. it doesn't go from A to B to C Afro sees his father killed when he's only a boy and so has to work up to the same level as his fathers killer. It jumps from Afro the boy (A) to Afro the man (C) and fills in the rest (B) on the way.3> This is only really viewable as a series > don't try and soldier through the whole thing at once. You won't appreciate it.I've been told by some (not all) of my friends that this anime tries to be too cool to actually be cool... I think the first season delivers a killer first punch that unfortunately is not followed through in the second season.In summation... Watch the first season for definite, the second season is buyer beware.

Afro Samurai is the story of a swordsman seeking vengeance for his murdered father. Haven't seen that before. In order to achieve this goal, he must defeat the number one swordsman in the world that stole the title from his dead dad. The funny thing is that this Number 1 uses two guns to fight, and yet he is the number one "swordsman." Go figure. The Number 1 and Number 2 swordsmen are labeled by these special bands saying that they're number one and number two, and as you might have guessed, the Afro is number two, and EVERYONE with a weapon wants a piece, whether or not that weapon is a sword. I can't tell what source this show ripped off more: Ninja Scroll with its "everyone wants you dead" premise and ninja sidekick or Samurai Champloo with its attempt to immerse hip-hop culture with Japanese swordsmen using the "black samurai" gimmick that mildly offended me. Great animation and action, but overall, not a good show.

In a sci-fi feudal japan world there's 2 titles for the strongest, Number 2 & Number 1. When you're #2, you're only semi-strongest, when you're #1 you're on the top of success. One day a black boy experienced the sight of his dad(the original #1) being killed by Justice(a corpse gun slinger) who gained the title of #1. Several years later that same boy now holds the #2 title. And seeks for vengeance over his father's death by reclaiming the number 1 title.Afro Samurai is different from the other samurai anime in so many ways. Including the idea of having a black samurai instead of an Asian samurai as the main character. As well the use of hip hop for the background music. And it's one of the fewest anime to include this kind of theme.For a mini-series, it's already considered a cult anime to many Anime fans and non-anime fans alike. The dub for it is one of a kind with THE Samual L. Jackson as the voice of Afro Samurai and everyone's favorite Ninja Ninja. The action is very intense and gory at the same time. In other words it's not an anime for those who have weak stomaches.Besides that it does have an interesting plot to it. And feels more like watching a movie rather than watching TV episodes. It's available on DVD in both edit and uncut form(which is suppose to be longer and more violent than the TV viewing).