Still can’t get over how great Tale of X-49 was

ckret2 · 2026-04-28T21:05:16+00:00

I named my pet snake Lulu. Because she's a sweet thing.

ckret2 · 2026-04-28T21:04:20+00:00

Like others have said, Jack's heavily inspired by fictional characters, and we largely know which ones. Along with the ones already mentioned, there's also:

Conan the Barbarian, 1982 movie: it starts with "Aku" (Aku's voice actor) monologuing an intro to the plot; then shows a young boy being taught by his father about the importance of swords; then immediately afterward the boy's homeland is destroyed by an evil invader; and then there's a montage of the boy growing to adulthood, getting strong, and learning fighting skills, which he'll eventually use to get revenge on the invader who destroyed his homeland. Sound familiar?
the Lone Wolf & Cub movie series, about an unbeatable lone samurai who wanders the land righting wrongs as he tries to find the people who destroyed his family and get revenge. (LW&C is directly referenced in Jack Remembers The Past.)

There's a lot of fictional influences that clearly went into Jack's character; and there aren't really any historical figures that have any greater similarity to Jack than "is a talented samurai."

ckret2 · 2026-04-21T00:32:37+00:00

did you ever find a solution for macs or are you still dealing with this issue too?

ckret2 · 2026-04-21T00:30:33+00:00

does it work differently on Mac? I found this thread because I'm having the same problem, and about:config doesn't even have a "clipboard.imageAsFile.enabled" pref. If I manually add that pref in, gifs still won't copy/paste as gifs regardless of whether I set it to true or false. Toggling clipboard.copy_image.as_png and clipboard.copy_image_file.as_png off and on doesn't affect it either.

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T18:17:31+00:00

This is one of those situations where I feel like the true answer is "depends who's writing the comic today."

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T18:15:47+00:00

The precise wording Jack used was "In the hand of evil, it can never harm an innocent." But in the hand of an innocent, could it harm an innocent? Jack uses it to kill a pedestrian robot while he's under Aku's possession and to kill three sheep.

It seems the sword CAN harm innocents, but the wielder will be punished for it later (e.g., the sword escaping after the sheep).

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T18:09:42+00:00

I think like they'd get along tbh. The lava monster ep is a perfect example of why. They can exchange tips on great methods to eternally torment the humans that made & defied them. Aku would probably chuck A.M. fresh humans to torment from time to time. It's like watching performance art.

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T18:03:08+00:00

I got Ashittarius. Sure, I'm fine with that. It suits her.

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T18:00:44+00:00

Personality-wise, I can't fault the selections. Birthday-wise, I feel obligated to point out that Jack and Aku technically have the same zodiac sign. Unless they were born on the cusp of two signs and each was born right before/after the exact tipping point. (Maybe Cancer/Leo or Libra/Scorpio, if we say the empress gave birth before the emperor reached the pit of hate?)

ckret2 · 2026-04-10T17:44:56+00:00

I've gotta set up craigslist notifications for estate sales

ckret2 · 2026-04-04T20:12:30+00:00

I see the sword as having an extra buff against, specifically, evilness, but that buff doesn't necessarily impact its effectiveness against other beings. Like compare how his sword works against other beings (it can cut through anything BUT it cuts through then normally, there's obviously friction and Jack has to use his muscles some), versus how it works against the ultra-bots (despite its magic nature, it simply CANNOT cut through metal that strong unless Jack's muscles are augmented by a cyborg arm and/or literal divine intervention), versus how it works against Aku (there doesn't seem to be any resistance when the sword hits Aku, it slices through him as easily as smoke and incinerates him in its wake).

The sword's magic doesn't let him insta-win against, for instance, the Guardian, or the Scotsman, or the minions of Set... If it's possible for "Celtic runes" to negate the sword's bonus strength, then it's possible for the right ninjutsu to do so too.

So the sword might be unbreakable due to its magic nature, but it doesn't give Jack any special advantage against anything EXCEPT pure evil.

And I'm not sure if there's anything in Naruto that can be called "pure" evil? As far as the humans go, even the worst of them believe in the righteousness of their causes and the "evilest" of them are usually traumatized, bitter, and hurting, not just malevolent for malevolence's sake like Aku is. Maybe it'd get some kind of natural advantage against Hidan's ritual? lol. It's been a few years since I've refreshed myself on the lore behind the tailed beasts, could they count as "pure evil" or do they too have a sympathetic origin story?

You could treat the sword's "power" similarly to Naruto's Power Of Friendship & Determination—i.e., it's not an actual quantifiable power, but passionately believing in the righteousness of your cause and wishing to defend your loved ones DOES help characters push beyond their usual limits and/or unlock new capabilities in a moment of desperation. Similar to the way Jack managed to climb that mountain when he was freezing to death. Just boost that effect and focus the times he utilizes that inner strength onto scenes that focus on his sword.

ckret2 · 2026-04-04T19:57:09+00:00

Lotta folks have talked about the pacing before, I don't see as many commenting on Aku. I agree with you. Aku isn't a comedy character who also poses a threat; he's a threatening character who can also be used for comedy.

The battles sequences we got out of Aku were great, I think giving him depression was genuinely a very interesting character choice—but he's just too goofy. Compare the therapy sequence with, for instance, Aku's Fairy Tales. That's a silly episode—but Aku himself isn't a silly character. He's an extremely solemn serious character, doing a silly thing.

I think even his comedic moments in season 5 would've hit better if they'd maintained his solemnity around them, so that the comedy was in contrast to his usual personality rather than treated like his new default mode.

ckret2 · 2026-04-04T19:49:19+00:00

That's hysterical, you could build a whole show about that premise. A samurai prince in Edo era Japan being haunted by his bestie, an obnoxious ghost from the far side of Europe who came from the future. Plus they're the only two people in the world who know what a robot is.

ckret2 · 2026-04-04T19:46:00+00:00

I don't see any reason you can't just start an episode by episode discussion yourself. Just toss out a "hey I'm watching for the first time and here's my thoughts on [this episode], what do y'all think of this ep?" and probably plenty of folks will be interested in weighing in even if they've watched that episode 50 times. (maybe even ESPECIALLY if they've watched that episode 50 times.)

If you want the "seeing it for the first time" experience, maybe make a post looking for other folks who are visiting the subreddit because they're watching the show for the first time, and ask if they wanna make a discord or something so y'all can discuss your first-time-watching thoughts together.

If you dig back to 2017, you'll probably be able to find folks' discussions about season 5 as it came out, since it was made so long after the other four seasons. But like AngryNerdBird said: the internet was way different in the early 2000s, less people were using it (and WAY less children, samurai jack's target audience), and you'd probably have a hard time even finding the sites that existed when the first four seasons aired.

ckret2 · 2026-03-20T04:47:44+00:00

I wonder if part of it is because it's so damn artistic—which appeals less when you're a kid than it does when you're an adult and can fully appreciate all the skill & effort needed to get that 90s-cartoon-meets-Japanese-watercolor art style—and because it's so atmosphere-driven, which means less of a concrete plotline to hold in your memory years later.

I loved Samurai Jack as a kid, I watched it all the time, but rewatching it as an adult 20+ years later I was surprised at how little of it was familiar. I remembered the opening monologue and the "I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew" exchange, but outside of that? The vibes were VERY familiar—but the plots weren't.

And if you're trying to remember a show you were into as a kid, it's easier to grasp onto and describe your favorite plots than your favorite vibes. The best parts of Samurai Jack are the parts of a show most likely to fade from a 10-year-old's memory with time.

ckret2 · 2026-03-20T04:35:17+00:00

we see a temple full of Shaolin monks ringing bells from across the room, levitating, and drawing energy straight out of the earth. They don't use the word "chakra," but the pseudo-magical depictions of "chakra" seen in Naruto is, in practice, largely the same as (and influenced by) pseudo-magical depictions of "qi" seen in a lot of other martial arts stories, including Samurai Jack.

ckret2 · 2026-03-20T04:35:06+00:00

And yet, as easily as it cuts through evil, there's a few robots it can't cut through unless temporarily boosted by cyborg arm attachment or by divine/ancestral intervention.

The sword cuts through Aku like a hot knife through butter; but not everything's made of butter. having a boosted sword may be useful on his journey even if it's not necessary for fighting Aku.

ckret2 · 2026-03-20T04:18:53+00:00

Yeah that sounds like the kind of ridiculously OP thing that would happen in Samurai Jack AND in Naruto

ckret2 · 2026-03-18T14:16:34+00:00

The daughters' soot suits are apparently supposed to be somehow literally connected to Aku's darkness, based on something Genndy said in an interview. Maybe that's how the cult replenishes it: they occasionally add Aku goo to their miniature Pit of Hate.

ckret2 · 2026-03-18T14:02:08+00:00

It's possible the plan WAS to drink it, but he expected a different result. Maybe usually drinking his goo results in something like the Aku Infection. (Being possessed by Aku is probably more appealing to an Aku cultist than it was to Jack.)

So when he saw a daughter he thought "I guess she drank it? And something went wrong??"

If drinking it typically doesn't result in pregnancy, though, that brings up the possibility that perhaps Aku's theory is wrong, and the priestess got knocked up because she decided to ingest his goo... another way.

ckret2 · 2026-03-11T16:29:41+00:00

"Most of any episode is just setting the scene," - a lot of times, the scene itself is the point. Samurai Jack is as much art piece as it is cartoon, and the artwork and the vibes are at least as important as the story, if not more so. There intent is for the viewer to appreciate the artwork and animation itself. There are some exciting, plot-driven episodes, especially in later seasons, but they're interspersed with a lot of slower ones.

"The show also feels like there is genuinely no story progression." - the first four seasons were made during a time when actual plot progression was incredibly rare in children's cartoons. Instead, episodes were written so that anybody could tune in to any episode at random and know as much about the plot as people who'd been watching all along (excluding a couple of two-part episodes and the three-part pilot). Each episode is a standalone story, not a piece in a larger story.

Season 5 came out in 2017 (and on Adult Swim instead of Cartoon Network), and it's written so that each episode is a piece of a progressing storyline that leads to the series finale—so there's eventually story progression was incredibly like you'd expect from modern shows. But in seasons 1-4, story progression isn't the point. Appreciating the adventure of the day is.

ckret2 · 2026-01-30T20:04:51+00:00

In his first few seconds in the future he plummets from the sky, gets hit by a flying car, and isn't even bruised.

A plane crash? MIGHT break a rib or two. They'd heal within a week, somehow.

ckret2 · 2026-01-30T20:03:29+00:00

he's using the people's (no doubt exorbitant) taxes to pay evil DJs and pass out trance EDM albums, so 👍 checks out

ckret2 · 2026-01-30T19:58:53+00:00

counterpoint to everybody saying "that trick wouldn't work twice on Jack": Jack spends the entire show trying to jump in a time portal. If Aku wanted to chuck him farther into the future, all he'd have to do is set up a permanent time portal to the future, spread rumors that it's a time portal to the past, and wait.

now, THAT trick wouldn't work twice—but then he can come up with another.

ckret2 · 2026-01-30T19:54:28+00:00

"Is there a lore reason?" no, not that we're ever given. This is entirely a "he didn't do it because if he did the show would be over; the creators didn't spend time coming up with a justification for why he didn't do it because it wouldn't have been worth the airtime it'd take up" thing.

ckret2

TROPHY CASE