The Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack series was created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the same brilliant mind behind Dexter's Lab. According to an brief biography on the Cartoon Network's website, he set out to create 'the best action adventure cartoon ever' and to be frank, he's succeeded. Blending Japanese Samurai morals, values and traditions with Tiki-style influenced artwork and background design, this show is unlike any other cartoon you've ever seen.

The premise behind it all is quite simple – Jack is a samurai who has been trapped in the future by an evil wizard named Aku, who has the ability to shape-shift and as such is able to take on many different guises. Jack must try to find the portal back to his own time (as the theme song says, 'gotta get back, back to the past') and along the way take out as many of Aku's minions and stop as many of his evil plans as he can.

Though the premise doesn't tread any new ground, the series is very unique in the way that it portrays action and in its scope. When Jack attacks, it isn't uncommon for the camera to pan out and to show the results in widescreen to give the show a more cinematic effect. Much of the color scheme is painted in hues which reflect the Japanese influences so prominent in the series, the entire show is often times doused in black, red, green and orange. The character design, the architecture, the jungle settings, all have been influenced by traditional Japanese artwork with a healthy dose of Polynesian Tiki thrown in to mix things up a little bit.

As far as the episodic content is concerned, the show is all over the place. Sometimes the stories are deadly serious and told in an almost Kurosawa-esque fashion, other times they're simply an excuse to provide a gag or two. Sometimes Jack has to battle Aku and other times he has to fend off a gang of evil red monkeys and at the same time, teach the happy blue monkeys how to defend themselves. While there is quite a bit of combat in the show, and plenty of swordplay, it never shows much in the way of onscreen violence and although it can sometimes be considerably darker than a lot of modern cartoon shows are, it's still completely appropriate family viewing and often times there are even morals to the stories. Jack is a man of honor, a man who always wants to do the right thing and help his fellow man.

The real sell feature of the series though is the artwork and the design. Tartakovsky and his crew have created an amazing world unlike anything on television these days. Aku's future is a very bleak place, a very unhappy place, and a very dark place but one that is not without strange little pockets of light and happiness. The characters themselves are all fascinating to watch – whether it be Jack's knowing wink and squared off jaw or Aku's varied forms, more often than not appropriately snake like in appearance. The fact that the animation is so well complimented by some terrific recurring characters, some fun and engaging stories and some moments of true suspense to make the series a winner in all categories.

Samurai Jack: Season Two contains the following episodes:

Jack Learns To Jump 'Good' Jack meets a monkey boy who takes him into the jungle to meet his tribe of peace loving primates. It seems that a more sinister gang of primates are intent on once again stealing all of their food. Jack teaches them how to fight, and in turn, they teach him how to jump really high.

Jack Tales This episode is comprised of three short stories. In the first one, he has to deal with a two headed snake that may or may not grant wishes. In the second story, Jack has to deal with some robots who want to eat his sword, and in the third story, Jack has to rescue a fairy who grants wishes from an evil monster.

Jack And The Smackback Jack gets captured by bad guys and is forced to fight like a gladiator in the Dome Of Doom. Jack will have to defeat the mighty warriors who compete in this competition in order to free himself and the other captured men from their captors.

Jack And The Scotsman - Part 2 The Scotsman's wife has been kidnapped and so he asks Jack to help him get her back. They sneak into the castle where she's imprisoned and free her but not before the Lord Of The Hunt and his soldiers see them and give chase.

Jack And The Ultra-Robots Eight Ultra Robots have trashed many local villages and Jack is wandering around trying to find them. Jack isn't able to stop them with his sword once he does locate them, but a scientist who once worked for Aku builds him a bionic arm that should help.

Jack Remembers The Past A bunch of robot cats are after Jack but he makes short work of them. He ends up wandering into the area that he grew up in oh so many years ago, and the memories come flooding back to him.

Jack And The Monks Aku and his beetle soldiers destroy one of the gateways to Jack's time before he can make it back to the past. He becomes frustrated and almost gives up, but a chance encounter with a trio of monks changes his mind.

Jack And The Farting Dragon Jack finds a remote village that is overwhelmed by the strange smell emitting from a mountain situated just outside of town. When Jack is convinced into going up to the top of the mountain to take a look he finds that the real cause of the smell is a dragon with a stomach problem.

Jack And The Hunters Aku hires four space traveling bounty hunters to take Jack down once and for all. They capture him but it doesn't take him long to work himself free and make the Aku connection, but the hunters are committed to capturing him, even if they soon begin to respect him.

Jack Vs. Demongo, The Soul Collector Demongo is a demon that Aku summons who contains the dead spirits of hundreds of mighty warriors. Aku sends Demongo after Jack, who will have to figure out how to beat an enemy with a seemingly endless supply of tricks up its sleeve.

Jack Is Naked When Jack takes a bath, a rabbit steals his clothes and he's left wandering around in the nude. He falls into a pit which drops him in a strange underground city where he finds a set of clothes that he quickly puts on. What he doesn't realize is that those clothes belonged to a local thief, and the townspeople now think Jack is him.

Jack And The Spartans Jack joins a mighty army to help them defeat a force of robotic Minotaurs. Jack and his friends can't possibly defeat them hand to hand, but they might be able to trick them into falling into a trap.

Jack's Sandals Jack's chilling at the lake when a gang of biker-bots show up and run over his sandals. He's not too happy about this, and he chases them around for awhile. Soon though, his feet start to get sore.

Video:

Each of the episodes is presented fullframe as it was shown originally on television. There are times when the show switched to a widescreen format to accentuate some of the combat and swordplay scenes, but most of the story plays out in fullframe. Quality overall is very nice, with the colors on this set looking particularly distinct and very bold. With so many different shades of red used throughout the series and such a high level of black used throughout the series, it's to the DVDs credit that this cartoon looks as good as it does on this release. There is some minor edge enhancement but I didn't notice any problems with mpeg compression artifacts or pixelation.