Samurai Jack's sword was literally cooler than every animated sword ever

Genndy Tartakovsky’s animated masterpiece is a perfect thing to watch on Cool Sword Day

Long ago in a distant land, a Japanese emperor who was also a mighty warrior saw his land overtaken by a shapeshifting demon known as Aku. To defeat Aku’s evil, the emperor turned to the ancient gods Vishnu, Odin, and Ra to forge him a magic sword. Wielding the weapon, the emperor defeated Aku and trapped him in the form of a black tree.

This is the origin story for the sword of Samurai Jack, who would later inherit the weapon from his emperor father. After Aku escaped the tree and flung Jack into the future, Aku took over the world. Centuries later, Jack reappears and battles Aku with the magic sword’s powers of purity and strength, the only possible defense against Aku’s evil.

Created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the original four seasons of Samurai Jack ran on Cartoon Network from 2001 until its cancellation in 2004. The series was later revived in 2017 to conclude the story in its fifth and final season. Throughout the series, Jack’s magic sword — or katana, more specifically — was an essential storytelling device as it was the only effective weapon against Aku. Plus, with the sword’s link to Jack’s father, it had a deeper, more personal meaning for Jack.

But the storytelling of Samurai Jack was always more about the visuals than the narrative and the sword was even more effective at communicating the show’s striking, unique animation style.

The overall look for Samurai Jack came from a variety of inspirations. Over the years, Tartakovsky and his collaborators on the series have cited things like early Golden Books and 1950s Disney animation like Sleeping Beauty, which had a detailed, painterly style that was applied to Samurai Jack’s backgrounds. Also, the 1963 anime film The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon was influential for its simplistic, stylized characters and minimalist linework.

Both Sleeping Beauty and The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon also were distinct for having lines around their characters that departed from the traditional black seen in most cartoons. Instead, the outlines were colored in a somewhat lighter or darker shade of the color it was outlining. For example, in Sleeping Beauty, Aurora’s blonde hair was outlined with a brighter yellow, giving it a shinier appearance than a black line would have achieved.

Samurai Jack took that style a step further by eliminating the black line altogether. Aside from necessary accents like Jack’s facial features, the black line around characters was removed, so Jack’s white robe would lay flat against the painted background, without any black line to divide the two. This meant that the show had to be especially conscious of its use of color, so as not to lose the characters against the background (unless that’s what they were going for in a particular shot).

All of those design choices made Jack’s katana command attention. The sword was rendered as simply as the characters were in the show, usually represented by a single, slightly curved silver rectangle. Or, to give it some mild texture, the sword would consist of two stripes of silver just a few shades apart from each other, to distinguish the sharp side from the blunter side. Either way, the effect of this simple rendering was that this bright stripe of color would cut through the more detailed backgrounds.

While in battle, the sword was animated into a silver blur swung around by Jack, who moved so quickly that, when he sliced an enemy in half, it took a second before the top half would slowly slide off the bottom. It was a simple effect that never got old.

In the 2017 revival of Samurai Jack, which was done to complete his journey cut short by cancellation, the biggest story arc saw Jack lose his sword.Or, more accurately, the sword left Jack. After years of battling with Aku, Jack had become worn down and weary, making him more ruthless and less optimistic. Because of this, Vishnu, Odin, and Ra deemed Jack no longer worthy of the sword and he had to restore his honor before the sword returned.

Jack’s reunion with his sword is one of the most powerful, touching moments in the entire series and ultimately sets the course for the finale a few episodes later. After fans of the series waited for 13 years for Jack’s return, the final story of him and his sword was worthy of the wait and worthy of the groundbreaking and still-visually stunning show with a cool sword at its center.