Samurai Champloo

Fuu, who was working part-time at a teahouse, meets Mugen and Jin. After causing a great riot at the teahouse, Mugen and Jin were arrested by the magistrate and set to be executed. In exchange for helping them, Fuu makes the two promise something. That promise was to travel with Fuu to find a "samurai who smells like a sunflower."

Having had his arm cut by Mugen, Ryujiro seeks revenge and sends over two assassins. To Jin, he sends over a man who seems like an insignificant character but who turns out to be a terribly skilled assassin. To Mugen, he sends over a huge man with supernatural strength who has the furious look of a demon. Fuu gets kidnapped by Ryujiro, while the two face each of their assassins.

Getting fed up with Fuu's domineering ways, they leave her behind and separately arrive at the town where the inn is located. Mugen and Jin each end up getting hired as bodyguards by the two groups that rule that town. In the meantime, lagging behind, Fuu arrives in the same town.

Mugen, Jin and Fuu reunite, all now having different positions. Due to an error made by Sosuke -- the son of the group that hired Jin -- the struggle between the two groups grows more intense. They decide to gamble using dice in order to settle the struggle. But Fuu turns out to be the one who arrives to shake the dice cup.

Unable to pay the fare for a small ferryboat, the three are stranded. The three go their separate ways into town in order to make some money for the fare. Fuu gets picked up by an ukiyoe (a type of Japanese art) teacher to be his model, which she puts all her effort into so she can earn the fare. But this modeling job turns out to be a trap.

Mugen and the others finally arrive in Edo. They planned to immediately start their questioning of people and investigating the whereabouts of
the "Sunflower Samurai," but instead they found themselves participating in an eating contest. Accompanied by Joji, whom they met at the contest,
they embarked on a tour of Edo. But soon they were being chased by a
group of eccentrics and Mendicant Zen Priests!

Mugen and the others are planning to feast on some good food for a change, but in that split second they are caught off guard, and a pickpocket named Shinsuke steals their precious wallets. Running all over town, Mugen and the others look desperately for Shinsuke. But, beside them, a yakuza called Kogoro and his gang are also looking for Shinsuke in order to get back their inrou (seal case or a pill box). The three come across Shinsuke and Kogoro and his gang all over town.

Nagamitsu, a self-proclaimed shogun-to-be, keeps his hair in a spiffy ducktail and tends to attack samurais who wear glasses. Nagamitsu meets Fuu and the others at a restaurant. Sensing something, Nagamitsu picks Fuu up and forces her to go out on a date with him. There, Fuu learns something surprising from Nagamitsu. He says he's looking for a certain man who supposedly murdered a legendary master swordsman in a cowardly manner. That man was a glasses-wearing samurai and his name was "Jin."

Being handed over a fake promissory note from a scalper, Mugen and the others get arrested at a check station in Hakone. As they are wondering if they might end up getting punished by crucifixion, a magistrate named Kinugasa approaches them with a proposal. He tells them that if they can travel across the mountain to deliver a certain head of a criminal and return to the checking station by sunset, their lives will be spared.

In a certain post town, the killing of samurais to test a new sword was happening at a frequent rate. The murdered corpses showed no outward wounds, but they were found dead with blood spurting out from all over their bodies. Fuu and the other two, who happened to be working part-time at a temple in that town, learn of a monetary reward for anyone who finds and captures the murderer. They put aside their part-time work and rush off to hunt down the murderer.

Because of rain that continues to fall, Fuu and the other two come to a standstill in a certain town. In order to get some money for accommodation, the three decide to find some part-time work. Mugen finds work as a bodyguard at a gambling house, Fuu starts working as a staff at a teahouse, and Jin becomes a vendor pulling a Unagi cart. As Jin struggles with preparing the eels, a woman approaches him and tells him that she is set to begin working in the red light district starting the next day.

The three get to stay at an inn after a long time. While Fuu takes a bath, Jin and Mugen find Fuu's diary and decide to sneak a look at it. In the diary, they find her frank entries on such topics as guys, food and their trip.

Mugen and the other two stroll aimlessly and lost along a mountain pass. All of a sudden the pass comes to a clearing and ultimately they end up at the ocean. There, Mugen bumps into a girl who happened to be a childhood friend of his named Koza. In contrast to Koza's happy reaction, Mugen has a grim look on his face. A man appears upon that scene. The man's name is Mukuro, one of those whom Mugen used to hang around with a long time ago and who is now a leader of a gang of pirates.

Losing a bet to Mukuro, Mugen ends up participating in a plan to rob some money from a merchant boat. Leaving the worried Fuu and Koza behind, they start to act out the plan and Mugen starts rowing the boat into the stormy sea. The plan proceeds smoothly. However, nobody, except for one individual, knows that simultaneously a separate plan is taking place.

Deep in a forest, a man was being chased by a shadow of an army gang dressed in ninja attire. As he runs, he takes out a bag from his breast pocket and, with all his strength, he throws the bag aiming at a nearby lake. The bag sinks into the water. The following day, Mugen and the other two are fishing at that lake. There, Jin spots a weird-looking bag. It was the bag that the man threw away the day before.

Due to a petty argument, Mugen and the other two decide to go their separate ways. All of a sudden, an arrow comes flying at Mugen. He instantly dodges the arrow and chases after the one who fired it. At that same time, Jin was fighting against an assassin named Yukimaru, who was sent from a Mujyu Shinken Doujou. A frantic battle of swords takes place. Right around that time, Fuu slips and falls into a river and gets rescued by a man named Okuru, and he is a master of bow and arrow.

Due to a misunderstanding, Mugen gets attacked by a group of men. The men were looking for a man named Okuru. They said he destroyed a certain village in the North by setting it on fire. On a moonlit night, the sound of an instrument played by Okuru echoes in the mountain. As if he's invited by that sound, Mugen approaches. Mugen takes out his sword as Okuru aims his arrow. Under the light of the full moon, their one-on-one battle is about to begin.

Writing graffiti on buildings and walls called "tagging" starts to occur at a frequent pace. Mugen and the others arrive in Aki. Here, the fact that Mugen cannot read becomes clear, and he ends up studying Japanese at a temple elementary school. Around the same time, Jin visits a dojo that belongs to a person whom he's indebted to. There, he witnesses a rundown dojo along with two idiot sons who have abandoned their sword training and instead are immersed in "tagging."

Fuu awaits the return of Mugen and Jin alone in a shack, into which a woman named Yuri comes running in. She says she is a Christian who is being chased because of that. Fuu hides Yuri, but the pursuers find Yuri and she is taken away. Around that time, Mugen and Jin encounter a Christian hunt taking place on a highway. Right when Mugen was about to start some trouble again, a man appears gallantly on a horse. Using one gun after another, he scatters away the government officials.

At a bar they stop by to get out of the rain, they come upon a blind, female traveling entertainer named Sara. Sara and Fuu's group quickly become friends and they decide to travel together for a while. Mugen becomes fidgety, since it has been some time since he came across such a beautiful woman. The four proceed to travel happily and smoothly. However, on the last night of their journey together, Fuu gets surprised when Sara tells her something unexpected.

What Sara told Fuu was that she wanted either Mugen or Jin to accompany her on her journey. Fuu worries over this, but, one morning, she ends up asking Jin to "travel together with Sara." Jin sets out on a journey with Sara. Mugen and Fuu watch them as they take off. However, at this point, the two have yet to realize that this is the beginning of a sad, brutal fight.

Mugen and the other two were walking down a mountain road. They happened to look at the root of a tree, where they spot a mushroom that looks like a matsutake mushroom growing out of it. Mugen and Jin run over there in full speed and start to gobble it up, when suddenly, the road crumbles and the three fall straight down. The three look around the spot where they landed, and found it to be an excavation site where a person named Shige hoped of unearthing Heike's buried treasure.

Mugen's talent in baseball is discovered and he ends up getting involved in a game between the "U.S. Squadron" team and a team led by a man named Kagemaru, after being forced to become a member of Kagemaru's team. Jin and Fuu are also recruited. A crash course in baseball starts for the three who do not know anything about the game, and a match game between the two countries -- battling against each other's willpower and putting their lives on the line -- is about to take place.

As Mugen, Jin and Fuu's goal of reaching Ikitsuki Island draws closer, their difficult, yet happy journey together is also coming nearer to its end. Fuu reflects on the memories of that journey. One night, Mugen, Fuu and Jin sit around a campfire and start to sparingly talk about their own past lives and the distance between the three gets closer. However, behind that scene, the most powerful enemy that came from Edo and a group of violent brothers are approaching.

Leaving Mugen and Jin behind, Fuu travels to Ikitsuki Island by herself. But, there she gets caught by Toubei and Umanosuke of the three brothers, who hold a grudge against Mugen. In order to let Mugen go to Ikitsuki Island, Jin fights the ultimate assassin, Kagetoki Kariya, by himself. Mugen boards a boat and hurries to the island, but there one of the three brothers, Denkibou, appears and starts to attack Mugen.

In order to save Fuu, Mugen throws away his sword and gets beaten up by Umanosuke. Using his swordsmanship, Kagetoki attacks Jin. Both Mugen and Jin face the most dangerous moment in their journey. How would they escape from this danger? Would Fuu be able to meet the Sunflower Samurai? And what would be the outcome of Mugen and Jin's fight?