04.09
Jack has become so strong that he sprouted another hand from his abs.
Please don’t let this become a romance. Please. I know this thing between Jack and Ashi is going somewhere, and I don’t like where I think it’s heading. I know some Samurai Jack fans would fall head under heels to a crazy, Tara Strong-voiced woman dressed in black who wants nothing more than to kill them, but don’t apply that to the show itself. Maybe it sounded like a good idea on paper. Maybe a writer wanted to throw Jack a bone so he could finally get laid. Or maybe they’re gonna pull his chain and kill off Ashi so they can give him another lost loved one. But creating a character who was raised until similar yet crueler circumstances to Jack and have her fall in love with him is something out of the realm of Archive of Our Own.
Or maybe Genndy’s letting his fetishes run wild, given Ashi being in chains and lying on the floor for much of this week’s episode. Tartakovsky does enjoy his booty. Whatever the case, it’s nice to see a fight of wits between Jack and Ashi here. Ashi’s long held beliefs can only be nudged so little by the reality of Jack’s cause, and it’s taking more than words, more than saving her life multiple times to hammer home the point. Maybe if she had a taste of life on the outside, but she has none of that. She was raised from birth as an assassin with nothing else in her life. To her, this world is like if we found out about aliens. It’s just too abstract a situation for her mind to handle, and only retreating back into the “Kill the Samurai!” mindset that she’s known for all her childhood can comfort her.
On the other side, it’s strange to see how Jack’s taken to quipping. The kind that people berate the Marvel movies for. It’s weird, if not unsettling to say the least. Not that Jack hasn’t bantered before, but seeing him snark at Ashi after the last few episodes showing his intense mental struggles is an interesting change. If not for being inside a giant monster, Jack talking to someone else seemed kind of nice. It’s his first time this season where he talked to another human instead of a ghost, himself, a cloud, or a robot, allowing him to finally unwind in a fashion. Or maybe, he’s finding something in common with Ashi. He doesn’t know about her tutelage yet, but he might be able to tell in the future. Surely he’ll peel back those layers firmly planted by Ashi’s mother, and show her that this world needs to freed from Aku’s hands. Instead of wanting to get inside Ashi’s ass.