#pushing Jack being the opposite of Aku in more than just physical

[samuraijackpostdump]

sometimes I wonder what the fuck Genndy was thinking with Jack and his mother’s robes. I don’t even know where he got the idea for plain white kimono, considering that’s not really something in any samurai movies and such. The thing that’s especially amusing to anyone who knows abt traditional Japanese clothing is that. that’s essentially long Johns or a slip. It’s the underwear of the actual kimono and is sometimes a sleep dress. I think I know of one Japanese media where a plain white kimono is used as an actual public presenting outfit, and it’s Okami where Kushi wears one as the sacrificial offering. (hold on, getting to that.) If he wanted it to be an actual training gi, for one it doesn’t make sense that his mother is wearing the exact same thing, and two, it’s not a single layer kimono. anything samurai wore was not a single robe— the kimono shirt was double layered (with the white juban underneath normally) and the hakama pants were pants, not an open robe, despite often looking like a dress to outsiders bc of how flowing and wide they are. A gi looks even less like Jack’s robe— think of the white karate outfits. That’s a gi. For Iaido and Kendo and such the training clothing does tend to be the kimono shirt and hakama, but it’s not white on white, and I don’t know that it would be called a gi like the type worn for judo and such. I just wonder where the hell Genndy got the idea of Jack just essentially wearing underwear all the time lmao. I DO understand why he chose white, he wanted the contrast between Jack and Aku, but choosing a single layer plain white robe, beyond just for the sake of simplicity in animation, is the thing that surprises me. (Not in a negative way, just that I wonder where it came from). I have to wonder what people watching in Japan thought of Jack wearing that. No one seems to feel strongly enough to comment, and I believe part of that is just suspension of disbelief and Samurai Jack being such a simplistic cartoon in its displays that it’s kind of easy to ignore, but there have to be times ppl wonder why he’s wearing that lol. Especially bc Genndy KNOWS the proper attire, evidenced by the clothes he puts on Jack’s father in both the opening scenes and Birth of Evil.

I highly doubt this much thought was put into Jack’s clothing, but I do like to think that the reason Jack wears such a shockingly minimal and unarmored outfit is because of his function as the one meant to defeat Aku. Going back to the mention of Kushi in Okami, she wears those clothes bc she is meant to be the “pure, innocent, sacrificial offering”. The robe is not unlike those worn in Shinto purification rituals, or robes worn by Buddhist priests. Tying that in with Jack, I believe the reason Jack wears what he does is because he is meant to be similar. Jack is an offering from his parents, giving up their son to be the nameless warrior in order to defeat Aku for good. They want him to be the antithesis to everything that Aku is, so Jack wears robes meant for purification and to an extent representing sacrifice, a simple, genderless and unadorned kimono very uncharacteristic of the Emperor’s son, because as long as Aku lives, that title is not his. Jack wears that robe because he is meant to be the pure, innocent, forged and powerful sacrificial challenger to defeat Aku, or die trying.

As for Jack’s mother, part of me wonders if she had connections to the monks she stays with in the opening, and therefore from the moment she and the emperor decided on their son being the backup plan in case Aku returned, she was preparing both herself and him in her own way. (That’s the best explanation I can think of bc all things considered his mother should have been wearing some very heavy and ornate court Kimono. Maybe she and the emperor just weren’t into the style lmao.) edit: she DOES wear what looks like a simplified layered kimono in a few scenes, but the ones where she’s with her son, like the opening and I think the scene where she’s making a straw hat, she’s usually wearing a white robe.

#jack #s1-4 #samurai jack #sorry for the slightly disorganized rant I just find that interesting #if anyone keeps up w my main I have a thread where Jack gives a little detail explaining his very un-samurai-like robe #as purified and blessed by Yamabushi monks (very isolated extreme and ascetic style monks) #pushing Jack being the opposite of Aku in more than just physical #and the sword and his robe was clearly being hidden in a Buddhist temple if the giant Buddha statue is anything to go by lol #yet another reason for Jack to wear all white as a method of opposing Aku