Funimation has made all 26 episode of Samurai Champloo available on Youtube! For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it’s about two rival samurai that keep getting forced to work together due to the acts of a clumsy waitress. The series has a rather unique, hip-hop influenced style to it and compelling characters, so why is Funimation giving it away for free?
Well it is an older, shorter series, so what syndication value it had is likely already spent. Also, even the most casual anime fan, myself included, has seen Samurai Champloo. I would wager that Funimation is trying to get people who haven’t gone into anime yet. The videos I checked out on the Funimation channel already have millions of views, so the ad revenues from that probably far exceeds that of just having it get lost in the shuffle of other paid subscriptions such as Hulu.
If you are interested in viewing Samurai Champloo, we have the link the first episode right here!
