Cartoon Network’s Darkest Series Has Incredible Lore, And I Still Want More Episodes

Cartoon Network is home to some of the most iconic animated shows of all time, but its best series ended far too soon. Many of the channel’s shows are bright, fun, and comedic. However, its most acclaimed series couldn’t be further from this.

Animator Gennedy Tartakovsky was one of the most influential figures at Cartoon Network in its early days, with him creating Dexter’s Laboratory and acting as a director and supervising producer on The Powerpuff Girls. However, the second show he created at Cartoon Network was one he wanted to be far different from his previous works. He had a desire to create a show that was heavy on action and light on dialogue, told an overarching story, and was far more cinematic than Cartoon Network’s previous efforts. That show was Samurai Jack.

Samurai Jack Is One Of Cartoon Network’s Best (& Darkest) Cartoons

Samurai Jack tells the story of the titular Japanese warrior who trains to defeat the powerful demon Aku after Aku destroys his home kingdom. In his battle against Aku, however, the demon flung Jack through a portal into the distant future, where he becomes trapped among aliens, robots, and the many loyal servants of Aku. The series follows Jack as he attempts to help the people of the future fight back against the tyrannical overlord, while also looking for portals that will send Samurai Jack back to the past.

Upon its release, Samurai Jack received critical acclaim for its animation, action, and mature storytelling. It won all kinds of awards throughout its run and is often considered to be one of the best Cartoon Network shows of all time. Fans eagerly tuned into each episode, excited to see new sci-fi worlds and more epic battles while hoping that Jack would find his way home. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Tartakovsky and the team didn’t believe that they had enough time to finish the saga in a satisfactory way, with the original run’s fourth and final season ending on a cliffhanger. There were hopes that a Samurai Jack movie would conclude Jack’s battle with Aku, but after over a decade, nothing came.

The original run of Samurai Jack was already incredibly dark, with it chronicling a warrior who has lost everything as he pursues a seemingly unwinnable battle against an all-powerful demon. However, when Samurai Jack finally came back for its fifth and final season in 2017, it got even darker. This time, the show was on Adult Swim, meaning that it could feature darker action, more mature themes, and blood. The final season spent time exploring Jack’s depression and his struggles with taking human life. While the show did have a happy ending, the path there was a dark road, populated by major character deaths and Jack’s loneliness.

Throughout its five seasons, Samurai Jack was the epitome of perfect animated storytelling. At a time before shows like Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, and The Owl House, Samurai Jack told a complex overarching storyline that appealed to both kids and adults. The story was fleshed out even further in video games and an IDW comic series, meaning that there was a lot more lore to delve into than was presented in the original series.

Samurai Jack’s Final Season Perfectly Offers A Way For The Show To Return

It is incredibly unlikely that Samurai Jack will return for another revival. The series had a perfect ending, and Tartakovsky has already moved on to other projects, like the Adult Swim series Primal and the Netflix movie Fixed. However, with how great Samurai Jack was, it’s hard not to want more.

Luckily, if Cartoon Network ever wants to revive Samurai Jack, there is an easy way to. Between seasons 4 and 5, 50 years passed, during which Jack didn’t age at all. This means that there are 50 years of Samurai Jack stories that weren’t told in the show, far more than what was shown.

So, Cartoon Network could simply make a new Samurai Jack season that is a midquel, exploring Jack’s time during this 50-year gap. We could see other misadventures that Jack got into, the destruction of the rest of the time portals, or learn more about side characters like the Scotsman or the Daughters of Aku. The world of Samurai Jack is massive, meaning that its story potential is essentially limitless.