r/samuraijack

Samurai Jack was scheduled to be removed on May 26th 2026, but now HBO Max doesn't show it as leaving at all, that I can find. I also can't find any news about it being "renewed" or getting an extension, or anything.

The news sources saying it's leaving might be out of date, and they're mostly just news scrapers anyway. I can't find a reliable source.

I just finished watching the first season of Samurai Jack for the first time, and honestly, I was not expecting the production to be this good.

What surprised me the most is how incredibly well the show has aged. There is a rare kind of visual confidence in it: entire episodes with very little dialogue, cinematic framing, silhouettes, flat colors, silence, rhythm, pauses. At times, it feels less like a regular action cartoon and more like a moving storyboard for an art film.

One of the things I admire most is that the show understands when not to explain things. Jack walking into an empty landscape, the sound design shifting, the camera holding on a shot just a little longer than expected — it creates a kind of tension that many lore-heavy shows never manage to achieve.

The art direction is also insane. Every episode can feel like a completely different movie. There are influences from Japanese chambara films, westerns, science fiction, noir, European comics, mythology, and yet it all still feels unmistakably like Samurai Jack. Genndy Tartakovsky was really operating on another level here.

I also love how the series balances simplicity with emotional weight. The premise is almost just one sentence: “a samurai is thrown into the future and tries to return to the past.” But from that simple idea, the show manages to explore loneliness, honor, exile, patience, failure, and hope.

It is minimalist, but never shallow. I really did not expect to be this impressed.