Samurai Jack is an Emmy-award winning American animated television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on Cartoon Network from 2001 until 2004. It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing.

The plots of individual episodes range from dark and epic to light-hearted and comic, but typically follow Jack in his singular quest to find a method of traveling back in time. Many of the battle scenes in the series are reminiscent of samurai films, and since Jack's robotic enemies "bleed" oil or electricity and monsters/aliens bleed slime or goo, the series is able to exhibit the action of these films while avoiding censorship for violence.

Samurai Jack was, but is no longer, available to be viewed by American residents via the Toonami Jetstream website, It is aired at 11:00pm on Cartoon Network in the UK. Production on the show was halted in 2004, although it was never officially canceled. Tartakovsky has announced plans to direct a theatrical film, but whether or not this will be used to resolve the series has yet to be announced.

In the distant past, a Japanese samurai embarks on a mission to defeat the evil shape-shifting wizard Aku. Before he can complete his task, though, he is catapulted thousands of years into the future. He finds himself in a world where Aku now enjoys complete power over every living thing. Dubbing himself "Jack," he sets out on a new quest--to right the wrongs that have been done by his enemy and to find a way back to his own time so he can destroy the evil for good. Written by Alan Back

In ancient Japan, the shape shifting wizard known as Aku resurfaces and attacks the nation. When the emperor is captured, his son is sent to train throughout the world in many forms of discipline and combat. As an adult, he reunites with his mother, who gives him the sacred sword capable of defeating Aku. When the samurai returns home to face the wizard, he is sent through time into the distant future, where Aku still rules over a world filled with high technology, aliens, and other oddities that the samurai doesn't understand. Taking on the name Jack, the samurai makes a name for himself as he struggles to free the future from Aku's grasp, and one day return to his own time to stop Aku before this future comes to pass. Written by Anonymous