Episode I: The Beginning is the first episode of Samurai Jack.
- Original Airdate: August 10, 2001.
Summary
The episode begins with a solar eclipse. The eclipse has a strange effect on what appears to be a warped dead tree in the middle of a wasteland. The tree springs out of the ground and grows into a tall dark figure with flaming eyebrows. The figure states, "Once again I am free to smite the world as I did in days long passed".
Not far from there, the Emperor tells his son about a war he fought against an evil being named Aku. On his own he was helpless against the wizard, but he remembered a tale he had heard from his great-grandfather about three monks gifted with mystical powers. The monks agreed to forge a magical sword for the Emperor, with which he was able to pin Aku into the very wasteland he created. The people then rebuilt the land in hope that Aku will never return. The Emperor finishes his story with a warning to his son to always be alert, for evil might be lurking right
From Egypt to Greece
behind him.
Impressed by the tale, the young Prince begins to play with a wooden sword, when all of a sudden a great shadow falls over the land. The alarm sounds as Aku forces his way through the palace wall. The army tries to fight him off using arrows, javelins and catapults, but to no avail, as Aku absorbs their weapons and fires them back at the men. The emperor tries to make towards his sword, but Aku captures him. While he is being carried away, the Emperor shouts to Jack's mother, "Mother, Aku has returned! Do as we have planned, our future depends on it!" The Queen grabs the young Prince and the sword and carries them away from the burning palace by boat. She hands the prince over to the captain of a ship which bears the emblem of his father, while the sword stays with her.
The prince spends his childhood and teenage years in various cultures. The ship's captain teaches him about astrology. He trains in equestrianism in the camp of an Arab Sheikh. In Egypt he studies hieroglyphics. He learns stick fighting from the Chief of an African tribe. In Greece he learns the art of wrestling. He learns marksmanship from a European bandit. The knowledge of seamanship is instilled during his time on a Viking ship. A Russian Boyar teaches him axe throwing. Mongol warriors teach him spear throwing. He then reaches to the temple of Shaolin to study Kung fu.
Having finished his tour of the old world, the Prince, now grown up, heads to a designated rendezvous point where he reunites with his mother. The mother and child embrace after their long separation, and she returns to him his birthright: the sword of his father.
Returning to his land, the Prince finds his people enslaved. The countryside is riddled with likenesses of Aku, and the Emperor, like all his subjects, has been put to work in the mines, though he is being tormented by Aku's evil minions far more than anyone else. The Prince easily defeats the minions and frees his father from his shackles. The Emperor tells his son that Aku means to use the riches found in the mines to take over the entire world. The Prince promises that he will vanquish Aku by the power of his sword, but his father berates him, saying that the sword is but a tool, and that the true power lies in the hands that wield it. The Prince sets off on horseback, promising his father not to fail him. But the Emperor is worried, for he knows evil always finds a way.
The Prince arrives at Aku's tower and calls him out. Aku boasts that no mortal weapon can harm him, but the Prince cuts him with the sword. Aku then recognizes the sword but says neither the sword nor the Emperor had the power to slay him forever, and neither will the Prince. With those words Aku attacks.
Aku manages to scratch the Prince's back but soon enough the Prince manages to cut off many pieces of Aku's shifting form. With every amputated piece, Aku's powers diminish. Eventually, Aku is reduced into a shadow that lies defeated before the Prince. "You might have beaten me now, but I will destroy you in the future", Aku says to the Prince. The Prince exclaims that there is no future for Aku, "I disagree", says Aku and opens a portal in time through which the Prince is flung into the distant future, where Aku is the supreme ruler of the planet for millennia and his evil is law.