That was the first episode I ever saw of Samurai Jack. I had never seen anything like it. I had tuned in after the initial exposition so I experienced zero dialogue until the very end.
It was spellbinding. When he dons the blindfold and everything goes black and silent for what feels like eternity...
It's hard to understate what a revelation the relative thematic maturity of Cartoon Network's offerings was. Between shows like SJ and RAoJQ and Toonami-aired anime like SM and GW, you go from a period dominated by toy commercials to one filled with political and philosophical meditations masquerading as toy commercials. It's hard to imagine the popularity of today's prestige TV (which is probably the closest you're going to get to turning most Americans into creatures inclined towards the literary) without the generations that grew up watching (and creating) shows like "giant robot pilots argue the merits of pacificism" and "a samurai walks silently through many a beautiful and alien landscape for half the episode".
In case others might not be aware of what the acronyms used in this post refer to (they weren’t immediately obvious to me, even as someone who watched Cartoon Network/Toonami/Adult Swim):
It was spellbinding. When he dons the blindfold and everything goes black and silent for what feels like eternity...