Song of the Samurai

Fresh air so far compared to the One Piece slop Netflix put out.

Respect to HBO for picking it up for distribution without waiting on dubs.

Normally that'd be a dealbreaker for AAA streaming. All practical effect style here-- no CGI that can be visually identified, although I'm sure there is some light use.

2nd Ep was a little more self-contained of a flashback story.

They are trying to catch people up on the lore I think, but the end of Episode 2 was a letdown. Not sure where it's going, but it's on thin ice if it's going to continue telling serialized stories without some plot development in the 1900s time period. I get he's the narrator and there isn't supposed to be a lot of plot for present time, but the ending of Ep 1 left you feeling a lot more interested in where this is going. I fell back on Ep 2. The "let me tell you a story" thing worked really well in Ep 1, and is wearing thin by the end of Ep 2. You just want to get on with it and feel a little jerked around.

We'll see what's going on with Ep 3 if it can get back to Ep 1 strength.

Would have been a better bet for Bezos to sign off on several different FR/Dragonlance stories than try to "create his own GoT" with the LOTR IP. Would have at least garnered some genuine fan interest in the fantasy setting instead of being this albatross of excess that can't even get hatewatchers that Rings of Power ended up being. I think it could have happened if he didn't authorize the entire division budget to LOTR before he left the company in 2021. The money for Rings of Power was earmarked in 2018. There's been no room for them to explore anything else since.