Samurai Jack tells the story of a young prince from a feudal Japan kingdom, whose father (Sab Shimono and Keone Young) was given a magical katana from three gods — Ra, Rama, and Odin — that he could and had used to defeat and imprison his soon to be arch-enemy, the supernatural shape-shifting demon Aku (Mako, and later Greg Baldwin for Season 5). Eight years later, Aku escaped, took over the land and held the Emperor hostage, but not before the prince was sent away by his mother to travel the world and train so he could return and use the magic sword to defeat Aku. On his return, the prince-turned-samurai faced and almost defeated Aku, but before he could land a finishing blow, Aku created a time portal that sent him into the distant future, anticipating that he would be able to deal with the samurai by that time. The samurai prince arrives in a dystopian retrofuturistic Earth ruled by Aku. The first people he encounters call him "Jack" as a form of slang, which he adopts as his name.His given name is never mentioned. While Jack only has his gi, geta and sword to his avail in his adventures, there have been rare instances where he is able to wear a full set of armor.Most episodes depict Jack overcoming various obstacles in his quest to travel back to his own time and defeat Aku, and his quest is prolonged occasionally by moments where either he nearly succeeds in returning to his own time,or conversely, Aku nearly succeeds in defeating Jack,only to be thwarted by the unexpected.
