Samurai Jack

Samurai Jack is an animated television show that airs on Cartoon Network. It tells the story of a prince from the medieval orient, whose father's kingdom is destroyed by Aku, a demon whose aims to dominion had been previously spurned by the emperor, the weilder of a magic sword among the few weapons capable of injuring him. The prince escapes with the katana and begins training to defeat the demon. When he reaches adulthood, he challenges Aku to a duel and nearly beats him; however, near death, Aku creates a portal into the distant future and sends the prince through it, anticipating sufficient power to deal with him by then.

The protagonist arrives in a hostile, lawless Earth, filled with machines, creatures, and peoples never before imagined. He adopts the nickname of 'Jack' for use in this world. Jack begins his search to find a way to travel backward through time to kill Aku before he obtained power.

Samurai Jack is notable for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation style and also for its pacing, unusual for today's cartoons: the plot is frequently stopped to allow for the building of tension before combat or for humor's sake, such as the Scotsman's absurd cussing out of Jack in Episode XI or the three aliens' compliments in the pilot episode.