Just finished watching Samurai Champloo with a few other AP people, and I really loved it! I was actually hooked on the show from the intro; "Battlecry" is just that good. I don't normally even like hip-hop music that much, but the soundtrack for the series was beyond excellent. Also appreciated how very well-done the choreography was, and the "anachronism" mashup theme was quite fun and refreshing. Any gripes with the series are overall pretty minor ones. I did find Fuu, the female lead, to be kind of annoying in the beginning of the series–it felt like she was overly bossy and whined/complained a lot, and she sometimes came across as ungrateful for her bodyguards--but at least, while that didn't totally disappear until the finale, it was lessened over time. Funny enough, in the beginning I complained a bit about Fuu getting kidnapped all the time (though, considering the time period, it does make sense), but looking back, I enjoyed seeing the guys go to save her when that happened, so in retrospect it doesn't bother me nearly so much. There were also some characters that I wish had shown up more, like the assassin guy (Inuyama?) from the second episode who was like "We will meet again" but they never did, and Manzo getting to do some actual secret police work instead of just being a narrator, though that may have been the point, lol.
I'll admit I did have some concerns going into the finale--since most of the series was pretty episodic and we still only had a limited knowledge of the background of two of our main characters, I was worried whether all that could be wrapped up well enough. Luckily, it definitely was; the questions I still had were tied up nicely, the finale felt genuinely high-stakes for all of the mains, and there was a lot of suspense there. Not to mention, we got to see the main trio forming a solid bond as the series continued, and the finale episodes did a great job of highlighting and emphasizing that character development they all had. And I very much liked the ending (which usually plays an important part in how much I like a series overall) and found it satisfying for the most part.
I liked all three mains a lot. Both samurai characters, Jin and Mugen, were incredibly badass and enjoyable. My personal favorite is probably Mugen, who has a "crazy-awesome" vibe to him that makes him super interesting to watch, and he also is definitely the most quotable, with the solid majority of the best lines in the series. Though that's not to take away from Jin, who gets quite a few hilarious "comically serious" moments throughout the series.
I won't go into much more detail in order to keep from spoiling the series for anybody who may watch in the future, but bottom line is, it was an excellent anime, would definitely recommend! Has 26 episodes, so not too long of a watch. We were watching in a group of six, with four of us who'd never seen it before, and all four newbies enjoyed it. We did the English dubbed version, which is without a doubt one of the best dubs I've ever seen. Created by the same guy who did Cowboy Bebop, Watanabe, which apparently also has a great dub–heck, Steven Blum, the VA who voices Spike from that series, also voices Mugen. (Though if you do watch the subbed version, Mugen there is played by Kazuya Nakai--a.k.a. Zoro--and Fuu's VA is also Nodame from Nodame Cantabile, so there is that.)