Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku! Samurai Jack is an American animated television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky. It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing. It was the first Cartoon Network original series aside from those who comprised the Cartoon Cartoons lineup at the time. The plots of individual episodes range from dark and epic to light-hearted and comic, but typically follow "Jack", a time-displaced samurai warrior, in his singular quest to find a method of traveling back in time. Many of the battle scenes in the series are reminiscent of samurai films, and since Jack's robotic enemies "bleed" oil or electricity and monsters and aliens bleed slime or goo, the series is able to exhibit the action of these films while avoiding censorship for violence.