Samurai Champloo premiered in Japan on May 20, 2004 on Fuji Television, and concluded on March 19, 2005, spanning a total of 26 episodes. It was also aired in Japan on Animax.
Geneon, licensed the show for distribution in North America almost a year prior to the show's airing in Japan. An English dub of the series premiered in the United States on the Adult Swim anime block on May 14, 2005. The version aired was edited and had foul language replaced with sound effects, in addition to cutting out blood and nudity. The final first run of the episodes concluded on March 18, 2006. Samurai Champloo debuted in Canada on December 24, 2006, on the digital station Razer. The series has also aired in the United Kingdom, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Germany. Funimation has recently announced to distribute Samurai Champloo for Geneon since they have ceased in-house distribution of their titles in 2007. Geneon, in association with Funimation, re-released the entire 26-episode anime series in a box set in June 2009 and on Blu-ray in November 2009.[4] As of November 26, 2010, Funimation has fully licensed the series and will once again release the series under the Classics line on May 24, 2011.[5]
The anime series made its return to US television on FUNimation Channel starting March 21st, 2011.[6]
The episodes use six pieces of theme music. "Battlecry", performed by Nujabes and Shing02, is the opening theme for all twenty six episodes. "四季ノ唄 (Shiki no Uta Song of Four Seasons?)" by Minmi is the primary ending theme, except for four episodes. Episode 12 uses Minmi's "Who's Theme" as its ending, episode 17 uses "You" by Kazami, 23 uses "Fly" by Azuma Riki, and the final episode uses the song "San Francisco" by Midicronica.