form follows...?

I agree that Champloo has a lacking story, but its nice to watch something thats not all story. I enjoy a good story but I find that most of the time I would rather watch something that is just fun like Bebop (my fav), and Champloo is really just Bebop with swords and different music (Maybe thats why I like it so much). A note on s-CRY-ed the manga ended very differenet from the series its well worth a read. Also Champloo is slated for a second season starting soon, I think, with two new what look like female characters.

I have found that a great story can make up for lesser animation. The classics Mobile Suit Gundam, Robotech, Urusei Yatsura and others of that timeframe have animation which is not in the same class as a lot of the newer series but they were story driven.
A lot of the newer shows especially from Gainax have great animation visuals but seem unable to sustain a story and come to an ending that is not disappointing or a copout such as Mahoromatic and Evangelion.
Lately it is rare that you can find both a great story and visuals in the same anime. Cowboy Beebop , Kiddy Grade and Lunar Legend Tsukihime come to mind as well as some lesser known animes such as Figure 17 and the World of Narue.

I felt like Bebop took a few very good cues from the Rumiko Takahashi Art of Writing Filler Episodes. Meaning, filler episodes are fine as long as five minutes of that filler episode reveal some deeper truth about the main characters and their personal story arcs. (Seriously, look back at Inuyasha, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei Yatsura, etc.... a lot of those scenarios revolved around one money scene with an exchange of dialogue that pushed the plot forward ever-so-slightly wedged into an otherwise half-baked episode.) This doesn't happen in Champloo. Filler episodes here -- although quite good -- make the whole mess seem rushed and disjointed. Why? Because it's not so much Mugen and Jin slashing their way to the end of Act III, it's the \\caricatures\\ of the people they represent doing all the acting.

In Champloo (again, spoiler-free), they seem to have painted themselves into a one-joke corner. The two main protagonists are so downright invincible that it's hard to challenge them. So, they resort to loading the deck with "episodes about how awfully clever this anachronistic gritty samurai world is". It's almost as if they kidnapped Guy Ritchie and kept demanding plot ideas from him long after he got tired of making them up. Protitution? Check. Gangsters (that act like modern day gangster caricatures)? Check. Rebellious youth (in the style of modern JP misfits)? Check. Drugs? Triple check.

I mean, we get it: it's a break-dancing samurai paired with a parody of the honor-bound genius outcast. The joke is that we have hip-hop playing over clever swordfights. Okay. So what are we going to do with them? Not... a whole lot.

As I mentioned, this happens **all the time** in anime -- fantastic, living worlds with absolutely nothing of prolonged interest that happens in them. This specifically irritates me because it's going to be another few years before we see something that looks this good, especially on the first try. Most shows don't presume their own greatness. It's makes them easy to love, even if just as b-movie fare... possibly as more. Samurai Champloo clearly does think it's great and fresh (heck, just spend five minutes of their website) and I think that's the best reason to apply the highest level of critical judgement against it. If this is what will pass as the high-water mark for the next few years (look at the shows still borrowing from Eva) then we'd better hope fellow creators understand where it fell short.

Incidentally, for those who liked Scryed, Mai Hime seems to be pretty much the same show with a mostly female ensemble cast and a non-oppressive level of fan service. It's not too bad at all, readily available on fansub, and stylistically quite similar.