What time period is the show set in?
From Newtype, October 2003, article/interview with series director/creator Shinichiro Watanabe: “The show is set during the Edo era some 60 years after the confusion of civil war lifted. But forget the historical details. Think of it basically like some period in time 60 years after the end of a war.” What’s referred to as the Civil War period in Japan is (obviously) not the age of the American Civil War, but the Sengoku Jidai or “Warring States Era”. The latest generally listed date for the ending of the Sengoku Jidai is 1615; it spanned through the middle 15th to the early 17th centuries. It started in the late Muromachi period in 1467 with the Onin War (Onin no Ran 1467-1478), lasting through the entire Azuchi-Momoyama period, until final peace and order was achieved in 1615 of the Edo period. SO: We can pretty safely assume that Champloo is meant to be taking place in roughly 1675. Not (evidently) quite the 1675 we know here, but some other “alternate reality” 1675, where police pa
