r/samuraijack • u/lIlIIlIIllIllIllIlIl • 20h ago
Discussion why was aku depressed when he finally reached his goal?
i just finished the entire show a week ago but this question popped up when i started watching s5 e1
i mean.. isnt he supposed to be happy instead? he knew jack has finally gave up in hope of finding a time portal so why was he sad
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u/Mr_SwordToast I have a crush on Jack 20h ago
He didn't. His goal was to kill Jack. From his perspective, all he did was stop him from going back in time, but the sword was still a threat.
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u/Grouchy-Editor577 20h ago edited 20h ago
I think it's because Jack was still a threat to him. He may not have been able to get to the past anymore, but he (at least to Aku's knowledge) still had the sword and could kill him if he's not constantly on alert and watching his back, which was probably both exhausting and defeating. Aku couldn't really relax and enjoy his reign with the constant looming reminder that Jack could show up at any time. Jack basically had nothing left to lose at that point, so it's fair to assume he'd be coming for Aku purely out of rage for SOME kind of closure to his quest.
Jack points out that "Aku hasn't shown himself in years", indicating that Aku has probably been hiding in his tower to protect himself, hoping and waiting for Jack to die of natural causes because he's learned that he simply cannot win in a one-on-one fight so long as Jack has the sword, and unlike Jack at this point, Aku is not suicidally depressed.
Jack still being alive and having the one thing that can kill him really puts a damper on his "all powerful" visage and he hates feeling weakened by that fear and blow to his ego. His "goal" is to rule the world with an iron fist, which he can't do if he isn't invincible.
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u/Independent_and_yet 20h ago
Id also like to point out that due to being thrown into the future, Jack is biologically frozen in time, meaning he can't grow old and die the normal way. It's even stated by Aku himself that's its been roughly 50 years and he only grew that beard. So Jack is practically as immortal as Aku, wielding the one thing that CAN kill Aku. yeah I'd be depressed asf too.
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u/Grouchy-Editor577 19h ago
Yeah, Aku realizing that he was at best- in an eternal stalemate where he would be effectively neutered from fulfilling his evil desires without the constant threat of an immortal Jack, and at worst- realizing that his death was only a matter of time and 1 slip up from happening is probably what really sunk him into deep depression.
"I..just don't know if I can handle that..."
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u/Onyx_Undertaker5765 17h ago
Plus, with an infinite amount of time, it was basically guaranteed that Jack would find and destroy him. No matter how unlikely, with an infinite amount of time, it was going to happen at some point, and Aku wasn't going to be able to beat him when it finally did happen.
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u/Grouchy-Editor577 16h ago edited 16h ago
Aku experiences the equivalent of mortal existentialism and does not like it.
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u/metalflygon08 1h ago
Jack points out that "Aku hasn't shown himself in years", indicating that Aku has probably been hiding in his tower to protect himself, hoping and waiting for Jack to die of natural causes because he's learned that he simply cannot win in a one-on-one fight so long as Jack has the sword, and unlike Jack at this point, Aku is not suicidally depressed.
You know, I wonder why Jack never went to Aku head on.
Like, I get it your mission is to find a way to the past, but at least kill Aku first, you best him on the regular when he generally has the advantage, just sneak into his home and slay the demon there.
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u/Grouchy-Editor577 1h ago edited 56m ago
I think it's because Jack's main beef is with past Aku because that's the one who killed and enslaved his direct family and the one he spent his whole life training for (and the one who is perpetually in a weakened state from the first fight).
Killing future Aku would be convenient at best, getting him out of the way and freeing the current people under his enslavement, but it still leaves Jack's main quest unfulfilled- everyone Aku has already killed are still dead. Future Aku also usually refuses to fight him because he knows he can't win against the sword, so Jack considers it a waste of time, and the more time he wastes, the more people suffer from Aku's tyranny, so he prioritizes finding a time portal and only fights future Aku when he's provoked and "has" to.
But once the last time portal is gone, then Jack's mission is kiboshed, and the only thing he really CAN do now is kill the only Aku he has access to- he immediately tries to attack him, but Aku backs off and corrupts the rams to distract him so he can get away.
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u/cioda 19h ago
I mean he says what his issue is in the episode that this clip is from. After he destroyed the last time portal, he hopes that he could just wait it out and have Jack die from age. But he never did. And as long as he had the sword, then Jack was a constant threat. Especially considering he never seemed to have gotten anywhere with killing Jack himself. So from his perspective, he was stuck in this rut that he couldn't kill the samurai because he had the sword, and the samurai would never die from age, and was seemingly unbeatable.
Keep in mind, all of this is caused by his not knowing that the sword was actually lost
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u/rudyishappy6 20h ago
Basically he was getting a bit bored now that Jack has given up, as much as he hated him, he did enjoy the times were they fought each other.
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u/Luxord5294 20h ago
Because Aku knew he can't beat Jack, years of fights and countless bounty hunters, robots, and robot bounty hunters destroyed Aku's confidence in his ability to win. It's why he destroyed every time portal, he figured he could run out the clock til Jack died of either old age or someone beating Jack due to old age making him weaker. When Jack wasn't aging and "still had the sword", Aku realized it was only a matter of time til Jack got a lucky shot in and killed him.
So he retreated to his lair that keeps teleporting around so it's near impossible to track down, and just stopped. Until Jack was killed or stripped of his sword, Aku was stuck.
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u/LeeZarock 17h ago
Aku's plan was to not let him go back into the past, hide, and wait for him to die to old age.
But he (and we) discovers that Jack doesn't age, so he's basically immortal. Not being able to kill him, Aku knows that Jack can appear to fight him at any time with the only thing that can kill him.
It's basically the horror narrative about the immortal snail being able to kill you with a single contact, chasing you forever. You can defend from it, you can hide from it, you can trap it. It's useless. It is there. Immortal. Slowly approaching you till the end of time.
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u/PrometheusModeloW 15h ago
He explained it, in that very scene, Jack is seemingly immortal since he hasn't aged in 50 years, so Aku now has to deal with the fact that the only guy who can kill him will live forever just like him, he's just as tired of Jack's presence in his world as Jack is tired of being there.
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u/DracoNinja27 19h ago
So you see Doc, once he ERRADICATED all time portals,he thought the samurai would just DIEEEEEEEEEE......
But,he didnt age a single bit,like at all,he just grew that stupid beard.
Serious answer: he destroyed all portals yes, but he remained WITH THE SWORD THAT CAN DESTROY HIM (Aku didnt knew Jack lost it) so there was the threath of Jack killing him still.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 19h ago
Aku hadn't been paying much attention to Jack, he noticed enough to realize he grew a beard and hadn't aged, not enough to realize he lost his sword.
The goal of destroying the time portals was to kill Jack, not to make him suffer. Aku likes make Jack suffer, but what he wanted most was for the samurai to just DDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seeing that Jack hadn't even aged, Aku thought he was going to have the shadow of his greatest enemy hanging over his head for the rest of his life. And he was correct, he just didn't realize how short his life was going to be.
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u/PrizekingJ7 18h ago
Honestly it's literally waking hell to always have a enemy that won't die so in a way Aku became jack own prisoner.
Aku was depressed he couldn't even think or feel like doing much evil especially with the samurai always lingering his mind.
So basically he can't enjoy his own empire or evil anymore with the samurai existence.
He also probably feels Jack is invincible. He's been fighting him for decades and when he personally fought him he lost and he also saw how equally useless sending killers after so the only thing aku could do is nothing which is miserable for someone like him.
I think that's a fitting punishment for him prior to his final defeat unable to enjoy his empire and misery he created
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 18h ago
It is fitting and hilarious. Aku gave up on trying to kill Jack because he was able to learn that nothing was working. It is a fun bit of dramatic irony that Jack saw the giant beetle drone and assumed that Aku sent it thinking it would kill him, not realizing that Aku didn't send it because he knew Jack was going to turn it into scrap like he did the last billion bug bots that were sent after him.
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u/PrizekingJ7 18h ago
Aku has known jack long enough that he's more powerful than his magic or bounty hunters so what's the point.
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u/ScottTJT 16h ago
Because Aku knows Jack is still out there, never aging, folding any and all opposition, and as far as he knows, in possession of the one thing in creation that can kill him.
Aku doesn't know Jack lost his sword shortly after their last encounter; his initial plan was to ensure Jack couldn't get back to the past to undo the present, and then just wait until he died, either of old age or in battle with someone else. But as the years and then decades crept by, every new report he got on Jack indicated he was no longer aging.
So now the world he conquered is forever host to the one person that, as far as Aku knows, can take him down and is still actively hunting him.
It's like a variant of that scenario you see pop up online every now and then:
"You can have your perfect life, but it comes with the drawback that somewhere out in the world is an indestructible, immortal snail that can kill you with a touch, and it's always making its way toward you."
Makes enjoying that perfect life difficult.
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u/ckret2 15h ago
He DIDN'T reach his goal. His goal was to no longer have his life imperiled by Jack. Aku's life is still in peril. Maybe Jack can't return to the past anymore, but he can still sure as hell kill Aku right now (as far as Aku's aware—since he doesn't know Jack lost his sword).
He literally says why he's depressed, out loud, to his doppelganger therapist:
"Once I eradicated all the time portals, I thought I would just wait it out and then [...] eventually over time he would just die. But he hasn't even aged. [...] It looks like he'll be here forever! I just don't know if I can handle that."
Aku thinks Jack's still a threat and always will be a threat.
And when does Aku cheer up? When Scaramouche says Jack lost his sword, and so Aku thinks Jack's finally no longer a threat.
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u/Professional_Key7118 20h ago
Because evil is no way to live. He can only find happiness in conflict, and at a certain point what conflict can there be for an invincible global tyrant?
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u/ckret2 15h ago
He seemed pretty happy ruling the planet with no challenges to his rule before Jack showed up.
And he has more conflict now than he did before. When the rebels attack his fortress a few episodes later, the Scotsman reminds Aku that people have been rising up against him all over the world thanks to Jack. He could be quashing all sorts of rebellions right now. Instead he can barely work up the enthusiasm to take out a direct attack on his fortress and he gets depressed again because the Scotsman mentions Jack's still out there.
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u/Onyx_Undertaker5765 17h ago
Aku hadn't reached his goal. His waiting game strategy of waiting for the samurai to DIIIIIEEEEE! wasn't working. Since Jack was now immortal, and Aku couldn't bring himself to fight Jack again, he was probably under the assumption that Jack was going to get him eventually, with an infinite amount of time, the chance of Jack finding and destroying him was going to come up eventually.
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u/GoodDoctorB 17h ago
It's his nature, Aku is human evils incarnate so without good to oppose him what's the point? Without the conflict with good Aku's evil is now law and thus effectively meaningless.
Before Jack's arrival Aku was fairly satisfied because he could still make things worse for people but Jack's opposition is like crack to him, utterly addictive.
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u/MEG_alodon50 15h ago
Aku doesn’t know Jack has lost the sword, so I’m pretty sure he’s burnt out from being constantly in an It Follows situation lol. Just because Jack can’t get back to the past doesn’t mean Jack can’t just kill him in the present, and the last time he really saw Jack face to face Jack was absolutely out of his mind pissed at Aku, so I don’t blame him for feeling a little bit stressed and depressed about accidentally locking himself into a constant stalemate LOL
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u/CARVERitUP 20h ago
It's the love of the chase. He misses having his chief rival around, but at the same time he's terrified constantly because up until Scaramouche tells him, he thinks Jack still has his sword.
So it's a combination of missing the fight, and also being terrified of the fight that's coming.
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u/Cman1233211 13h ago
Have you ever finished a project that took over your life for YEARS, and that brought you constant stress and anxiety?
At the end it's no longer possible to feel joy with it being completed just relief and a sense of emptiness.
I also don't think it would last long for him given his ambition and desires.
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u/LordBoros567 9h ago
I think the Scottish even pointed out that Aku was doing all of this mainly because he was scared of Jack
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u/FencingFemmeFatale Everybody loves somebody sometime~ 8h ago
Technically his goal wasn’t reached.
Jack gave up on finding a time portal, but he wasn’t aging and as far as Aku knew, Jack still had the one weapon that could destroy him. They had essentially reached an eternal stalemate.
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u/Flashy-Telephone-648 4h ago
Honestly, I think it's because he lived with the idea that one day the samurai will return, giving him goals and aspirations, knowing that there was someone who could eventually stop him. So he had to at least try, but without that, it's kind of just eh.I already rule the world.Why do I care
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u/TheShoto 3h ago
He was depressed because Jack was still alive and didn't die after 50 years. Apparently going through the time hole made Jack immortal
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u/Craft_Assassin 19h ago
After you completed your goal, what's next? It's like finishing a Netflix series and you feel lost afterwards.
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u/WallyWestFan27 18h ago
I have always think this about tyrants. Are they really going to be happy when they conquest everything? They will probably get bored eventually.
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u/Templarofsteel 16h ago
Because beating Jack had become a central goal. Jack was beaten but now other things felt lesser. Jack had been a threat, a challenge and more importantly something new. With him gone it was a return to the same, he may have been experiemcing ennui
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u/Jesus_Son_Of_A_God 20h ago
When you have it all, then what's left?