Yeah seen it, it was pretty good. The art was newish at the time, and looked pretty sweet, as I recall. Knowing in advance that the show was loosely based on Kurosawa's classic made it more than a little predictable, but not too much so.
On the pairing in the end:
I am still convinced she went Kanbei because of the beard.
See, I agree to the manliness -aspect but for different reasons.
My favorite moment of the show, though, was:
Kyozou, the epitome of cool killing and a borderline Gary Stu, eating Katsushiro's friendly fire. Ah, I remember that golden moment so well to this day. Unexpectedly awesome turn.
@NastyNate:
The show's samurai are all essentially ronin, masterless samurai. They're the mercenaries, of sorts, of their day. They weren't looking for a fight as such, but work where men whose only real talent was fighting could get paid for. While it is true that in the Tokugawa era most samurais were economically subjugated by the shogunate's (rather clever) actions, before that the samurai didn't till the ground. They basically lived off the peasants that did. Understandably, when the day came their once proud houses could not even afford food and were heavily in debt, the age of the samurai had already passed.
Samurai 7 and
Seven Samurai aren't yet in that state, not to mention that as fiction, they offer a slightly idealized image of the samurai (and their code of honor, etc.).