Jack and the Zombies
Episode numeral: XXX
Original air date: 10/25/02
Aku tricks Jack into wandering into an expansive cemetery, where the demon lord ambushes him by summoning a large army of zombie warriors from their graves. Jack holds his own until a ghost possesses his blade and hands it to Aku himself, who decides to use it give Jack a truly ironic death. After a valiant last stand by Jack, Aku's demonic magic finally overwhelms him, but when Aku attempts to execute him with his own sword, it merely bounces off Jack's body. Jack uses Aku's confusion to escape and regain his sword, then explains to Aku that the blade will never harm an innocent in evil's hands, right before slicing the evil wizard to shreds until he escapes in the form of a rat.
Tropes:
- Ax-Crazy: In this episode, Aku is much more sadistic and deranged than usual, stalking Jack with gleeful malice. Even before he launches his assault, the episode focuses on him stewing in his lair, watching Jack while grumbling fruitlessly to himself.
- Badass Normal: Even without his sword, Jack manages to hold Aku off for an impressive amount of time.
- Breath Weapon: In his default form, Aku breathes a lengthy gout of flame at Jack, destroying the shield Jack looted off a zombie. Later, as a dragon, he combines his fire breath with his Eye Beams for a vastly more destructive energy blast.
- Clothing Damage: One of the zombies manages to tear a large chunk off the upper half of Jack's gi with its spear. Jack tears the rest of the upper half off himself.
- Cue the Sun: After Jack manages to drive Aku off and survive his long night against the army of zombies the sun rises and Jack continues on his journey.
- Face Death with Dignity: When all seems lost and Aku has Jack pinned, about to execute him with his own sword, Jack only collects himself and says “Forgive me father, I have failed you.”
- Fearless Undead: The innumerable zombies raised from the graveyard know nothing other than to charge forward to their doom, with one exception made when a zombie expresses visible shock when Jack breaks its weapon before cleaving through the wielder.
- Final-Exam Boss: Aku. After he grabs hold of Jack's sword, the latter is forced to use his full physical prowess and resource to fend him off.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Aku's plan, which hinged on trapping Jack to impale him with his own sword, ends up backfiring when the sword not only doesn't harm him, but gives him an opportunity to steal it back and cut him to ribbons.
- Humiliation Conga: Once Aku fails to kill Jack with his sword, Jack retrieves the blade, and proceeds to slice Aku into pieces. By the time that Jack is done with him Aku has had so much of his body destroyed that all he can do is transform into a rat and scurry away.
- Jump Scare: The opening scene focuses on a small bird sitting motionless on a branch... until it screams without warning and flies off, setting the tone for the episode.
- Later on, Jack falls into a mausoleum and stares for a second into the silent, empty darkness... which is almost immediately broken by a wailing horde of undead.
- Loyal Phlebotinum: Jack's sword, despite briefly ending up in Aku's hands, can not harm Jack himself, or any other innocent person, as it was forged with purity and strength to vanquish evil.
- Made of Plasticine: The zombies disintegrate with a solid hit, either from a sword or an unarmed strike from Jack. Their weapons are similarly trash, with Jack snapping spears left and right... up until Jack himself loots a sword and shield off the ground, which can inexplicably protect him from a sustained gout of Aku's fire breath.
- Mood Whiplash: Aku manages to pin Jack to the ground, his eyes become crazy and demonic, and he plunges his sword to Jack's chest and all that Jack can do is apologize to his father for falling him. Suddenly the sword harmlessly bounces off Jack's chest. Cue Aku's eyebrows going out (complete with a Sting!) and him trying to stab Jack a couple more times in a slightly comedic fashion before Jack gets his sword back.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: In a break from his usual Bond Villain Stupidity, Aku is this in the episode. He doesn't want to fight Jack, he wants to kill him and only fails to do so because of circumstances neither of them could foresee. He uses all of his powers to do so - shapeshifting on an unprecedented level, tactical use of Eye Beams, terrain manipulation and Nigh-Invulnerability in a truly nightmarish display.
- No-Sell: Twice. The former occurs during Jack and Aku's fight, when nothing Jack does can even hurt Aku in any way whatsoever. After Aku pins Jack down to the ground he opens up a hole in his hand, in the area Jack's heart would be located, in order to skewer him with his sword. Unfortunately for Aku the sword just harmlessly bounces off Jack's chest as only one with a pure heart can use it as a weapon and never to harm an innocent.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Jack has a string of one's once Aku manages to grab his sword and starts shapeshifting into various forms to try and kill him with it.
- Aku has a massive one when the sword bounces harmlessly off Jack's chest (his eyebrows actually go out) and he gets another one when Jack gets the sword back and proceeds to do damage to his body.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Aku casts a necromancy spell to raise up an army of undead ghouls that turn to dust when destroyed.
- Pivotal Wake-up: a few zombies do this in one brief shot.
- Sadist: Aku decides, once he actually has the sword in his grasp, to murder Jack with it as an appropriate revenge against the Samurai that has been constantly thwarting him. It doesn't end well for him.
- Slipknot Ponytail: During the course of his long night against the zombie hoard Jack's ponytail gets continuously more and more loose until, by the time he is facing Aku, it's come undone completely.
- Villain Ball: Aku manages to grasp the sword in his hands and even admits that he will destroy it... but only after killing Jack with it. If Aku had destroyed the sword straight away there would be no way for Jack to fight back at all (assuming that Aku is even capable of destroying the sword, that is).
- Villainous Breakdown: Upon failing to kill Jack with his own sword, with Jack stealing it back, Aku is reduced to baffled yelling, and is clearly terrified as he's cut down. He regains his composure after being reduced to the size of a rat.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Once Aku comes to the graveyard to retrieve Jack's sword, the zombies more or less disappear, even though there were so many of them.
- Wicked Witch: The witch-hag who possesses Jack's sword.
- Zerg Rush: Any individual zombie is hardly a threat to Jack (with the exception of the banshee); the problem is that there are so many of them, coming after Jack without pause, wearing him down until he reaches a point of exhaustion that causes him to lost his sword.
