Acclaimed cartoon Samurai Jack to return with new TV series

The episodes will air on Cartoon Network in 2016.

Cult animation Samurai Jack will be returning to screens in 2016.

Though prematurely cancelled over 10 years ago, Cartoon Network's nightly programming network Adult Swim has confirmed the series' revival in a brief video clip.

The original show saw a samurai, known only as Jack, banished to an apocalyptic future by the demon Aku. Each show's introduction featured Aku's monologue detailing, "I, Aku, the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed and unspeakable evil. But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future where my evil is law. Now the fool seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku.”

This also marks the return of executive producer Genndy Tartakovsky, who's behind the likes of Dexter's Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars, as well as directing both Hotel Transylvania movies. Tartakovsky had previously expressed a desire for Jack's return to screen in an interview with ComicBook, "I think through the years, after we finished Jack, almost every year it seems like Samurai Jack has gotten more and more popular and more and more people have seen it. I feel like it’s culminating to a fever pitch almost. I feel like it’s time to maybe finish the story. We’ve been trying to get the feature off the ground but maybe that’s just fate’s way of saying this is a television thing and maybe it should be a mini-series or something like that." Indeed, the show won two Emmys during its brief run between 2001-2004. 

The new series will be screened on Adult Swim's late night slot Toonami, which specialises largely in Japanese, adult-orientated animation. Though Samurai Jack has featured on Toonami in the past, it's exclusivity to the adult-orientated slot does seem to confirm creators will almost entirely be relying on original fans of the show, as opposed to attempting to branch out and co-opt the character into Cartoon Network's standard programming.