Page "Samurai Jack" Paragraph 19

The episode " The Birth of Evil " reveals Aku's origin.

Long ago in the vastness of space, a great formless evil appeared.

Before the darkness could do harm to the universe, it was set upon by the kings of three religions: Odin, the one-eyed king of Asgard and the Norse Gods, Ra, the sun god and king of the Gods of Egypt and Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, the supreme being in Hindu mythology.

So fierce was their attack on the shadow, that it was completely destroyed, save for a small fragment that was flung aside in the heat of battle.

For ages, the fragment drifted through the cosmos and eventually fell to Earth, and caused the impact event that wiped out the dinosaurs when it landed.

The land around its impact site eventually formed into the islands of Japan, where the evil fragment slowly grew like a forest and spread like poison over the course of eons, creating an ever-expanding mass of black spikes and toxic tar that devoured and poisoned any who entered.

Eventually, the forest grew so large that the Emperor of the land decided to kill the evil at its source.

Armed with a magic oil given to him by Buddhist monks, the Lord and his cavalry rode into the heart of the forest, the Lord himself the only one to survive.

Once at the black lake at the forest's center, the Samurai Lord doused an arrow into the oil he was given, lit it with a green flame, and shot it into the lake.

Instead of destroying the evil, however, the magic arrow gave it both a will and consciousness, and the demon wizard Aku was born.

Aku went on a rampage of destruction, burning and killing.

He proved to be unstoppable, so with the help of the three gods, Jack's father forged a sword capable of harming him.

With it, he was able to defeat Aku and turned the demon back into a black tree.

This imprisonment was only temporary, as years later, a solar eclipse releases Aku upon the world once more.