Howdy all, Xort here for another
rambling, mostly incomprehensible review on Anime Assessment. This
week, we're gonna be talking about a classic that I, shamefully, had
not watched before this week, and yet surprisingly enough I managed
to avoid any and all spoilers for: Cowboy Bebop.
In addition to being a classic, Cowboy
Bebop is the first anime I've reviewed that isn't adapted
from a light novel series. It was developed by Sunrise, Inc. and
aired from October 24, 1998 to April 24, 1999. There are 2 manga
adaptations: Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star which ran from
May 1998 to October 1998, and Cowboy Bebop which ran from
April 1999 to April 2000.
So what is Cowboy Bebop? It's an
episodic tale set in the year 2071, a distant future where
interplanetary travel is not only possible, it's rather commonplace
thanks to hyperspace gates that allow for super-fast flight in an
alternate dimension. The show follows the adventures of two
space-traveling bounty hunters on a ship named Bebop, Spike Spiegel
and Jet Black, as they pick up new members for their crew, try to fix
their perpetual lack of money, and confront their pasts as they come
back to haunt them. In a way, it's a lot like Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Yeah, I know, Bebop came before Firefly so I should be
saying that Firefly is like Bebop, but I saw Firefly
first so it's my basis for comparison. Sue me. In addition to Spike
and Jet we have Faye Valentine, a compulsive gambler with a mountain
of debt and no memories of her past, Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky
IV (Ed for short), a child prodigy and hacker who's not entirely
right in the head, and Ein, a genetically engineered Welsh Corgi who
might even be more intelligent than Ed. Every crew member has some
sort of trouble in their past that gets explored in some way, but
none of it is ever fully explained. Instead, the viewer gets to see
bits and pieces of the past in flashbacks across the course of the
series and has to figure things out based on that. Like Dantalian
no Shoka, which I talked about last week, the show's episodic
nature means that there isn't too much in the way of a big plot
thread that the characters follow. The only constant outer conflict
the characters face is their inability to hold on to money for any
extended period of time.
However, there is an overarching
storyline of sorts that gets resolved over the course of the series,
even if the resolution just leaves more questions that never get
answered, so let's jump right in!
Way back in 2022, an experimental
hyperspace gate on the Earth's moon exploded, wreaking havoc on the
Earth below and then subjecting it to constant meteor showers for the
following 50 years leading up to the events of the show. To escape
their now ruined homeworld, people perfected space travel and
terraforming, allowing other planets and moons to be colonized.
However, as humanity spread out across the solar system, various
crime syndicates popped up looking to gain power and influence. Since
the Inter-Solar System Police don't have nearly enough manpower to
patrol the entire solar system, bounty hunters like the crew of the
Bebop are common. They track down criminals, apprehend them, and turn
them in for a sum of money. This fits quite naturally with the
episodic nature of the show, and blends together science fiction with
an old, Wild West feel that I don't often see pulled off
successfully.
Despite the episodic presentation,
there is one constant source of conflict for the characters: the
past. Each character has something in their past to haunt them;
Spike's time as an assassin in the Red Dragon syndicate, Jet's time
as a member of the ISSP that cost him his arm, Faye's amnesia about
her past, the circumstances that led to Ed living on her own instead
of with her family, and even Ein's past that resulted in him becoming
a super intelligent "data dog." The characters all have
their own conflicts and deal with them in their own ways, but without
a doubt Spike's is the one that gets the most examination, having two
separate two-parters dedicated to bringing it to a close. This is a
bit of a shame in my opinion, since as good a character as Spike was
and as interesting as his story may have been, I found myself liking
the other characters - particularly Jet and Ed - a lot more than I
did Spike, and would have liked to have seen more of them, but they
did get enough time that I wasn't really disappointed. No character
is left out, some just have more baggage and thus need more time to
fully flesh their conflict out than the others.
Cowboy Bebop, like
Dantalian, largely focuses on a series of mini-adventures
meant to give the mismatched cast a chance to develop and grow closer
to each other. The difference is that it focuses on a much wider cast
- two and a half times larger, if you count the dog. And of course,
you should count the dog. An animal with no actual speaking parts is
as much of a main character as Spike, Jet, Faye, and Ed. At the start
of the series we only have Spike and Jet on their ship, but soon
enough they start taking in strays and end up with an entire
dysfunctional family unit. They rarely get along with each other, and
Spike constantly claims to hate animals, children, and women with
attitudes - all of which wind up on the ship with him - but we get to
see them grow to accept and even care for each other quite a bit,
which leads to a few touching moments as they let their hidden hearts
of gold shine through.
Bebop is also the first
anime I've reviewed that has an English dub, and what a dub it is!
The only names I recognized on sight in the cast are Steve Blum as
Spike and Melissa Fahn as Ed, but after looking into the rest I was
quite familiar with not only the main cast, but a lot of voices
behind the minor characters, including a single-episode appearance by
one of my absolute favorites, Jamieson Price. Some of the bit
characters are forgettable, but no character was bad, and most
were extremely solid. I'm not part of the group of people who think
it's the greatest English dub ever, but I can definitely understand
where they're coming from. There's a lot of big name talent, and even
the lesser known voices put out a fine performance. In addition to a
wonderful dub, the soundtrack is an absolute joy to listen to. It's
used to great effect to set the mood and drive home the space western
theme during the series as well as being fantastic standalone music.
However - and from what I've seen, this
is probably gonna be a pretty unpopular opinion - I didn't like
Cowboy Bebop all that much. It wasn't bad, mind you. I
enjoyed most of the episodes, and I did like the characters quite a
bit. Still, as much as I liked the characters, I couldn't help but
see them as... well, characters, most of the time, as opposed to
actual people. I don't know why it bugs me here when in things like,
say, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann the same thing happens and I
couldn't care less, but I think it's because they tried to make it a
realistic setting. Even if it's set in 2071 and interplanetary travel
is commonplace, much of the technology, society, and how people act
are very similar to our modern day society. Maybe I'm wrong, but the
show seems to be aiming for a certain degree of realism that makes me
judge the characters a little bit more harshly than I would in a more
fantastic setting. Also, part of my problem with it might be that I
tried to power through the entire thing in a week, when it's more
suited to being watched every so often and enjoyed bit by bit.
Without a central conflict pulling everyone together and driving
everything forward, I had trouble finding a reason for me to watch
multiple episodes in a single sitting. Maybe if I go back and
re-watch the series a little bit at a time, it'll appeal to me more.
Overall, Cowboy Bebop is an
excellent anime and definitely one that deserves its recognition. It
isn't without its flaws, and it's definitely not one that everyone
will enjoy, but it's hard to deny its charm and how well the concept
was executed. Watch it if you're interested in seeing the Wild West
IN SPACE, a lot of badass action scenes, a cast full of anti-heroes,
and a largely unconnected series of small adventures with some
underlying backstory spread throughout the series. Avoid it if, like
with Dantalian, you want a plot that goes from Point A to
Point B with a definite, constant conflict instead of episodic
adventures, if you're looking for something bright and upbeat, or if
not getting all of the information you're teased with just frustrates
you.
Welp, that's it for this week's review.
I'm trying to see if I can manage weekly posts, and I think I can,
but depending on how this next week goes I may decide to switch to a
review every other week instead. If you disagree with anything I
said, feel free to argue with me in the comments and I'll try my best
to argue back!
-Xort
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