The basic premise of the series is you follow around this band of futuristic bounty hunters. Pretty simple, right? Well, you know what? Things get a little complicated. You see, each character has their own back story that’s filled with demons but the beauty of this show is the way they blend it into the overall story. There are some episodes where we dig deeper into these characters’ pasts but not after we first get a bunch of episodes showing off what these guys do best…catchin’ dirt bags.
Alright so you got Spike who is the main-est of the main characters, a young ex-mob dude with a haunted past. Then there’s Jet who is Spike’s partner, a wise, older ex-cop with a haunted past. Faye Valentine is a con artist with a gambling addiction and a haunted past. Ed is a little computer hacker genius girl (even though they leave it ambiguous for a long time whether she is a girl or a boy) with a not so haunted past. And finally there’s Ein, an extremely smart robot dog. I’m sure this dog has a haunted past too but they just never got to it.
First off the animation looks beautiful and whenever they combined it with CGI it was done very well. Things are cartoony but kinda down to earth at the same time. Another thing is that it was a good decision to have these guys carry guns that you would see today and not futuristic laser guns. It makes for incredible badass action scenes. Sometimes it almost feels like Walter Hill (The Warriors, Last Man Standing) directed this thing. The wild west feel that the title implies rings true in the end product.
The music in this series is another incredible wonder. There’s some harmonica and slide guitar like you would expect in a christened western style series. There’s also some pop and rock stuff but the main driving force is jazz. That’s the bebop part of the title. It sounds like such a strange combination of anime, martial arts, guns, western themes and jazz music but it actually works. In fact it not only works but excels in every area. It takes itself seriously during the action but you still get some playful moments and some sad moments to round it out.
Now like I said before they blend the characters into the story nicely. For instance they’ll have an episode where they’re looking for a bounty but this particular guy is dating one of Jet’s old girlfriends. Or that Faye was initially a bounty herself. It’s cool how they gather their main cast of characters as the series progresses and then flirts with different combinations as some leave or stay.
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie came out a couple of years after the series in 2001 and is like a real long episode. It’s fine but not as good as the show simply because the long format doesn’t work as well. The entire crew is inexplicably back together for this and it would help to have seen the show before but isn’t totally necessary. It seems like they made the movie more for people who haven’t seen the show before especially here in America, which actually makes it not a bad introduction to these characters and the feeling and style of the show. But it’s definitely not as lean as the series and the overall plot for this probably would have fit better if they had trimmed it into one episode or even a two parter.
Cowboy Bebop seems like they intentionally tailor made an anime series for Americans or westerners. Or at least they were heavily influenced by westerns and western action movies. And the thing is that a lot of it does play like a great action movie. There’s still plenty of exaggerated cartoony shit but it’s balanced with handguns and a devil-may-care attitude. These really are cowboys set in space. Well if you still have any qualms about jumping into an anime show check this out:
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