Series Review: Cowboy Bebop

This week I decided to go back and revisit one of the anime series that first enticed me into my love of this cartoon convention.  Cowboy Bebop is, in my opinion, perhaps the best anime ever produced.  Led by Shinichiro Watanabe (the director responsible for other great animes such as Samurai Champloo), the team that put this series together is legend in the industry.  It combines the perfect combination of excellence in writing, directing and animation and has, over time, become one of the most beloved anime series in the world.

When Cowboy Bebop starts, we are introduced to two main characters - Spike Spiegel and Jet Black.  They fly around the solar system hunting bounties to make money and fill their bellies.  Along the way, they encounter other allies, such as Faye Valentine, a greedy con-artist, Edward, the hacker, and Ein, the most intelligent dog ever bred.  Together, they hunt down bad guys and get into often ill-fated adventures.

The series follows a dual-layered approach when it comes to telling its many stories.  There are the character stories, which show up every so often, and the filler stories, which act as buffers between the usually more series character development.  This allows the viewer to become attached to each character, waiting for their story to unfold, while still seeing the crew in more light-hearted predicaments.  Cowboy Bebop may be goofy at times, but when they look into the past of one of the main cast, it can become quite serious and, at times, quite heartbreaking.

As you travel with the Bebop crew, you will grow to love each one for their own unique personality.  The writers did not try to create the best examples of humanity in these characters.  Most, in fact, are quite shady in their own ways and almost all of them are very greedy and self-interested.  More than once does one character screw over another in the name of profit or to settle a personal vendetta with them.  But when push comes to shove, they always manage to pull together.  By the end of the series, they are a strange, dysfunctional family and the viewer feels like part of that family.

The overarching plot of Bebop centers around Spike’s story and it was written with a definitive beginning, middle and end.  Just as the characters arrive, so to do they leave.  I teared up more than once watching this series when someone that I wanted to stay decided to leave.  But that’s part of what makes the series so amazingly written.  There is no attempt to appease the audience, only tell a great story.

Stylistically, the show looks great.  The animation is beautiful, particularly when it comes to movement.  Watching Spike get into a martial arts fight is truly amazing and well beyond most other anime that try to portray action.  The world design is also exceptional and really conveys the atmosphere of a futuristic landscape where the Earth has become a wasteland and the various planets and moons of the solar system are now inhabited.  The attention to detail adds to this by presenting real-world problems for the characters.  Even as bounty hunters that make tons of cash when they’re successful, the crew still has trouble affording enough fuel to get to the next planet or even food to eat.  Their ships are always in a constant state of almost breaking down.  With all the obstacles in their way, it’s a wonder that the Bebop crew manages to get anything done.

Cowboy Bebop is a show that appeals to both anime fans, science fiction fans and those that enjoy a complex story.  Following the main twenty-six episode run, the show even made a movie, although it turned out as less of a stand-alone product and more of just a two-hour episode that occurs somewhere within the main storyline.  The future may even hold a bit more Bebop, despite previous statements that there would be no continuation of the story.  A live-action Cowboy Bebop film has been in and out of development for years now and many are skeptical, though Watanabe says that it’s still on the way.  Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that one.  It would be pretty damn hard to cast this as live-action.

As far as popular reviews go, Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t think much of the Bebop film, rating it at 64% compared to audience ratings of 89%.  There’s little in the way of feedback from critics on the series itself, unfortunately, although fans have given it a consistent 100% on RT.  Regardless of what critics have to say, I fully recommend that you check this series out.  There are few anime series that can compare with the level of intelligence and exceptional production values that Cowboy Bebop has to offer.

Cowboy Bebop line-up courtesy of animeout.com

Spike and Ein courtesy of quackpot.com