Seen It, Space Cowboy (The Cowboy Bebop Thread)

[Ionathus]

I just finished Cowboy Bebop (the animated series, to be clear) for the first time. Having never seen it back in the day, it was interesting to come in after two decades of knowing nothing about it, except that it got overwhelmingly good reviews from almost everyone.

Initial thoughts: I wanted more, basically across the board! The show's atmosphere is by far its strongest asset: the animation is gorgeous and the pacing is very unique and compelling. This is a show that seems to win me over purely on "vibes" and that's a rare feat. I love the soundscape, the use of music, the use of silence. I liked watching Spike in particular fight: something about the way they animate his martial arts and his lankiness is very amusing and unique.

I liked how unique the individual storylines were, and even if they sometimes left me feeling unresolved (even accounting for that being a noir/western convention), I always got the feeling that was intentional. That usually doesn't work for me but I found it charming here.

The characters were always fun and unique, playing with archetypes but never going full cliche...with the exception of Spike's "dirty past" characters who never once grabbed my interest, even a little bit. Who is this joyless blonde woman who spends every onscreen moment moping? Why does Spike have a DeviantArt-ass discount Sephiroth of a nemesis who walks around with a crow on his shoulder and a katana in his hands and is literally, I am not kidding, named "Vicious"? Am I supposed to be impressed that these crime bosses got killed by this other crime boss? It felt kinda weird that in a show where everyone is struggling for competence, protagonists and antagonists alike, this one dude just popped out of a shonen anime and went on a hypercompetent killing spree. The series finale, likewise, didn't do much for me, it felt a little overwrought in the context of the rest of the show.

But aside from some minor character gripes and a general feeling that I was never quite getting enough of each storyline, it was a very enjoyable, interesting, and evocative show. I had a good time chewing on it, a couple episodes at a time across the past year or two.

Judging by the things I've read online about the show, it was seen as revolutionary at the time by many people and almost universally-acclaimed. I realize I'm late to this particular party and there are probably things I'm taking for granted, things that this show broke ground on that have come to be more standard. I'd love to hear someone chime in who watched this show in its heyday, to hear what it was like and what was special about it to you!

[Dragonus45]

I liked how unique the individual storylines were, and even if they sometimes left me feeling unresolved (even accounting for that being a noir/western convention), I always got the feeling that was intentional. That usually doesn't work for me but I found it charming here.


I feel like the trick they pulled here is the worldbuilding just feels so large and full that even the stories that leave you feeling unfulfilled or unresolved feel more like stories with an ending we don't see rather then stories that have no ending at all and that makes a big difference.

[Rynjin]

If you feel like you want more Bebop, you can kind of get it from Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy. Different vibes in some ways, but a similar style (being from the same director and all). I hear Carole and Tuesday is good too but I haven't watched it.

Champloo in particular is involved in an interesting bit of musical history if you're interested; the sadly late musician, Nujabes, who produced the (excellent) soundtrack is typically credited as the inventor of the chillhop genre, which is the progenitor of the now very popular lo-fi hiphop genre.

It's one of only two anime I know of which are so inextricably linked to a musical genre like that. The other of course being Initial D, which used Eurobeat music in its soundtrack and actually completely altered the TRAJECTORY of that genre. Over time the association with Initial D caused the genre itself to become more car-focused, and for a while there all new Eurobeat tracks being produced were explicitly BEING produced for Initial D. The anime was the literal only reason that entire genre of music still existed lol.

The other Watanabe-directed series are based around a musical theme as well (jazz, obviously, for Bebop, hiphop for Champloo, and rock 'n' roll for Space Dandy) but the middle child is the only one that has it as like this inextricable core of the series. You basically can't have Champloo without the soundtrack, it just doesn't work.

[Psyren]

I just finished Cowboy Bebop (the animated series, to be clear)

I'm confused, was there another Cowboy Bebop series? :smalltongue::smallwink:


Why does Spike have a DeviantArt-ass discount Sephiroth of a nemesis who walks around with a crow on his shoulder and a katana in his hands and is literally, I am not kidding, named "Vicious"?

Worth noting that Cowboy Bebop and Final Fantasy 7 originally released within weeks of each other. Whether Vicious and Sephiroth share an inspiration or it's purely a coincidence, I couldn't say


Am I supposed to be impressed that these crime bosses got killed by this other crime boss? It felt kinda weird that in a show where everyone is struggling for competence, protagonists and antagonists alike, this one dude just popped out of a shonen anime and went on a hypercompetent killing spree. The series finale, likewise, didn't do much for me, it felt a little overwrought in the context of the rest of the show.

Vicious lives up to his name.

It might have been easier to swallow if he first subverted their organizations, Godfather style, and had their own henchmen do the deed - but having Vicious slaughter them all himself and get away with it scot-free looks cooler so that's what happened.

[Ionathus]

I'm confused, was there another Cowboy Bebop series? :smalltongue::smallwink:

I think there was a movie tie-in, and then a recent live-action series that bombed? Just wanted to eliminate ambiguity :smallbiggrin:


Worth noting that Cowboy Bebop and Final Fantasy 7 originally released within weeks of each other. Whether Vicious and Sephiroth share an inspiration or it's purely a coincidence, I couldn't say

That's amazing and I never would have considered those two as contemporaries. In my mind FFVII is a game from 1992, but then again I never owned a Playstation...


It might have been easier to swallow if he first subverted their organizations, Godfather style, and had their own henchmen do the deed - but having Vicious slaughter them all himself and get away with it scot-free looks cooler so that's what happened.

That's my main complaint, though, that it's too cool: all the other fights in this show are very desperate, messy gunfights. Vicious's scene where he takes down the crime lords is very different in making him look 100% cool and composed the whole time, and while I suppose it works to subvert expectations, it mostly just pulled me out of the gritty atmosphere and felt unjustified. But I recognize that's a very subjective opinion.

[Psyren]

I think there was a movie tie-in, and then a recent live-action series that bombed? Just wanted to eliminate ambiguity :smallbiggrin:

I'm aware of both, I was just trying unsuccessfully to delete the live-action (which to be fair, did some things very right, like its casting of Jet and Faye) from my memory :smallsmile:


That's amazing and I never would have considered those two as contemporaries. In my mind FFVII is a game from 1992, but then again I never owned a Playstation...

1992 was SNES/Genesis era (FFV and Shining Force to be precise.) In fact, the Playstation itself didn't debut until 2 years after that, with FF7 coming along several years later.



That's my main complaint, though, that it's too cool: all the other fights in this show are very desperate, messy gunfights. Vicious's scene where he takes down the crime lords is very different in making him look 100% cool and composed the whole time, and while I suppose it works to subvert expectations, it mostly just pulled me out of the gritty atmosphere and felt unjustified. But I recognize that's a very subjective opinion.

I hear you. At the end of the day, no matter how serious it is compared to other properties, it's still seinen, so you're going to get some degree of improbability.

[Dragonus45]

That's my main complaint, though, that it's too cool: all the other fights in this show are very desperate, messy gunfights. Vicious's scene where he takes down the crime lords is very different in making him look 100% cool and composed the whole time, and while I suppose it works to subvert expectations, it mostly just pulled me out of the gritty atmosphere and felt unjustified. But I recognize that's a very subjective opinion.

All of the other fights, except for the couple of occasions Spike stops ****ing around and just demolishes a dozen guys in style. Like the first Vicious episode actually when they had Faye kidnapped and Spike just waltzed in and bodied them. Those two are kind of just on an entire other level compared to literally anyone else in the series. Although Vicious does tend to keep a calm unflustered demeanor in all his fights which I can see as being off-putting.

[Trixie_One]

I think there was a movie tie-in, and then a recent live-action series that bombed?

Definitely watch the movie. It slots in perfectly as a missing longer episode towards the end of the show. It's so good the writers of RWBY ripped off the opening wholesale for their first episode.

[Eldan]

Seconding the movie. Great music, decent characters, some of the all-time best animated fight scenes.

[Swaoeaeieu]

I'm aware of both, I was just trying unsuccessfully to delete the live-action (which to be fair, did some things very right, like its casting of Jet and Faye) from my memory :smallsmile:


Man i am gonna go against the stream here and say the live action was a pretty good adaption. i liked it, was dissapointed it was cancelled after one season.
The one thing i realy apreciated about the Live action compared to the anime is they gave Vicious a story, not just a few apearances with little explenation.

The after credits scene with Edward though is very jarring, that character does not come across good in live action lol

[Ramza00]

If you like the music, the composer is Yoko Kanno, she has done dozen of good songs from different genres since 1985.

Hums Pushing the Sky from the movie.


I'm confused, was there another Cowboy Bebop series? :smalltongue::smallwink:

It was all just a dream, note Spike is asleep when Jet is calling for him



https://youtu.be/Z-4ImAf6qYk?si=JIRz2qFEsBBl2Hlh

[Mechalich]

Man i am gonna go against the stream here and say the live action was a pretty good adaption. i liked it, was dissapointed it was cancelled after one season.
The one thing i realy apreciated about the Live action compared to the anime is they gave Vicious a story, not just a few apearances with little explenation.


The problem with the live action version is that it took something genuinely great - Cowboy Bebop is on almost everyone's top ten anime of all time lists - and produced something pretty good out of it. Now, that was probably inevitable, Bebop leans quite heavily into the properties of animation at a number of points and does things that simply can't be produced in live action, so getting a 'pretty good space gangster drama' out of the adaptation is to my mind an achievement. However, there's really no reason to watch the live action version rather than simply watching the anime over again (not even the subtitle reason, since Cowboy Bebop has a decent dub).

[Ionathus]

(not even the subtitle reason, since Cowboy Bebop has a decent dub).

Isn't Cowboy Bebop even famous for how good its dub is? I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed as #1 english dub on lists before.

[Razade]

Isn't Cowboy Bebop even famous for how good its dub is? I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed as #1 english dub on lists before.

The dub was pretty solid, especially for the time it was dubbed.

[Eldan]

Yeah, it was a good dub at a time when dubbing anime for a lot of companies still seemed to mean "let's get some random people together to do the voices", while Cowboy Bebop had actual voice actors.

[Trixie_One]

Isn't Cowboy Bebop even famous for how good its dub is? I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed as #1 english dub on lists before.

This was from a time where Cowboy Bebop was #1 Black Lagoon was #2 and that'd be the entire list.

Yeah that's probably exaggerated but those really were by far the best two dubs that were out there. I'd personally rate Black Lagoon higher myself as they've got stuff like how do you translate the bit where the original cast needed to try to speak English.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, it was a good dub at a time when dubbing anime for a lot of companies still seemed to mean "let's get some random people together to do the voices", while Cowboy Bebop had actual voice actors.

Cowboy Bebop was essentially the second big dramatic anime series to penetrate the US market, with the first being Evangelion two years earlier. Prior to that, US anime releases had mostly been of shounen/shoujo action-comedies - ex. Dragonball, Sailor Moon - that weren't seen as serious business even by the people making them. Eva and Bebop helped to change that, just as they changed anime itself for a full decade from roughly 1996 to 2006 that served in many ways as the height of serious, action-drama anime with big stakes. This has since changed largely due to technology and economic shifts that drive the market.

The period from roughly 1999-2005 is also the height of quality for anime dubbing in English because that was the period with the most money behind the practice in the US due to a convergence of technologies that led to an awful lot of anime being sold on DVD for that brief period, which created the sense that anime could be a huge business in America and led US licensing studios to try and dub everything (ex. the very fact that Black Lagoon, mentioned by @Trixie_One, has a dub at all). This...wasn't viable over the long term, with retail sales being first undercut by cheap DVD imports from China and then annihilated by nigh-simultaneous fan-subbing that ultimate led the Japanese studios to break down and authorize simulcasts. This drastically reduced the amount of money, time, and effort devoted to dubbing.

[Ramza00]

Cowboy Bebop was essentially the second big dramatic anime series to penetrate the US market, with the first being Evangelion two years earlier. Prior to that, US anime releases had mostly been of shounen/shoujo action-comedies - ex. Dragonball, Sailor Moon - that weren't seen as serious business even by the people making them. Eva and Bebop helped to change that, just as they changed anime itself for a full decade from roughly 1996 to 2006 that served in many ways as the height of serious, action-drama anime with big stakes. This has since changed largely due to technology and economic shifts that drive the market.

The period from roughly 1999-2005 is also the height of quality for anime dubbing in English because that was the period with the most money behind the practice in the US due to a convergence of technologies that led to an awful lot of anime being sold on DVD for that brief period, which created the sense that anime could be a huge business in America and led US licensing studios to try and dub everything (ex. the very fact that Black Lagoon, mentioned by @Trixie_One, has a dub at all). This...wasn't viable over the long term, with retail sales being first undercut by cheap DVD imports from China and then annihilated by nigh-simultaneous fan-subbing that ultimate led the Japanese studios to break down and authorize simulcasts. This drastically reduced the amount of money, time, and effort devoted to dubbing.

Yep what Mecha said. And I would underline via zooming out. In the 80s one of the biggest maker of cartoons was Marvel Productions which was an animation studio who did a lot of cartoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Productions that were not Marvel like Transformers, GI Joe, Muppet Babies, Dungeons and Dragons, so on

The exec in charge of Marvel Productions from 1984 to 1990 was Margaret Loesch. She left Marvel Productions to do Fox Kids in 1990 and her first two things she Green Lit was X-Men 92 and Power Rangers.

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Back to dubs and importing well Power Rangers was an import business of Saban Entertainment (founded by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy), it was originally (1980) a company which was going to do music production like MTV before MTV. Then it got into doing cheap dubs and importing due to the rise of global trade. Then it got into what we call power rangers which was chopping up other franchises and using the material for parts and adding new value into it. Same thing X-Men ‘92 which was done by Saban and not Marvel Productions for Marvel the IP and the Marvel Productions (the animation studio which was sold later to Disney for more billions than the IP and at an earlier date) had split and it was cheaper to farm X-Men 92 to this new animation studio.

=====

So by the late 90s we had already proved that import business can be big money, designed to fill the roster for a fourth over the air tv channel (fox prime time launched in 1987) and the emerging cable stations with things like the Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and so on. By the success of the early 1990s we have demonstrated a business which other people can copy.

And thus good dubbing was a way to stand out when Cowboy Bebop emerge on the scene. It was taking the craft more seriously than people like Saban (there are also others) did before when they did those overcaffeninated DBZ english opening set to rock music. (Only the first 53 episodes of DBZ was done by Saban)

[Rynjin]

Look, we all know the best dub was Ghost Stories, there's really no contest.

[Eldan]

This was from a time where Cowboy Bebop was #1 Black Lagoon was #2 and that'd be the entire list.

Yeah that's probably exaggerated but those really were by far the best two dubs that were out there. I'd personally rate Black Lagoon higher myself as they've got stuff like how do you translate the bit where the original cast needed to try to speak English.

I should listen to the black Lagoon dub at some point. But the Japanese version was so hilariously bad at times, I think it just added to the experience.

[Joran]

The problem with the live action version is that it took something genuinely great - Cowboy Bebop is on almost everyone's top ten anime of all time lists - and produced something pretty good out of it. Now, that was probably inevitable, Bebop leans quite heavily into the properties of animation at a number of points and does things that simply can't be produced in live action, so getting a 'pretty good space gangster drama' out of the adaptation is to my mind an achievement. However, there's really no reason to watch the live action version rather than simply watching the anime over again (not even the subtitle reason, since Cowboy Bebop has a decent dub).

I thought the "Lost Session" trailer they had for Cowboy Bebop was honestly great. It got me excited for the show, because I thought the rest of the show would be similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JDWm1f6-M0

Alas, it wasn't to be. I thought it was decent to occasionally good and was taking it in an interesting direction.