Cowboy Bebop

Original Title: カウボーイビボップ
Romanized: Cowboy Bebop
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

In the not-too-distant future of 2071, Earth is a bit of a mess as a result of an accident testing a new transportation system, and now nobody is left on it but folks to poor to get away. But, humanity has colonized and terraformed the rest of the solar system, so things are going just fine. Taking advantage of the frontier spirit of the day, there is a new breed of bounty hunters, known as Cowboys, living a loose life, traveling between worlds, and hunting down the most wanted criminals for enough money to keep doing it. Two of the best (if unluckiest) of these folks are the owners of the good ship Bebop, Spike and Jet, both leaving behind pasts they'd rather forget. When they get joined by a couple of unwelcome companions--Fay, a gambler with a huge debt, no past, a penchant for cheating, even worse luck than Spike and Jet, and a lot of people after her, and Ed, a rather odd young hacker (plus the genetically engineered dog Ein)--we get the unusual tale that is Cowboy Bebop.

Quick Review

Rating: 4.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-08-25

Cowboy Bebop is a whole collection of classic genres, all mixed into one series and all done right, to the point that it breathes new life into a very stale genre. In one episode it may be dark, stylized, and serious, and in another light and filled with offbeat humor and antagonistic banter, but in every case it's done right. Back that up with a great cast and writing (in both the dub and original Japanese, no less), fine visuals, cool retro-high-technology, and some of the most varied and well written music I've ever heard in a series--Yoko Kanno's score covering everything from heavy metal to worldbeat--and you've got good anime. Cowboy Bebop isn't deep, but it has style and little bits of creativity everywhere to make up for what it lacks in substance, and from start to finish it's a marvelously well-built production.

Massively popular with good reason, Cowboy Bebop is worth at least a chance from almost any anime fan, and is almost guaranteed to be loved by fans of stylish action and sci-fi, as well those into not-too-serious space shows.

US DVD Review

Not fancy, but good solid DVDs. The main feature of each is a very sharp video transfer and clear Japanese and English audio tracks, with a proper English subtitle track. It's interesting to note that the cases (unlike the VHS boxes) match the Japanese versions (at least of the Laser Discs) almost exactly (I believe even the English text was the same on the originals). The first DVD includes the first 2 and a half, I believe, volumes of the VHS version, as does the second, and subsequent discs have 4 episodes--two VHS volumes--each. (Speaking of which, I liked the fact that for once the discs actually say how many are in the series--"Disc 3 of 6"--and so on.)

There is also a 2-disc set of the six "best" episodes of the series, remixed in 5.1 channel audio (both languages). The episodes on the disc are Asteroid Blues, Ballad of Fallen Angels, Wild Horses, Waltz For Venus, Mushroom Samba, and Hard Luck Woman.

Content Guide

A few mature themes and a lot of violence put it easily in the 13-up range, probably 16-up in at least some episodes.

Violence: 3 - Not usually graphic, but plenty of violence, little of it cartoony.

Nudity: 2 - A bit here and there.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Nothing explicit at all, but a few rather mature themes.

Language: 2 - Not noteworthy.

Notes and Trivia

For those wondering, this series is not based on manga, although there are a few spin-off comics, available translated into English from Tokyopop.

This is a relatively random observation, but the money situation in the world of Cowboy Bebop seems a bit odd; if you assume a Woolong is worth in the range of a US Dollar or Euro, then the bounties seem extravagant and the dire financial straits of the characters are a bit odd. However, Japan uses Yen, which are only worth in the general range of 100 to the US Dollar or Euro right now, so numbers look big--something that would cost $250 in America would be priced at about 25,000 yen in Japan. It would make sense for a Japanese series to use a denomination of money that's familiar to their intended viewers, in which case the bounties in the series are much more reasonable--a bounty of 1,000,000 would only end up being worth about US$10,000; not in the same league at all. However, some of the numbers thrown around--the numbers on gambling chips and a fellow arguing over 100 Woolongs in the value of a Welsh Corgi--make the issue a little fuzzier.

Also, if you noticed my comment about nit picking the zero-g scenes above, you might have been wondering what I meant. The thing is, in zero gravity, there is no "up." Hot air (or hot cigarette smoke, in this case) usually rises, as it did in this series when the characters were smoking without the benefit of gravity. But, realistically, a burning cigarette's smoke would just sort of drift out in a small, even cloud from the tip of the cigarette. And actually, due to the lack of any convection currents, the tobacco-stick wouldn't even burn very well when you weren't sucking on the other end...

Availability

Available in the US from Bandai on six bilingual DVDs. It was previously available on 13 subtitled or dubbed VHS volumes. There is also a "Best Sessions" box set of six episodes remixed with 5.1 DTS audio. (Buy the discs from RightStuf: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, and Volume 6. There's also the Best Sessions set.)

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store