Thursday, September 11, 2014

Anime Review: Cowboy Bebop

Seeing as we'll be showing this title in the Anime Club starting on the day of this post, it seems only fair I give a proper review to what is definitely my favorite anime series of all time. Without further ado, let's take a look at Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop is a 26 episode series that was published in 1998 as the directorial debut of Shinchiro Watanabe, who is also well known for co-directing Macross Plus four years earlier and later going on to direct the popular Samurai Champloo. The show itself is about a crew of bounty hunters living together on the spaceship Bebop and the adventures, misfortunes, and journeys they all experience. Said crew is composed of five members: Spike Spiegel, a fairly indifferent young man with notable marital arts skills, a very fatalistic outlook on life, and one hell of an afro; Jet Black, a hard-working, no nonsense former cop with a taste for culture; Faye Valentine, a cunning woman skilled at acquiring whatever she desires and carrying with her a mysterious past; Edward, an extremely eccentric and considerably androgynous young girl who is a hacking prodigy; and Ein, a super-intelligent dog (specifically, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi) and Ed's best friend.

Trying to classify Cowboy Bebop under a single genre is difficult given the sheer number of different subjects covered, styles replicated, and concepts examined by the show. The series contains elements of the comedy, drama, action, noir, western, and thriller genres, and draws inspiration from all manner of different titles, including various Spaghetti Western films, Aliens, Star Wars, several Bruce Lee films, and general American Western and Hong Kong "heroic bloodshed" sub-genres. On top of all of this, the series also examines many philosophical concepts, such as existentialism and existential boredom. As one could guess, this gives the series a very unique style and general feel; in many ways, Cowboy Bebop could be considered something of its own genre, or simply as an amalgamation of so many different genres and styles as to create something new. And frankly speaking, I cannot emphasize enough how well the series manages to do all of this; the show is thoroughly engaging throughout its entire run, and all but guaranteed to pull in just about any viewer, be it through its characters, stories, or even just its atmosphere. Complementing this is the series superb soundtrack consisting of blues and jazz, all of which fits perfectly with virtually every way its implemented, and a general quality of animation and acting from both its English and Japanese casts that remains some of the best I've ever seen in anime.

Cowboy Bebop is a series I would absolutely recommend to virtually anyone and everyone, even people who are not necessarily huge fans of anime. There is something for pretty much everyone here, and one would be hard-pressed to find areas of criticism outside of the occasional sub-par performance by a one-off character or similarly minor areas of complaint. If you haven't seen this series yet, do yourself a favor and find the time to check this show out; I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

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