Anime is too big to be all bad. By that I mean that no matter who you are, chances are fairly good that somewhere there exists some anime you will enjoy. It's mostly different for a lot of people of course - and some never find what they're looking for because, well, most anime is terrible and they just give up.
I eventually did get around to watching Bebop of course. I probably polished off the series in two days after I started into it, and have watched it countless times since. See, Bebop is the epitome of anime goodness. From where I'm sitting, the genre simply does not get better than this. For AA's one year anniversary I thought I'd finally write up a six-hamham review. In fact, it's the only six-hamham review I'm ever likely to write. Or, in much simpler terms, I absolutely love Cowboy Bebop and I think everyone else should, too. Bebop is twenty-six episodes of style, fun, music, and pizazz plus a feature film. It's wacky, it's exciting, it's energetic, it's serious. It's everything that most anime isn't.
Characters:
Not to say that there isn't any dancing going on at all. Getting the bad stuff out of the way first, I've got to mention Ed. Ed is the quintessential obnoxious preteen girl of the series... who doesn't have a nose. She spends all her time squeaking and singing and spinning around, generally just eating up screentime that could have been handed to more useful characters. Thankfully exposure to Ed is kept on a tight leash, and you can largely ignore her and still enjoy the rest of the cast. In any case, it's only worth faulting the show a half-a-ham. Now, the three people who aren't complete wastes of time come in the shape of an ex-gangster crack shot martial arts master, a sexy sultry sarcastic big-breasted 74-year-old with a gambling disorder, and a grizzled old ex-cop with a prosthetic arm and some seriously groovin' sideburns. There's a dog too, but the dog isn't all that interesting. The main character is Spike Spiegel, but he's really only the main character in the sense that he's the primary focus of the series' continuity, which accounts for less than one-fifth of the series as a whole. Spike spends his time
Spike's partner is Jet Black, a scruffy old man with a fake arm and big bushy eyebrows. His role is to be the dour voice of reason who nobody listens to. He's got all the experience and, for what it's worth, is the "leader" of the Bebop if anybody is. Jet is equal parts father figure and dirty old man... and in one episode he's both at once. Jet's too quirky to be the straight man and too stiff to be the clown, so he spends most of his time trying to keep Spike and Faye out of trouble. And ahhh, Faye. Faye Valentine. What can you say about Faye? She's a knockout who will knock you out. A troublemaking, backstabbing, lying, cheating, stealing mass of womanly perfection wrapped in a tight yellow two-piece. Faye's exactly the type of woman who knows she has tits and knows how to use them, and though Spike's too wily to fall for her charms (and Jet's too hardened) virtually everyone else is in danger of her slipping right into their pants and out with their wallet. Faye is the mischeivious pixie you love to hate and love to love - and let's be honest, she's fun to ogle.
Oh, and the dog's name is Ein.
Story:
The first of Bebop's principle storylines is the rivalry between Spike and Vicious. Spanning five episodes (four of which comprise the series two-part episodes), the idea is that Spike and Vicious were once comrades in a Martian crime syndicate. But a woman came between them and Spike tried to break away, but has carried a personal vendetta against Vicious ever since. Vicious, on the other hand, grew ambitious and intends to sieze the syndicate for himself. To do so, he needs to eliminate Spike, whom the rest of the organization feels should be the proper heir. If this sounds like a fairly sparse summary, it is. The details of Spike and Vicious' pasts are never fully explained, and of course that isn't really the point. Bebop isn't a series about stuff that's happened, it's about stuff that's happening. So the important thing is that the two are at each other's throats now, and the reasons aren't important anymore. The second storyline deals with Faye. Faye is introduced as a wandering gypsy, which we quickly learn is a lie. She's then re-introduced as a tagalong bounty hunter who forces her way onto the Bebop and manages to make herself useful enough that Spike and Jet don't kick her off. It isn't until later, when a mysterious package arrives at Jet's feet that we learn that Faye *has amnesia after having been crygenically frozen for fifty years*. Of course, it's never really clear whether that just happens to turn out as another lie... Faye's story is less prominant than Spike's, clocking in at only three or four episodes.
Jet's story is more fractured than the others, but it's there. He's got a lot more baggage in his past, and therefore we only see the tidbits that happen to surface during the series' timeframe. This includes an old girlfriend and her deadbeat boyfriend, the old adversary who is responsible for his bum arm, and a teenage girl who buys into feng shui... among others. Spike's stories are all about high action and gunfights, Faye's are about flashbacks and searching for her place in the universe, Jet's are dark and often depressing stories. Ed's got three episodes of her own, which are wacky and comedic and, surprisingly enough, fairly entertaining. These different episode styles pop in and out, staggared so one type never becomes dominant over the others. Thus the stories come in a fairly deliberate order but don't necessarily flow into each other, and are often set aside and continued later. Then, at the end, *Spike dies* and that's it. It's simple, it's clean, and it's beautiful. And it's perfect. The movie, of course, has a much deeper plot that is all it's own. There's really no point detailing it because, when all's said and done, it's just a 90-minute episode of the show with slightly better animation. The characters and story are so dead-center on target with its parent series that I don't even need a separate page for it.
Animation:
Bebop has this shadowy film noir style look to it that is uncharacteristic of sci-fi anime - which is sort of the point since Bebop isn't sci-fi. I suppose it's wrong of me to read too much into the artsy flavor of heavily shadowed flashback sequences, but heck, I'm a sucker for such niceties. The movie, of course, cleans up all the little artistic hiccups that plague the series (and most series for that matter) without losing any of the charm. "More of the same but better" I guess you'd say. So, for being incredibly visually appealing without necessarily being perfect, I'll give Bebop six hamhams anyway.
Culture Shock:
What few Japanese references there are in the series make perfect sense. Japan isn't perceived as the end-all and be-all of the solar system, but rather just one prominent piece of it. There are enough mysteries to unravel in the three primary characters to have to worry about as it is. Oh, wait. There is one really important Japanese item around - Vicious' totally awesome ninja sword. But how can I honestly fault a series for including a ninja sword? Who doesn't like ninja swords anyway? Even if you don't how difficult are they to really understand? They're just swords, duh. Let's not split hairs.
Absolute perfection is impossible. This is a fact. Perfect things simply cannot exist in our universe because our universe is woefully imperfect. This is the genius of Cowboy Bebop. They guys put it together, then said, wait. We can't release it like this - it's too perfect. We need to add a flaw - gash it up a bit so it can remain anchored in reality and not transcend into the abstract realm of perfection beyond all mortal comprehension. And thus, Ed exists. A blemish on an absolutely perfect series that makes you cringe (slightly) while she's onscreen, but appreciate it all the more when she isn't. It actually helps serve to make an already perfect series even more perfect. So, everyone's got an anime they call their favorite. Reasonable people can disagree, of course, but not on the point that Bebop is outstanding. In other words, it might not be your favorite, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go ahead and enjoy it anyway.
See you, space cowboy.
Overall Rating:
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"Hey, two for one special on Jawbreakers! Cool!"
When bounty hunting dries up, Spike fills in for Batman on the side.
Jet, meanwhile, picks up babysitting jobs.
Faye, of course, just hits the bar.
Coolest. Scene. Ever.
"Shucks howdy!"
"Look everybody! Some Nigerian prince wants to give us ten million woolongs!"
Breakfast of champions.
Electrifying Electra can electrify me anytime.
