Cowboy Bebop Rewatch 5

I’m just sort of throwing out an estimate here, but I’m pretty sure I just watched my 6th time worth of Bebop. There are some episode I’ve only seen 2 or 3 times, but others I’ve seen like 8, so I’d say it all smooths out to about 6 watches total. However, a few things make this marathon unique. One, it’s my first time watching the show in 5 or 6 years, and two, it’s my first time watching it in Japanese.

Watching Cowboy Bebop really gave me some perspective on just how long I’ve been an anime fan. Whenever I think about my fandom I always think ‘2003′ because that’s when I was watching the most shows and when they were airing the most on Cartoon Network. However, I was watching anime, with knowledge of it being anime, since Cowboy Bebop first started airing in late 2001. I was 10 years old when I started Cowboy Bebop. That’s about 7 years ago. Back in 2007, I kept using the term ‘4 years ago’ about anime I’d been watching a long time, but before I even realized it that has turned into ‘6 years ago’ and even then, as said, there was a whole year of anime fandom before I came into contact with things like DVDs.

As I’ve said in other posts, my first two anime ever were Ninja Scroll and Cowboy Bebop (discluding, of course, the 3 years prior of hardcore Pokemon fanboyism). I got into anime almost entirely for the action. Beck in those days, if it wasn’t funny or badass, I didn’t care. Back then I couldn’t really tell you what a great fight scene was, but I knew I liked action. So naturally, back then, the episodes of Cowboy Bebop I cared about were the funny and action packed ones. My favorite eps were, I believe, Ballad of Fallen Angels, Jamming With Edward, Toys in the Attic, Mushroom Samba, Pierrot le Fou, Cowboy funk, and the 2 parts of The Real Folk Blues. I always hated Brain Scratch and was bored to tears by both of Jet’s backstory episodes, and Jupiter Jazz.

Now, I have a great memory, but after so long I only really remembered small details and by no means how I would react to different episodes. However, I will say that when I was rewatching the show, I knew almost every single line of dialog. I mean, I knew how they sounded in the dub, but I still recognized all of it. I’ve always been good with that, but I was really surprised by just how much I remembered. I also remembered almost every character name and episode title. I don’t even read episode titles these days – back then, with Cowboy Bebop I was the kind of fan who was constantly researching the show and rewatching it and stuff. Which I am kind of trying to become again.

But really, enough about the past, lets talk about this rewatch. Obviously, the Japanese vocal cast gave the characters a bit of different personality. This is why I hate dubs – it’s not that they can’t act, it’s that the misrepresent the characters (kind of how Asuka is impossible to like in dub Eva). This wasn’t too bad of a case though, and I didn’t really feel like I’d been misunderstanding all these years – just that I was understanding them on a deeper level now (which i probably couldn’t have done back then anyway).

Spike is mostly the same dude. Jet is way less severe in his tone – he sounds more annoyed than pissed and less commanding, which of course suits him better. Faye is totally done wrong in the dub – she’s made to sound like some sexy uber-badass. I mean, she is a sexy uber-badass, but the Japanese version gives you a way better view on her helplessness and makes her seem way more like a normal girl who just has this personality instead of some dominatrix or something. Ed was the most surprising of the bunch. In the dub, she was made to seem like she was insane – a crazy idiot with a genius mind. The Japanese version, though, didn’t make her seem stupid at all, just cute. Like, insanely cute. The character felt 100x more real.

Being that I am much more keep on these things now, I of course noticed the amazing animation the series over. Like, holy shit. The amount of detail put into backgrounds in this show is astounding. The use of CG was perfect at all times, there were a ton of brilliant experimental shots, and the look was so good it’s impossible to think that this show aired 11 years ago. You could put this show on TV now and I think people would still be blown away by it. I don’t think I can name more than 5 or 6 TV anime with animation this good, ever.And think about it – this is Sunrise – this show came out just a couple years after G Gundam. That really blows my mind.

One of Cowboy Bebop’s most memorable facets is, of course, it’s absolutely incredible soundtrack. Back in the day, The Real Folk Blues was like my national anthem – I would sing it to myself every morning on the bus ride to school. Songs like that and Rain were long-time favorites. When I got into OSTs a while back, I of course went right for the Cowboy Bebop OST and have heard a lot of these songs a ton of times. Several of my outright favorite songs (Rain, Call Me Call Me, Gotta Knock a Little Harder) come from this series. Needless to say, my friends and I were all singing along at parts – I think we had 4 people singing along to Rain lol. Knowing the soundtrack so well made a lot of scenes just that much more special. Hell, the Rain scene easily makes my top scenes of all time.

And then we get to why it was so important for me to rewatch this show, and why I couldn’t include it on my favorites list all this time – I knew I’d have totally different reactions to the episodes. Back in the day, it didn’t matter if I hated a bunch of a show’s episodes, it could still be my favorite. These days, though, I knew it had to be more. And it was. There were only 2 episodes of this show that were anything less than totally amazing. I’d now like to talk about some random things, good and bad.

(as a note, because this gets confusing, this marathon began with No Name and I who had only seen the show dubbed as well as Funeral who had seen it subbed and it’s his favorite show. We started the show at 12 morning and wanted to be done around 12 night, but by 11 night we were only on episode 14. There became a lot of debate over whether to continue, and what happened was basically Funeral passed out through all of episode 18 and then left the room and went to bed. No Name and I continued without him. We feel we are justified in this because we have had way too many marathons lately that get postponed due to someone getting distracted or falling asleep, and we didn’t want to loose the mood and energy of the show)

Ep 5 Ballad of Fallen Angels – Everything about this episode is fucking awesome. Dude. Norio. fucking. Wakamoto. This was one of the biggest reasons I was looking forward to rewatching Cowboy Bebop – Vicious voiced by the greatest seiyuu who ever lived. And yeah, the performance was quite legendary. One of the few which actually involved Wakamoto acting instead of just talking as funny as possible. The Rain scene was beautiful, as was the cathedral battle (which was actually used for the final battle between two characters in my youtube series, Project Awesomeness.) Spike falling from the window with that song playing is another legendary scene that I will surely never forget.

Ep 7 Heavy Metal Queen – VT is an awesome character, and I really love the way the trucker community is represented in this episode – the whole radio system and the community as a whole teaming up after the bad guy. Apparently, truckers are really like this, which is that much more awesome. Also, the metal music was fucking hilariously awesome. Sounded like Sex Machineguns.

Ep 8 Waltz For Venus - I just wanted to point out that the blind sister is the most moe thing in this show.

Ep 10 Ganymede Elegy – This was one of the episodes that used to bore me, most likely because it involved Jet (who is generally not exciting) and was centered around a female, which I didn’t understand back then. This time I rally enjoyed it and could not get over how insanely hot Jet’s girlfriend is. Seriously, I was creaming the hell out of my pants. She looked almost exactly like an older version of Saya from Blood+ which is kinda lol.

Ep 11 Toys in the Attic - Still one of my favorite episodes, it’s just a total classic. It’s especially notable for cleverly taking the opportunity to explore the Bebop. Funeral pointed out that he thinks the episode pays homage to the monster movie classic Alien in some ways (most notably beginning with a ’ships log’ message.)

Ep 12-13 Jupiter Jazz – Oh my god, they showed nipples! Now that’s something you don’t get on Cartoon Network! Anyway, I definitely appreciated this episode much more being older and understanding the implications of a city with ‘no women’.

Ep 14 Bohemian Rhapsody – This episode automatically wins just for having the name of one of the greatest songs ever written. My favorite part of the episode was the giant ship carcass which has become a hideout for people seeking anarchy. The place is pretty much full entirely of hippies and there are literally clouds from the sheer amount of pot being smoked. i loved that the place was pretty much a paradise for the easy-going, and a place that would surely be a lot of fun.

Ep 16 Black Dog Serenade - This was one of the 2 episodes that I really felt could have been done much better. It felt like too much time was spent on explaining the episode’s setup and fighting and not enough on the whole backstory element. The Adian (?) dude could have used a little more personality than just being show killing a bunch of dudes. That said, it was nice to see the blood spray from him cutting a guy’s neck which had been edited on CN.

Ep 17 Mushroom Samba – Still fucking amazing episode. Mushroom Hunting is one of the most hilariously WTF songs around. Also, this episode has a lot of black people. That’s always a good thing. ‘This is the stairway to heaven.’

Ep 18 Speak Like A Child - This was a very nice episode in a number of ways. It’s truly awesome to watch this episode in 2009 where the whole VHS and Beta thing really is outdated – to make you feel old, even I was scratching my head when it came to the Beta player. I loved the hell out of exploring the sunken building. I had several architecture and exploration jizz moments and kept thinking ‘goddammit I want this building!!!’ Of course, the ending was the best part of the episode with the video from Faye’s childhood. It was really a perfect sort of home video from a middle school girl to her future self. Cute as hell and fun but nostalgic and very heart-wrenching in it’s own way.

Ep 20 Pierrot le Fou - This was always one of my favorites, but I have WAY more appreciation for it now. This is, because I know film noir when I see it now, and this episode was a perfect film noir homage. The use of bleak colors, lots of shadows, a lack of music, a supernaturally powerful villain, and the fact that said villain died more by luck than anything else. Plus it had the best flashback ever and the trippy carnival a la Batman. Also, holy shit, the budget on this episode was absolutely insane. There was boatloads of well-used CG, crazy camera tricks, and stellar animation throughout. I couldn’t stop proclaiming aloud how this was like the best animation evar.

Ep 21 Boogie Woogie Feng Shui - This was, I think, the worst episode of the show by far. It didn’t seem to know where the hell it was trying to go and ended up making no sense (we went through all the trouble so you could talk to your daughter and you say almost nothing to her? the hell?) The girl was really cute, but that wasn’t enough to redeem it really.

Ep 22 Cowboy Funk – I laughed almost nonstop through this episode. Andy is just fucking hilarious, but oh my god he takes on a whole new level in Japanese – because he’s constantly using random English words! Every time I heard that whistling song I was immediately in fits of laughter and just could stop. It was made even funnier because me and No Name had just been reading something about Musashi before the ep and at the end, that’s the name Andy takes on when he becomes a Space Samurai.

The Movie Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door - No Name and I decided to watch the movie at it’s proper point in the show, between eps 22 and 23. I have to say, I was extremely disappointed. The only good thing about this movie was the action scenes, the animation, and the music. And while the action scenes were great, the convenient store one at the beginning and the final battle at the end are the only truly memorable ones. The rest of the movie was a huge waste of time – WAY too much expository dialog about crap no one cares about (details on the virus, random info, scenes that lasted too long) and time that could have been spent developing Electra and Vincent further was instead spent on crap like needlessly showing the military doing searches and other random shit. There was just too much ‘who gives a fuck, lets get back to the movie’. I doubt I’ll ever bother rewatching the whole thing, just the fights would be enough.

Ep 23 – Brain Scratch – I’m not sure why, but I had always hated this episode when I first saw it back when. I knew I’d like it this time, seeing as how I have interest in cults and stuff, and the episode was done extremely well, namely the whole TV part at the beginning. The DJ home gym was notably hilarious.

Ep 24 Hard Luck Woman - you should really see what ghostlightning has to say about this episode, but it was an amazing episode and perfectly blended the comedy of Ed’s father with the introspective elements of Faye finding her past. This episode had Call Me Call Me, one of my favorite songs, and the scene was absolutely perfect. I especially loved how it would cut to Spike and Jet cramming down the eggs as a way of sort of washing down the leaving of Ed and Ein.

Ep 25 The Real Folk Blues – Pretty much a perfect pair of episodes. The way things move, from pacing to exposition, is all set up so perfectly it’s almost hard to believe. I’d be willing to call these two of the most well-written episodes of anime ever. The whole thing was badass, moving, amazing, climactic… perfect. The song Blue at the end was all I ever could have asked for and made the ending feel just so right. Easily one of my favorite anime finales. I don’t think anyone can call this a bad ending, and in anime, that’s a fucking huge accomplishment.

Overall, I’d say my favorite episodes were: Ballad of Fallen Angels, Heavy Metal Queen, Toys in the Attic, Mushroom Samba, Speak Like a Child, Pierrot le Fou, Hard Luck Woman, and The Real folk Blues.

Anyway, I was very, very glad I rewatched this show, as I loved it every bit as much as I ever did. And seeing as I’ve seen it 5 times now, I feel perfectly comfortable reinstating it into my favorites list – and at a prominent position no less. Truly, it’s be hard to call this anything other than one of the greatest anime ever made. Other than those 2 episodes mentioned and the movie, I can’t even come close to a complaint about the show, and there were no shortage of outright outstanding elements. God, I wish Shinichiro Watanabe would direct another anime already!