Cowboy Bebop

[YurokashitheBandit]

Curious to know how many Cowboy Bebop fans are in here. I know of one specific person on this site that I'm certain you all know as well lol.

The artstyle, directing, general mood/vibe and the soundtrack pulls it all together into such an incredible masterpiece that deserves much more recognition, yes even though it is very popular (because I feel like it's never talked about enough).

What are your favourite parts or aspects of the series? Who are your favourite characters?

 

[Guinea]

ME!!! I love Cowboy Bebop! Used to watch it every night on Adult Swim back in the day along with Trigun and Outlaw Star!

Recently I've been watching all the other animes by Watanabe. So far I've knocked out Kids on the Slope, Lazarus and Terror in Resonance. Gonna binge Carole & Tuesday next, followed by Space Dandy and Sonny Boy!

Edit- My favorite episodes of Cowboy Bebop are Brain Scratch, Pierrot Le Fou, Mushroom Samba, Waltz For Venus and Toys In The Attic. Badass show from start to finish!

 

[YurokashitheBandit]

ME!!! I love Cowboy Bebop! Used to watch it every night on Adult Swim back in the day along with Trigun and Outlaw Star!

Recently I've been watching all the other animes by Watanabe. So far I've knocked out Kids on the Slope, Lazarus and Terror in Resonance. Gonna binge Carole & Tuesday next, followed by Space Dandy and Sonny Boy!

Edit- My favorite episodes of Cowboy Bebop are Brain Scratch, Pierrot Le Fou, Mushroom Samba, Waltz For Venus and Toys In The Attic. Badass show from start to finish!

Man, how was Adult Swim? What sort of shows did they have on there when you were younger? Never had it here in South Africa, so I've always been curious. Seen many memes about the channel and I know they had quite a lot of anime on there.

Watanabe is an absolute mastermind. Gotta watch Lazarus again sometime, ah mann!!

 

[Guinea]

Man, how was Adult Swim? What sort of shows did they have on there when you were younger? Never had it here in South Africa, so I've always been curious. Seen many memes about the channel and I know they had quite a lot of anime on there.

Watanabe is an absolute mastermind. Gotta watch Lazarus again sometime, ah mann!!

I remember Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Space Ghost and the anime was lit: Cowboy Bebop, Fooly Cooly, Trigun, Ghost In The Shell... gave me a damn good reason to stay up at night!!

 

[PacGuy]

You're gonna carry that weight..(of loving bebop)

 

[Pearly]

ME!!! I love Cowboy Bebop! Used to watch it every night on Adult Swim back in the day along with Trigun and Outlaw Star!

Recently I've been watching all the other animes by Watanabe. So far I've knocked out Kids on the Slope, Lazarus and Terror in Resonance. Gonna binge Carole & Tuesday next, followed by Space Dandy and Sonny Boy!

Edit- My favorite episodes of Cowboy Bebop are Brain Scratch, Pierrot Le Fou, Mushroom Samba, Waltz For Venus and Toys In The Attic. Badass show from start to finish!

Outlaw star, I so badly wanted more of that. I happily own that on blu ray alongside cowboy bebop and the movie.

Funny that Josh Whedon heavily plagiarised outlaw star and put some star wars bits in there for good measure.

I did not find myself enjoying space dandy very much, I was expecting something a bit more Risqué that what we got.

Samurai Champloo is also pretty amazing.

 

[YurokashitheBandit]

I remember Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Space Ghost and the anime was lit: Cowboy Bebop, Fooly Cooly, Trigun, Ghost In The Shell... gave me a damn good reason to stay up at night!!

Yoo I didn't know they had FLCL, Trigun and GITS on there wtff that's crazy

 

[Pearly]

Yoo I didn't know they had FLCL, Trigun and GITS on there wtff that's crazy

On the american toonami/midnight swim

In the UK and Ireland we didn't get anywhere nearly as much.

It was limited to gundam wing of all the gundam series, we didn't get any others.
Dragonball, Z and GT
Outlaw star
Cowboy bebop
Big O
Tenchi muyo
That's all I can recall that we got, at least between 2000 and 2010.

They also showed some movies that were animated from Japan, but no big ones.

America got everything for years. Mainland Europe also got everything as they dubbed in house in their own language but the UK, Ireland and Australia got very limited series being shown for some reason.

 

[Guinea]

Samurai Champloo is also pretty amazing.

The fight on the fishing pier between Jin and Kariya at the end has lived rent free in my head for years. So badass it makes me tear up a bit.

 

[YurokashitheBandit]

On the american toonami/midnight swim

In the UK and Ireland we didn't get anywhere nearly as much.

It was limited to gundam wing of all the gundam series, we didn't get any others.
Dragonball, Z and GT
Outlaw star
Cowboy bebop
Big O
Tenchi muyo
That's all I can recall that we got, at least between 2000 and 2010.

They also showed some movies that were animated from Japan, but no big ones.

America got everything for years. Mainland Europe also got everything as they dubbed in house in their own language but the UK, Ireland and Australia got very limited series being shown for some reason.

That's actually really fascinating! I'd have expected the UK of all places to have at least somewhat of an equal footing in terms of content on par with the US. Really sucks to hear that :( I wonder why that was the case.

We used to do dubbing here in Afrikaans but that was way before my time, like 80s and 90s. The only dubbing I came across of an animated series was SpongeBob being dubbed in Xhoza lol.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

The fight on the fishing pier between Jin and Kariya at the end has lived rent free in my head for years. So badass it makes me tear up a bit.

Man, this anime was just so peak

 

[Dyne]

Who doesn't love Cowboy Bebop? It is an actual masterpiece

 

[Pearly]

That's actually really fascinating! I'd have expected the UK of all places to have at least somewhat of an equal footing in terms of content on par with the US. Really sucks to hear that :( I wonder why that was the case.

We used to do dubbing here in Afrikaans but that was way before my time, like 80s and 90s. The only dubbing I came across of an animated series was SpongeBob being dubbed in Xhoza lol.

I am not sure why, but I'd imagine it had something to do with regional licensing and cartoon network not wanting to foot the bill for it for UK/Ireland. We still got most of the games over here though as Bandai had the international license to all these things.

The American cartoon network had Mike Lazlow pouring money into things, even got Peter Cullen(Optimus Prime) to do narrtaion for all the trailers and stuff. Seemed American fans were spoiled at the time.

 

[Langoblian]

Man, how was Adult Swim? What sort of shows did they have on there when you were younger? Never had it here in South Africa, so I've always been curious. Seen many memes about the channel and I know they had quite a lot of anime on there.

Watanabe is an absolute mastermind. Gotta watch Lazarus again sometime, ah mann!!

Adult Swim has a lot of fantastic shows and a great atmosphere that really helps you feel warmly accompanied while watching cartoons and anime late into the night. Cowboy Bebop was one of the first shows aired on there and I think they made the right call picking it up, it really does feel like the perfect show to watch late at night.

 

[qw90700]

I don't think the cowboy and space theme actually goes well together. It's even an ugly idea as much as chocolate on meat. Nonsense. I prefer my sci-fi high-tech like cyberpunk genre.

However the anime fortunately doesn't only rely on its theme. The character cast is meaningless and not fun for me. Basically its story and characters are forgettable but when you are not an anime enjoyer per se like me it is a watchable anime because it's mature.

It's mature because instead of the usual anime shit you watch a relatable aspect of what most people in real life can relate to. Cowboy Bebop can be fun, funny, sad and dramatic just like real life is. Instead of caring about any character in the game it was memorable to watch what kind of pointless life they living and still trying to be happy. They were too stupid to actually realize what kind of fuck up they are. However instead of being an emo about it they still tried to be themselves and live the life in their own terms. It was at least interesting to watch.

And another aspect to like in the anime is that it actually manages to be artistic in the symbolic language it uses. Around the time philosophical take they used in media was generic and cringe. It was mostly not coherent and using symbols just because "they are popular". Naturally it begets generic scenes in anything from movies to cartoons. Cowboy Bebop actually comes up with its own artistical language that is not brainless. There is a clever purpose there. In the end the art in the Cowboy Bebop is for you to figure out and decide what it means, but for example judging what kind of anime it is the meaning of "See you space cowboy" is "I hope I will see you alive soon" because when you are a space cowboy you can die any time. Every gig you take just to sleep your stomach is full can be your last gig. That's why "just bye" and "good bye" are not enough there. Also "See you space cowboy" can mean "I hope the afterlife exists so after we both die we will meet again". This was part of why thinking about certain scenes and situations was fun too. It was a nice change to watch something that is not empty pretentious rubbish trying to make audiance filled with question marks just to seem cool. Stuff actually means something in Cowboy Bebop yo. Whatever you may understood as "just cool" may be actually mean something sad in the anime. That's the part of why and how the anime is mature. I watched Cowboy Bebop after watching the stupid Neon Genesis Evangelion and stupider Perfect Blue and oh boy I felt my brain actually smile lol.

Spike reminds you of your mortality lol.

 

[Mopeybloke]

I am sort of a fan in that I've watched it more than once before, and I know I will re-watch it someday. Maybe I'm still carrying that weight.

When this comes up in modern anime fan spaces, I see many consider it good for its time or just don't get where the fame comes from besides looking great or nostalgia. In the years since the 1990's many people got into anime because of the very continuity heavy storytelling Western episodic media used to lack, and that isn't how CB is.