So lets begin with the story: It is basically about bounty hunters from the year 2072. These bounty hunters are referred as cowboys a lot in the serie and bebop is the name of their spaceship, if I am not mistaken. So that is where the title comes from. I don’t think there is anything else important to know for now.
The first thing I would like to tell you about the serie is that it is very episodic (If that is even a word). I meant that every episode tells its own story and all those stories gives an idea of their life. I personally don’t like that fact because then you cannot be sucked in the serie as it is supposed to be. That is another reason why I had difficulties to get into the serie and I think that is probably one of the reasons why so many people dropped this anime. On top of that some episodes felt bad and a lot felt like they are fillers. However the good episodes where very good and very amusing to watch. Thats why it is very difficult to criticize the story. Simply because it exist out of 24 different stories. I just don’t like to put a number on the whole bunch and if I would do it on the whole serie it won’t be good either, since it doesn’t has a real plot or something because of this. But I can tell that my rating of these stories goes from 3 to 9 with the higher numbers in the end. Probably cause I started to appreciate the style more. Though the end isn’t built up as good as the other anime series, it is really good and suits the anime perfectly.
I am not really a sci-fi fan, especially things like star wars. This was completely different though. They didn’t put any attention to the future gadgets. I think they did it just for some more spectacular action scenes with those ships. It gave me actually more the feeling that it happened in the past then in the future. especially with those old (beautiful) drawings and the jazz, blues, classic background music. This is all positive in my opinion though. I really like the serie way better as it is.
Guess it is time to go more positive now the worse part of it is done. The best part of the serie for me was without doubt the music. The way they make blues, jazz and classic music exiting is unbelievable! Or is it that what makes the serie exciting? To be honest I don’t know, the only thing I know is that it perfectly suits each other. The way they made the combination let even me enjoy classic music. They really overmastered James Bond with it. Cowboy Bebop just puted Jazz music in the action scenes While James Bond need those good action scenes to get popular. The way they add those weird random sounds at it is really risky. But it is done so great that I love it. The fact that it is so original makes it good. I can understand that a lot of people (especially the younger ones) cannot appreciate that music and surely not in this way. But for me it just made the serie.
The characters are pretty good to. Especially Jet and Spike (the main characters) in my opinion. the other ones aren’t bad but they didn’t got me that much. Probably because The episodes where a new character joins are boring in my opinion. But I must admit that they are all very original. The episodes that goes about Jet and Spike and the way they develop them (slowly but good and full of charm) are very good. That is one of the reasons I absolutely fell in love with those characters.
However the drawings are old and not that good at first sight, I really started to like them. Spike his look, his hair, his poses, his fights, his cigarettes, … It is all just drawn so beautiful. It may look old but it is still full of charm and emotion. Not only Spike is well drawn but he is just the climax of the drawings in this serie.
So that is why I have double feelings for this wonderful seinen serie.
See You Space Cowboy...
