It was a month ago when I finished cowboy bebop series, and i would say that i was a little bit disappointed. Why would I be disappointed? Well, mostly because many episodes almost feel like fillers, they don't support character development and some enemies just minor criminals/bounties and those villains rarely have interesting characters.
After sometime, I decided to watch the CB movie. And I would say the movie was very good. This movie has the elements that some cowboy bebop episodes lack. Mostly the well developed story and characters(villains).
Story (8/10)
"Which one is dream? Which one is reality? A 'deadman', searching for that answer, tries to endanger the society. It is up to Spike and the gang to stop him". Yup, that was pretty much the synopsis of the movie. Like the series, the story presents a sci-fi modern era where humans has lived in other planets. Our MCs (Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed), are bounty hunters. This time, they are trying to catch an unknown terrorist. Unlike the series, which lack episodic story development because they have only 20 minutes duration for one story, the movie has almost 2 hours duration. It really has a great difference to tell a story. The story plot is very well chronologically executed, and not rushed. We got to see a complex investigation, gaining information, interesting background story and past of the main villain, good action scenes, and a nice final conclusion of all of them. The big differences i felt most with the series are this movie presents us a nice built villains, well developed plot, bigger case and conflicts that put our MCs in critical situation, which rarely seen in the series.
Art (9/10)
Considering the time it was aired, I would say the animations are great. The backgrounds are nice and the movements were fluid. But what I like most is the character design. It was unique in my opinion, no moe, and it gives me more mature atmosphere from it.
Sound (8/10)
The sountrack is like the original series, the classic ones. Nice OP and ED. Soundtracks also fit well with the atmosphere of the scenes. Though a few scenes were quiet and don't have BGM in it. Voice acting is also good.
Character (8/10)
We got our MCs back, Spike and the gang, whose characters are the same with the series. Spike being a cool badass, Faye being selfish and ignorant, Jet who is sometimes being the most sane one, and Ed is.. crazy..
What really caught my attentions was the main villain's character, Vincent. A man with an interesting past that leads to his interesting philosophy (which one is dream, which one is reality). To seek his answes he will do anything. Interesting terrorism, which he also left mystery to be solved. Above all that, he also really got some skills to overpower the main protagonist.
Enjoyment (8/10)
Yeah, let's make this one short. From the scores above I'd say I really enjoy this movie. It was a nice watch and it has cured my disappointment of CB franchise.
Overall (8/10)
Cause the majority of above scores i gave were 8s, then my overall score would be 8, which means really good.
