Its got great music, and good animation. But its clear the story and more importantly the animation are limited by the tools available to the studio at the time.
The fights are great and are probably the biggest reason to watch the show, but their so few and far between you can count them on your hands and all in they probably total ten minutes of the whole show.
The music is also really good. It both suits the anime and is enjoyable on its own. Not every track is something I'd enjoy but it all works.
But problems start to emerge with the episode format and the characters.
Each episode follows the same exact thread; new bounty guy shows up, hi-jinks ensue as the Bebop crew try to catch him/her, new character joins the team, plot twist happens to keep the Bebop crew from getting paid, and then bounty guy or random new character dies and everybody is sad.
Every. Single. Episode. And it really doesn't work, I don't care about anyone these characters only get a few minutes of screen time each and then just die for cheap shock value.
The cast also aren't much better. Jet never really does anything, Faye is just plain annoying, Ed exists to be either a Deus Ex Machina or deliver info dumps, and Spike.
A lot of people really like Spike. I'm not one of them.
He comes across as completely arrogant, like he's too cool to give a damn about his friends or anything.
He's so unsympathetic and detached that it really makes it hard to root for him, especially when he's ditching the Bebop crew for the sixth time to go do some random thing.
The final issue is one that I admit is very personal and probably wont effect anyone else but its still the one that kills the show for me.
There is no real sense of stakes. The Bebop crew is always getting beaten up, their ships wrecked and their bounties escaping. But they never suffer anything for it. Oh sure they complain about a lack of money and food. But it never amounts to anything. There is never a moment where they are bared from doing something, ANYTHING because of the constant losses they suffer.
In one episode they establish that in the whole universe, there is one guy who can work on Spike's personal space ship, parts are getting rarer and the repairs are complex and expensive. Then at the end of the episode Spike sheers both wings off the thing and utterly beats the snot out of it.
And in the next episode the ship is completely fine, restored to the same condition it started the series in.
In the third (I think) episode Spike gets shot like five times and launched out a forth story window . And he's completely fine. No long term injuries or anything.
It just really makes me feel like nothing is at risk. I can't feel broke up at the end because the team has been shown to rebound from similar situations in the past with no difficulty too many times.
I'm not worried about how Jet will fix the Bebop because their ships have been magically fine in every episode. Spike has survived worse injuries than a single bullet and sword cut. Faye is dumb and I don't care about her memories. Ed is the only character I really cared about but she was dumped from the show 3 episodes back for no real reason and no one else showed any concern for her so why should I?
It really lets the show down. Music's still bangin' tho.
