Cowboy Bebop is an episodic action anime, meaning most of the episodes are self contained and can be watched generally out of order, say you missed 1 episode and came back the next week, you won't be lost unless you roll unlucky die and miss some episodes that briefly connect with each other. I can imagine this anime would be great back in the day, the glorious days of VHS, DVD and especially TV. I'd love to watch this anime if it was on TV, but in this day in age and especially in Australia that ain't ever happening. The anime is about bounty hunters who are haunted by their past and they are trying to cope and live out of their past however they have to confront thier past eventually or find closure.
Usually I LOVE episodic anime, I slightly lean to enjoying more slice of life / comedy anime but I do have some action anime I enjoy. The nature of episodic anime allows for freedoom and more subtle exploration of characters, which is great! It can slowly build up to something and in the end have a huge payoff. That sadly isn't the case for Cowboy Bebop. The tone of serious episodes to hilarious episodes is kinda like emotional whiplash in a binge setting. It's a double edged sword that doesn't work off of each other I find!
The way it does characterization and character development is through very very small crumbs or there would be some episodes dedicated to a single character or episodes dedicated to the entire team! I'm not sure how to put it into words.. It feels disjointed or left me with wanting more. I needed closure and I hoped I would get closure. However maybe that was the theme and tone the entire anime was trying to go for, sometimes we don't get closure and problems come and go and we move on. That may be so but it doesn't help me feel like I'm enjoying the show. I feel blue balled. I believe, had Cowboy Bebop used its episodes a little smarter and would make mini arcs to give the proper time and breathing space for us to take in the emotion these characters are feeling. 2-4 episodes dedicated to these character episodes and between those arcs, definitely go with the episodic tone and have enjoyable moments but at the same time, allow for things to progress despite being essentially filler. Yeah that's another thing, it just didn't.. feel like anything progressed, for some reason my mind just couldn't process these growth or appreciate the somber tone. I can see it, feel it but I can't emotionally grow attatched because it seems like before I even can, the episode ends and another episode begins! It feels like the tone it was going for was to talk about adult life, how things are sadly complicated for each and every person but we don't talk about it, how every character has a problem and backstory and that they don't want to tel anyone. How we are basically drifting and how sad things in the past got that, that is what we have to deal with, the off chance of missing or seeing someone, creating a butterfly effect, a true tragedy. The best way for me to describe this theme IRL wise is once being close to someone in high school, all your high school friends but then as we grow older, we drift apart, had we kept up with a few or tried better or had we not cut someone sooner, things would had been different. Or learning a lot from a co-worker but sadly the job ends and you basically never see or talk to them again. How basically our time is limited for us to care about others. Cowboy Bebop does convey that emtion and theme very well.. but I.. I just don't know. I didn't enjoy the way it expressed it in the end, I needed closure! I needed some pay off! Some direction that it was building to something. It just suddenly ends.
I wish Spike was actually the main character and more of the episodes were anchored by him, so that we have a POV to work off of. So that everything is more personal and the way he learns, we learn. Have the syndicate plotline hinted at or the actions of the crew slowly build to a point where they HAVE to confront their pasts. The actions and consequences of the funny episodic episodes or semi serious ones could build towards the next major arc! But there's none of that! The episodes I enjoyed the most actually are the slice of life / comedy episodes like the entire crew getting high on mushrooms or Spike meets Andy who is just like him in everyway and it only annoys Spike.
I can't vibe with the story or direction of the anime. However the characters, art and music is of course first class, amazing quality. Has it's own character and its world hmmhh pretty decent. I wished there were more location shots, so we can see the entire area and get familiar with the planets so the characters revisiting them would feel like a treat!
This show is basically the god father of these type of episodic action anime anyhow! It created this sub genre! Darker Than Black was basically created by the same people and objectively Darker Than Black is worse but I actually enjoyed it more, it had mini arcs which allowed for more time for us to be invested in the character of the arc even though they'll probably die but we also saw small crumbs of the Main Character and it often involved HIM being apart of the problem. Black Lagoon! I haven't finished it but so far, it feels more focused than Cowboy Bebop and the characters work off of each other much better. A Certain Scientific Railgun is basically a spawn of this genre as well, I reckon Railgun perfected it and found the perfect balance between episodic and plot, where the standalone episodes still build towards something.
Cowboy Bebop is definitely unique but it's not for me sadly, it has every point that I should enjoy it, every reason I should enjoy it, however in the end it was a let down for me. I feel like Cowboy Bebop is sadly overrated to be honest, maybe had I watched it on TV back then I would have loved it, but as of now, that is nothing but a pipe dream.
