Cowboy Bebop is just "I'm broke: the anime."
Absolute banger so far tho.
How the fuck were you corgi with a laptop when you didn't know about ein?
One of the few rare cases the EN VAs just fits better even though both are excellent imo.
It was during a golden age of dubbed anime, it was exploding in popularity in the west and they got a bunch of really talented voice actors and great translators that all worked on a handful of highly acclaimed series at the time to show western audiences the best possible english language dubs for these masterpieces like Bebop and Ghost in the Shell etc.
I agree that in the case of Bebop the dub is superior and I can't readily think of any other series off the top of my head where that was the consensus.
I remember the Excel Saga dubbers put in a huge effort translating the humour, which had a ton of wordplay that wouldn't make sense to western viewers. And just voicing Excel's very rapid nonsense ranting is a feat.
Though that doesn't mean it's better, per se. Just that they did far more work than is normally required.
I have a special fondness for the Japanese VAs because Spike is voiced by Akiyama from Yakuza, Jet is Professor Oak, and Faye is Ranma. It's weirdly cozy hearing all those voices together.
But you're right, the English dubbing is so smooth and good. Lightning in a bottle
I don’t think I’ve actually sat down and watched this since it was new in the US.
My biggest memory from 9/11/2001 was that I watched a VHS recording of Cowboy Bebop for the first time
It's a great series to revisit imo, has aged very well.
Rare example of an anime far more beloved outside of Japan than inside of it, still don't know why exactly. Probably the best example. I've hung out with Japanese anime fans a bunch of times and never once met one who's seen it, only met a single person who had heard about it. It's like a complete blind spot in there anime canon, whereas in North America the show revived interest in anime, which had been declining in the west since the late 80s. It was the first anime shown on Adult Swim, back in an era where you'd really only see stuff on TV directed at kids like Dragonball or Sailor Moon.
Telling them about Bebop is like revealing a lost treasure, like "Hey did you know the Macross Plus guy did another space show back in 1998?" Always nice.
The show rules and there's never gonna be anything else like it. It's so timeless yet also a perfect symbol of its era. It's gorgeously animated, the music slaps, it takes the viewer seriously and yet also knows when it can play around. Good show. Only problem is some episodes are clearly filler that don't go anywhere.
Watanabe is a great director and you should check out his other stuff. Samurai Champloo is good too, and Carole & Tuesday is good if you wanna cry.
I've seen so many IRL corgis named Ein that I'm pretty unfazed
good show
8/10 as a whole, with a few episodes really dragging it down and a few really pulling it up. yoko kanno unimpeachable
(jupiter jazz part one and boogie woogie feng shui for the former and asteroid blues, mushroom samba, and hard luck woman for the latter)
movie would be basically perfect without the one incredibly transphobic bit
mushroom samba is probably my favorite episode of anything that's ever been made
I just recently finished it for the first time myself too!
Such a beautiful anime.
it's kind of suggested that the solar system went through a space colonization bubble that simultaneously ruined Earth's environments and crashed agriculture markets. Lots of episodes mention ruined ecosystems or poorly managed terraforming
So they've ended up with an economy where groceries are needlessly expensive but spaceship parts/fuel are common and cheap. Which tracks since it's a hyper capitalist future. It's like how Americans can have a car and go through 2 phones a year and yet still be malnourished or barely scraping by
If you want more after finishing it, I'd recommend another joint directed by Shinichiro Watanabe with music by Yoko Kanno - Macross Plus. You don't really need to see any other Macross before watching it (Macross is pretty cool, though).
Ehhhhh I'd say Samurai Champloo's the closer show to a standalone spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop. While M+ has got some of the same vibes as Bebop there's kinda this expectation that you're watching a Macross show and that it is a direct follow-up to Do You Remember Love, at least thematically.
MegaloBox hits alot of the same sweet spots. Bonus, is it is specifically anti rascist and imperialist as an anime which is rare
I'm also watching it right now. Currently on episode 13. The music is amazing and the scenes are generally a lot more 'cinematic' than in most anime I've watched.
