Earlier this year I came across Cowboy Bebop, the original anime from 1998, and I fell in love. It's pretty short, so it was easy to get through all 26 half-hour episodes relatively fast. It also has one of the coolest introductions for an anime.
As it looks and sounds, it's a Western set in space. Spike is a bounty hunter traveling with Jet, going after anyone with a price on their head. Along the way, they come across baddies, corrupt police, syndicates, musicians, ex-girlfriends, and anyone else you'd expect to find in a typical Western. But this is set in the future when we have partially terraformed several planets and moons, and have set up a really cool gate system that allows everyone to instantly transport to different locations in our solar system.
The music is phenomenal in many of the episodes, covering a wide variety of different styles. Even the titles of each episode make some kind of musical reference.
The plots range from the insanely funny to outright heartbreaking -- and lots of action, plot twists, and rich characters. The bad guys are all interesting -- there's even a Joker/Penguin dude who may give you nightmares. And there's even half of a Wilhelm Scream if you can find it.
I recommend the English dub version rather than the Japanese with subtitles version, because the dub version really is better. Plus -- and get this -- I'm not sure how many people realized, but in the English version, it seems the sound technicians tried to match the reverb with the space in which the characters were speaking. Or maybe I was just imagining it.
The ending seemed to come a little abruptly, but it was very satisfying. It was as if they could have kept on building the world and providing more back story, but eventually it had to come to an end.
Netflix has a live-action version coming shortly, and it better not suck. It probably has no chance to live up to the original, but -- hey -- I'll give it a try.
This anime is a little on the adult side -- just be warned -- it's not really for little kids. But give it a try -- I enjoyed all the energy, story, and organic flow. Highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment