Cowboy Bebop

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live_laugh_love_4ev

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I have just finished up Cowboy Bebop for the first time and I got to say that this anime was very, very enjoyable and I plan on rewatching it in the future after I check out Trigun, Hellsing, Berzerk and Claymore. My favorite character in the series would be Jet Black wit Spike coming in a close 2nd, I know a lot of people love Spike but to me Jet was the main attraction to the series, he bacame my favorite after the episode where he found his ex and her new boyfriend and the time on his watch finally stopped. Such a good episode. I also love the episode where he finRAB the daughter of an old aquaintance, that was very powerful as well and it shows that Jet had a heart.

So who else has enjoyed this series and wants to add to the convo? I didn't see a thread based on Bebop (I went back about 8 pages or so) so I thought it deserved a thread. ENJOY!
 
I'm like the oddball Bebop fan, mainly because I like Bohemian Rhapsody (and the episode where Jet meets his old partner) more than Ballad of Little Angels.

Of course, I also like Samurai Champloo more than Bebop.
 
I figured I was the only one!

I went into Bebop with a whole lot of impossible expectations, so the first time around, I was dissapointed. I've recently re-watched some of the episodes, and I'm enjoying them a lot more now. I'd have to say that at least one of my favorites is Pieret Le Fou; magnificent choreography.
 
One of my other favorite episodes was the one where Spike and Vicious got into it and we got to see some of their past together in a short music video (episode 5 maybe?), that was a fun little piece that really took me intro the series and didn't let me go.
 
Yes, Cowboy Bebop is definately one of my favorites. (GitS:SAC still remains my overall favorite though.)

I'm one of those typical folk that enjoyed all the episodes that involved Spike and Vicious over all the other episodes. I can't remeraber the episode titles, but the episode with Andy is also a favorite, and then the episode where Ed was playing chess against that guy. (whose name I can't remeraber for nothing.)

When I first got into CB, I saw the very last episode first, and from there I pretty much had to see it from episode one. I could've done without the 2nd, 3rd and 4th episodes though...
 
The episode where Ed played chess is a personal fave of mine too, the ending made me kind of sad but somewhat relieved, it was an odd feeling. The guy died doing what he loved best, playing chess , and Ed most likely caught up on some much needed sleep....
 
There's never a dull moment in Bebop. Not an episode goes by without a gun going off or something exploding.

Ed is definitely my favorite character, in large part because of a corabination of her comical personality and Melissa Fahn's delightfully cheery performance in the English dub.
 
Blah, I could care less what the Bebop die harRAB think, I enjoyed the episode and I thought it was one of the best in the series. I re-watched the final two episodes yesterday, I love the scene where Spike/Vicious kick their weapons to eachother before the final attack, so epic.......so chilling.
 
Man, I think I'm the only one thats not a big Fan of Cowboy bebop. The Music is great and the animation are the best I have seen. But I never got into it, unlike everyone else did.

Personally, I'll stick with Lupin III.
 
So, what were the other 4? I assume 3 of them were Heavy Metal Queen, Boogie Woogie Feng Shui, and Wild Horses. You know, for a show that gets as much praise as Cowboy Bebop, it has a lot of bad episodes. I mean, I would say about a fifth of the episodes in the show are pretty terrible.
 
I'd label those as "weak", not outright bad. Aside from that, pretty much every other episode in the series rocked my socks. There are some pure standouts, true, but the series as a whole is fairly consistent. At least, that's how I see it.
 
My favorite episode is the one where they trip on shrooms. I think it's funny when drugs are in anime because the Japanese don't really know much about them. Like in the shroom episode where each meraber of the Bebop crew says the mushrooms are "delicious." Halucinegenic mushrooms taste terrible, even to people who like mushrooms. There's also an episode of Black Lagoon where a character smokes something and goes permanently crazy.
 
My least favorite episode was probably the one where they picked up Ed, or maybe the one where the virus was infecting everyone, but for every weak episode Bebop had it also had 5 that were spectacular, like the episode where they watch the beta tape of Faye (epic 90210 ref), the final 2 episodes, the chess episode, the first episode and the episode where we are introduced to Vicious for the first time. Lots to love about Bebop .
 
Probably the single genius thing about Bebop is that ask anybody what thier favorite and thier least favorite episodes are and there are a huge array of different responses.

Every episode is in the running for best, my personal favorite being Waltz for Venus. I mean, you see the ending comming a mile away but it still gets me. My least favorite ones are probably Gateway shuffle. The one with the crazy environmentalist extreemists. You would think the Ganymede government could have come up with some kind of a reward for thier heroics in that episode but no, nothing. Spending thier own hard earned money to save all the ganymede settlers from certain apedom and they get nothing? I think not.

But then, CB gets away with it's plot inconcsistencies by simple merit of being awesome so, I can forgive this time. It's still my least favoirte ep though.
 
I have enjoyed this anime since it is one of the first to introduce me to the genera. The final two episodes to this series were exciting to watch yet it had a bittersweat ending when it was all over. What happened to Spike at the end left me a bit depressed but after rewatching the series again, I was content since he went out the way any character as cool a him would go.
 
Eh. The only Bebop episode I really dislike is Boogie Woogie Feng shui, but yeah... Wild Horses, Asteroid Blues, and Gateway Shuffle were all kinda mediocre, and even among the twenty-two episodes left there's only a few real five-stars. I'd like to say that Bebop is just so good when it is good that it makes up for the "meh" bits, but I think it's probably a bit more complicated than that.

More random thoughts on the show:

Bebop had some issues, good as it was, in writing and such (my biggest problem with Bohemian Rhapsody, an episode I liked, was the ending... why didn't Jet take the money? Totally out of character). I think one of the reasons it got so popular was sheer style alone; even when it didn't make any sense, Bebop was still pretty awesome, with it's great choreography and attractive premise.

Edward is odd (I mean that in a critical sense, not in the obvious way). I really liked the character first-run through (see my avie), but later I became more aware of her flaws; for one thing, she's a completely comic relief character, which means that any attempt at giving her emotional scenes comes across as forced. Secondly, she's so...insane... that they couldn't even make her into a "smart-aleck sidekick" type character. I'm guessing the reason they made her so crazy was because they wanted to have an easy explanation for why a kid was hanging around with a bunch of armed, starving bounty hunters... but I kinda wish they had toned it down a bit.

All that said, when it worked, it worked. Jammin' With Edward and Mushroom Saraba were both decent, and Bohemian Rhapsody had some good moments for the character too. I just think there's some wasted potential there.
 
I have been watching this series over the course of the past week and it is definatly one of the best anime series even made, but thats just my opinion of course. The episode where Jet finRAB that his old flame has a new boyfriend and he was forced to collect a bounty on his was just amazing, the end of the episode brought me to tears because when the clock stopped and he had tossed his watch it was such a moment of "reality" for me because I was in a similar situation once (no watch involved), it was just pure magic.

I also love the little rivalry between Spiegal and Vicious, this series should definatly be a part of everyones "watch" list if they have not watched it already, or even if they had seen it before, it's that good. I am looking forward to finishing it up so I can see the movie, I have yet to see the movie so I'm excited to see what it's all about.
 
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