Cowboy Bebop Highly recommended

Publisher
BEEZ
Director
Shinichiro Watanabe
Production
Bandai, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
1998

Cowboy Bebop Volume 2

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
25th Mar 05

Cowboy Bebop first hit the UK a few years ago showing on the Toonami channel (which later changed its name to CNX and then back again). To be honest I missed Cowboy Bebop the first time around a mistake I’ve come to regret having watched the DVD.

Cowboy bebop is set in the far future as we follow the bounty hunting crew of the starship “Bebop” on their adventures. There’s Spike one of the coolest anime heroes ever, Jet an ex-cop, Faye who’s sexy addicted to gambling and has more debt than anyone could ever think possible in a human lifetime and there’s Ein ships dog. Also in this volume the crew is joined by the young genius Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tirvusky IIII or Radical Edward, and you’ll see that in Ed’s case at least there is a very thin line between genius and insanity (after all Ed claims to have made up her name).

The DVD contains five heart-pounding episodes, Spike and co. besides dealing with the young Ed; also have to deal with another “young genius” who is over thirty years old but hasn’t seemed to age a day. Also theirs some new friends for Spike, pity that one is a female trucker who claims to absolutely hate bounty hunters and the other has a bounty on his head, who also isn’t quite what the wanted notice says, what’s a bounty hunter to do? The episodes on the disc are pretty much stand alone so it’s often a case of just plonking on one of your favorites.

The soundtrack is outstanding (not surprising when the person behind it also worked on Macross Plus and more recently GitS:SAC). If you’re a fan of music then there’s something for you here from the jazzy Bond-esq opening sequence to heavy metal.

The animation does look rather dated due to the high quality of more recent modern releases , however due to the style of the animation and the darkish colour scheme give Cowboy Bebop a distinctively cool feel. The action sequences are well done and carried of with extreme style and flare and will have you on the edge of your seat. The comedic moments on the other hand will most likely have you off your seat laughing, and that’s not to say that some parts can be quite moving.

Cowboy Bebop certainly deserves all it’s good press and should fit neatly in any anime collection, heck even some who don’t like anime enjoy Bebop. The only puzzling thing is what took it so long?

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English Dub, Japanese Dub with English subtitles, BEEZ trailers.

Release information: Label: BEEZ Released: January 24th 2005 Director: Shininchiro Watanabe Classification: PG Running Time: 125 mins

Notes: There's very little in terms of extras on the DVD other than a few trailers for other BEEZ titles, a slight dissapointment, but the episodes more than make up for this loss.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 25th Mar 05

Cowboy Bebop Images