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 3

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
25th Mar 05

On the trail of yet even more Bounty heads the crew of the starship “Bebop” fly in for a third installment of action, blazing gunfights, comedy, sexiness and cool that makes the excellent and hugely popular Cowboy Bebop.

The third volume contains four episodes which is one less that the previous two volumes. The first episode also takes us very far away from the normal format of the previous episodes of the crew tracking down a bounty. A strange creature has some how got on board the Bebop and is attacking members of the crew and making them ill. This episode is pretty tense for the first half or so as Spike tries to hunt down the mysterious creature before it gets him, however the climax is something that no-one in their right mind could ever predict and is absolutely hilarious. The second episode on this disc is a two parter concluding in the third episode (as two parters tend to do). Faye leaves the Bebop, in a mess and with the complete contents of the safe, and upon searching for her Ed comes across the name Julia, Kensh…err…Spike’s missing lover, and Spike takes off as well in search off her only to find his arch-enemy Vicious instead. The story concludes with an aerial dogfight between Spike and Vicious which is amazing to watch. They say revenge is a dish best served cold and Chess Master Hex has waited fifty years to get his revenge on the gate company that fired him. As he and ED battle it out in a cyber game of chess Spike and the others begin to hunt him down, they also have a rival to contend with, one who holds a personal vendetta against Hex, are all these pieces just pawns in a much bigger game however?

The soundtrack again is an amazing amazing combination of sound this time featuring some well known classical pieces along with the usual jazzy music. The animation is still of good quality with the fighting and the previously mentioned aerial dogfight being some of the highlights of this volume, as are some of the comedic moments that will make you laugh out loud (most of these are provided by Ed).

The DVD has both English dub and Japanese with English subtitle options, the English dub is completely watch able but there are some shows with a lot better dubs out there, and unfortunately Ed’s voice is annoying no matter what version you watch.

The third volume of Cowboy Bebop is defiantly worth a look if you enjoyed any of the previous volumes…and probably worth a look even if you didn’t.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English Dub, Japanese with English Subtitles, BEEZ trailers

Release information: Label: Bandai Released: March 28th 2005 Classification: PG Running Time:100mins Director: Shininchiro Watanabe

Notes: The third volume is also lacking in any substantial extras, and the trailers featured are exactly the same ones featured in volume 2.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 25th Mar 05

Cowboy Bebop Images