TANK! (A Review)
Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are partners in the bounty hunter business. On board the spaceship Bebop they struggle to catch criminals to pay for some incidentals (oh, like food, fuel, things like that). Jet is the mastermind, and Spike is the man of action. While this arrangement seems to have worked so far, their carefree bachelors' lives are soon upset by some new (and uninvited) additions to the ship. There's Faye Valentine - deceitful, sexy, and troublesome, Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV - a very ODD, hyper young girl who also happens to be a genius hacker (she named herself, incidentally), and Ein - a seemingly harmless and unremarkable dog Spike rescued. All five of them also have mysterious pasts (yes, even Ein) which unfold in little bursts.
The show is simply addictive: it can be funny in a quiet, understated way or it could be funny in an insane, laugh-out-loud way, and it could also be serious and surprisingly deep at the same time. Some episodes are relatively violent, but not gory. The humor is also not slapstick, as the humor in many other series tend to be, but more subtle and less obvious.
The show is also episodic in nature and revelations come at certain episodes. Do not misunderstand, however, and think that its episodic nature means a complete lack of plot. The plot of Cowboy Bebop is tightly and finely threaded through the apparently random stories, and it is in watching out for the small things that the big picture starts becoming clear. Bebop HAS a plot, and it's quite a good one at that, with a shocking ending that will probably leave you with your mind racing and your jaw on the floor. It's an ending that resolves the plot but which still leaves plenty of room for speculation. The perfect kind of ending, in my opinion.
Another thing that complements the greatness of the Bebop story is the awesome animation. There ARE no bad animator days in the world of Bebop and the seamless CG is the best quality seen in any anime yet. And if you think the fluid motions are realistic and exciting, the still moments and landscapes can take your breath away. The hyperspace gate is a work of art, really, and the chase and fight scenes are always breathtakingly animated. The animators pay an enormous attention to detail, as the story does, and the backgrounds are as rich in details as the foreground. Also, in most anime, as soon as the characters start speaking, they stop moving but, unlike them, everything in Bebop is dynamic, fluid, and graceful.
Then there's the spoken part. The voice acting is more than decent, and Megumi Hayashibara does a surprisingly good femme fatale in Faye Valentine. The seiyuu for the other characters are also perfect. The biggest surprise, however, is the quality of the English dub. If you're one of those people who automatically dismisses dubs as trash, you will be missing out if you don't give Bebop a chance. It's one of the few shows where the English voice actors can rival - and even outstrip the original Japanese. (You really don't want to get me started on a Bebop rave. I'll end up singing hymns of praise...)
Another aspect of Bebop that makes it great is the music. Composed by none other than the brilliant Yoko Kanno (Vision of Escaflowne, Brain Powerd, Macross Plus, Record of Lodoss War TV, the list goes on and on), all five (or six, I've lost count) soundtracks for Cowboy Bebop are superb. The music fits in with the events perfectly. With a strong jazz flavor and mournful vocals for the vocal tracks, the soundtrack is just plain beautiful. (I TOLD you I'll be singing hymns of praise next...)
Incredible graphics, amazing music, and funny dialogue aren't the only reasons why Bebop is such an enjoyable anime. There are plenty of series that can boast all of that. What Cowboy Bebop does that places it a cut above the rest is something that is almost miraculous. Imagine a show, with only 26 episodes - more than half of it apparently random and pointless - which, surprisingly, delivers a well-executed plot and amazingly deep characterization. Many series that last seasons and seasons cannot even come close to the kind of character development present in Cowboy Bebop. Within only 26 episodes, I found myself sympathizing with the oddly assorted quartet (or quintent, if we must count the dog), and knowing them almost as if they were old friends. This is despite the fact that we are never given more than a tiny bite of a much larger pie at a time. The creators of the series KNOW that even shadows can help define a shape better than harsh white light, and that some things are simply more powerful when they are left half in the dark and unspoken.
Put all those together and the world and time of Bebop comes out of the screen fully textured and real. The people and places come together not just as flat people against against a pretty (static) backdrop but as real humans living (almost) normal day-to-day lives in a strange and fascinatingly rich culture, one that is brought to life by great acting, solid characterization, brilliant music, and eye-catching animation. I was left with the impression that I was watching four people (and a dog) living in a real world surrounded by real people - not four characters in a setting chasing extras down a generic road because the script said so. It truly is a masterpiece and, indeed, a genre all its own.
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