Bebop is in my top ten. When I recommend it, though, I recommend they watch at least the first four episodes. Most people I know didn’t like the first few.
Use Advanced Search only, in the Books section. Search for Cowboy Bebop.
I had no problem getting my collection that way.
Or try–
My daughter got me started on it, and now I have the DVD episodes and the DVD movie. I love it because it’s cool, AND because it shows that video science fiction doesn’t have to suck. My only complaint is that CB has the requisite cute kid mascot, Ed. I can’t stand her. I sort of like Ein, though I’m glad that he mostly stays in the background.
I absolutely love Ed. The script writers were gifted enough to know when she would be in the way of the story, so in the more serious story lines, you basically just get Spike or Faye fly off to a remote planet and do they do best.
The ending of episode 24 really strikes my emotional nerves. The music fits perfectly.
I’ve met one, and he also has a healthy dislike for Evangelion.
My buddy Charles was the one that really got me up to speed on anime all those years ago. I had enjoyed Battle of the Planets, Speed Racer, and Star Blazers as a child, but didn’t understand the connection until I met him sometime in the late 1980’s.
Charles’s take on Bebop is this: I’ve seen Lupin III. What does Bebop add other than that it takes place in space (which, incidentally, is part of the premise of Lupin VIII, which was never finished due to copyright concerns)?
I have to acknowledge his point. I think the similarities in the characters and their relationships to those in Lupin are obvious, even if that’s purely for the sake of an homage to Monkey Punch’s classic characters - right down to the frequent smoking. Instead of Lupin being the hero, in Bebop you have the quiet, mysterious Goemon (Spike) character leading most of the episodes. Every once in a while, you hand an episode to the sexy chick (Faye/Fujiko), the tough-as-nails bearded guy (Jet/Jigen), or the clever genius (Ed/Lupin).
All I’m saying is that I find merit in his viewpoint. Personally, I loved Cowboy Bebop.
Uh, what took you so long, Brainiac4? 
I’ll second that. I caught the Bebop bug from Elizabeth Kirkindall, and after seeing only the first three episodes, had to ask her why she thought it was so great. At her suggestion, I watched a few specific episodes out of sequence and it made the experience really enjoyable when I went back and resumed at Episode 4.
I own The Perfect Sessions, still gotta get the movie. I actually got into CB from Cartoon Network (I’m so glad they have Adult Swim). The only anime I’d seen previously was Escaflowne and while I enjoyed it, CB ranks higher with me.
(I should also add that nothing Yoko Kanno does, musically, will ever be wrong in my eyes/ears after viewing both those series - what else has she done?)
She did the soundtracks for Escaflowne and Macross Plus, as well as the new Ghost In The Shell TV series. Cartoon Network will start airing that one sometime in the summer, I think.
And I don’t know if this is true or not, but I heard somewhere that Ed’s personality is based on her.
If being attracted to Spike is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Gren, however, is skeevy.
If I can ever afford a nice computer, it shall be named Tomato.
Bebop, in addition to being exceedingly stylish, frequently has a more mature tone than most anime. It’s not just the lack of super-deform (SD) moments, or the lack of a lot of the conventions of anime. Nor does mature, in this case, mean explicit sex or gore. It’s the fact that I can believe that the characters are the age they’re supposed to be. The show manages to be funny without being stupid. Heck, they even managed to make the obligatory previews of the next episode clever; one of the characters narrates it, often saying something totally unrelated to the next episode. Jet’s ramble on age and appearance is priceless.
Great stuff. The music rocks, the artwork and overall visual style is extremely cool. It’s among the best anime ever made, IMHO.
Anime is kind of hit-or-miss with me, but Cowboy Bebop got me hooked from the very first time I saw it.
Thank you very much for that info, I have the DVD version, and had always skipped the coming next part assuming that it might spoil the next eppisode I was going to watch straight away. I’ll go back and remember to watch them from now on.
Cheers, Bippy
That’s true, the director said so at a con I went to. He went to talk to her about the music and she was rolling around on the floor and acting all crazy. He thought it was great, so…
The influence Lupin III had on CB is obvious, but the tone is different. CB can be serious, it can do horror, it can do silly, it can be everywhere. Lupin III was primarily comedy, and even in its more serious moments has a different feel from CB. (Granted, I haven’t seen every thing that’s been done with Lupin III.)
Besides, if it’s Lupin, where’s pops, dammit?!
Count me in as another huge Cowboy Bebop fan. Before it I had only seen Inuyasha, which is a pretty decent anime in and of itself, but nowhere near the maturity fo CB. The way they blended in old school technology (they still used normal guns with bullets) with high-tech stuff was just awesome. I watched the movie after all the episodes, and I have to say, my only complaint is that Faye and Spike never hooked up. It probably would have ruined the series for me, but c’mon… Faye was way hotter than Julia.
Faye is hot, but she has serious issues. Spike is a smart guy, he knows Faye would be bad for him in the long run.
Just rewatching the last couple of eepisodes, I hadn’t noticed who it was who picked up the rather sad old lady in the airport scene, check that moment out it is an extremely well crafted little snippit.
If I were on a spaceship with Faye Valentine for as long as Spike was, I’d end up doing her no matter how bad she was for me. The scene from “The Real Folk Blues” where Faye begs Spike not to go get himself killed over Julia and ends up firing her gun in frustration breaks my freakin’ heart.