- Is this show worth seeing if you are not particularly into the premise? Bounty hunters on a spaceship is not especially interesting, but if the show is good enough, anything can be interesting.
- Tried to put it on my Netflix and the only thing available is Cowboy Bebop: Remix. The Wiki entry seems to say that’s OK, it has all 26 episodes - why is it called Remix, then?
- Is the movie worth it?
Bounty hunters on a spaceship…not interesting? :eek:
How about bounty hunters on a spaceship who are all escaping or seeking their own dark secrets and pasts? The bounty hunting is really only incidental to the larger plot.
The story is decent enough; it’s typical of high quality anime series, though to be honest it’s been so long since I watched the show and not in the correct order that I can’t say much about the plot.
The animation and characters are the highlights, in my opinion. The characters are colorful with highly distinctive personalities, and are generally very likable. It did for Welsh corgis what Frasier did for Jack Russell terriers, albeit to a naturally lesser extent.
I don’t know what Remix indicates.
From what I remember of the movie, it’s not bad.
The show isn’t really about the bounty hunting. It’s about the characters and the stories are well-written for the most part. The soundtrack is solid, if you care for stuff like that.
As I recall Remix has the whole series, I think it has some special features, or something.
The movie takes place during the series, not after it. I enjoyed it, but it’s just a long episode that lets you see the characters before the events of the finale happen. If you like the series, I think you’ll find the movie more than worth it.
I assume Remix is called Remix because it’s remastered (and ‘remix’ is used instead of ‘remaster’ to go with the musical theme).
And, yeah, it’s a great series - the characters are the draw, and the universe a little bit. The actual overarching plot of the series actually has little to do with the bounty hunting, as do the individual plots of a number of episodes.
The movie…if you find you like the series, check it out, it’s fun. It’s not good enough that I’d use it as a door into the series.
And some people will call this heresy on principle, but…watch the dub.
Jet and Faye’s actors are much, much better in English. Everyone else is good in both, so, those two break it in favour of the dub.
Ok, that’s what i wanted to hear, that the characters and stories carried the day. I already added it to Netflix. Thanks.
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Good shows are good, bad shows are bad. Whether the premise is going to be a deciding factor for anything is only going to be in the case where the show is hanging around in the mildly lame category, but you might be willing to keep watching it anyways. Cowboy Bebop is not a mildly lame show, it is very good.
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I haven’t seen the Remix. Apparently it just has some extra material that was cut (probably for time). I wouldn’t worry about it greatly.
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The movie is largely forgettable. Point in fact, I can’t remember anything about it even though I’ve seen it twice. You don’t need to avoid it, but don’t expect it to bring anything to the table worth making a movie over.
Yeah, exactly. If the show is just ‘meh’, that premise, while it has its good points, is not going to keep me watching.
I’m glad to hear it’s very good. I’m excited about starting a new show! Is the story complete, or does it end abruptly on the 26th episode because they ran out of ideas/money? (No spoilers, please.)
It’s complete. With a few exceptions, quite a lot of high-quality anime only lasts for 26 or fewer episodes. The ability to tell an epic story in a season or two is part of what makes it high-quality.
I got what I thought was the first issue of the Cowboy Bebop comic and I felt like I was missing context. Or maybe it’s because I have no experience with manga. Where does the “cowboy” and the “bebop” come into it? Or is it one of those random English words thingys?
Cowboy = slang for bounty hunter. Bebop = name of the ship.
So yeah, basically random words that sound good together. 
There’s actually a well-established trope on TVTropes called Cowboy Bebop At His Computer that (not to spoil anything) comes from misunderstanding the title.
Nononono, this is a plus for me. I rarely ever watch shows that go on and on and on…I’m a big fan of a beginning, middle, and end of a show. I hate watching shows with no forseeable ending - with literally 2 exceptions. And even then one of them piss me off (X-Files).
I’ve always felt Cowboy Bebop is a bit like weed. It’s a classic, and appeals to a broad spectrum of folks. A bit of a gateway drug to anime and/or scifi if you will.
Wish I had something pertinent to add to the conversation, that somebody hasn’t said already anyway. Just that I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did miss.
No worries there. I already watch & read a ton of sci-fi and fantasy - they’ve got me through the nose. (Not a hell of a lot of anime, though, for various reasons.)
Yes – there were two mistakes in that caption: the character shown was not called “Cowboy Bebop”, and the character is a girl, even if she dresses like a boy and is called “Ed” for short. (And those are not really spoilers for the series.)
Bebop is also because there’s a jazz soundtrack to some degree.
I prefer the zanier, less serious, entirely jazz-free Outlaw Star.
Not really what the OP was asking but I have only watched a few handful of episodes here and there, but I gotta say that the music is phenomenal. A lot of it is jazz, some of it funky, some of it in leagues all of its own. But somehow, it all flows well with the scene that the music is put in, which is surprising in some parts. I need to go download them all over again now, for nostalgia’s sake.
Yeah, I love so much of what the Seatbelts put into the show. Not every song…not a band alive holds my attention through every song, and I very rarely listen to a whole album…but some of the songs are just AMAZING.
I had one song playing at work, and someone was making fun of me for playing ‘cowboy music’.
When I told them it was a Japanese jazz band, doing homage, if you will, to country ‘folk’, they just kind of stared at me. But the whole dichotomy and swizzle-stick mixtures are what make my tummy tingle.
BTW…agreed completely on the dub version. I don’t think it’s just that that’s what I saw first; I tried to watch the subtitled ones, and really, the voices just threw me off. Maybe it’s cause I’m american, but the voice actors for the dubs were really, really GOOD, and made the characters, completely.
The homage was most likely made not so much to country folk but more to Ennio Morricone and his music for the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, (In Session 1 Spike wears a Poncho and Mexican-style hat, the trademark costume of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man with no Name.’)
There is very little music that Yoko Kanno has composed that I don’t like.
Bebop really is a very good show; I’ve still only seen ~2/3s of it, and need to see the rest.
It’s very much of the “philosophical action anime” genre, but I think it’s much better than most. I’ve seen a fair bit of anime, but the only shows I really like are Cowboy Bebop and FLCL.