It’s basically an animated Firefly, so much so that I felt sure Joss Whedon must’ve seen it before writing the latter, but apparently not.
Whatever happened to the live-action movie? I doubt it’ll be any good, but it seems like its been “in the works” since the dawn of time.
Ah, thank you. I knew there was another connection I was missing somewhere. >.<
Space Lion is another of my favorites, but I won’t link the music because I think it works too perfectly with the setting in the episode; on it’s own, it might not have quite the same oomph.
There’s tons more, and hundreds of fan videos made; Kono/Seatbelts are one of the few performers I would really, really like to see live.
Or Outlaw Star (or Tenchi Universe (or Trigun)).
IMHO, this series is fantastic, and has only two faults:
The mood swings wildly. There is no consistent tone, to the point that some of the series darkest momens follow directly to its most comic and light-hearted.
The ending is… poor. And the creators, while politely not saying anything, have implied that they most definitely intended more seasons (the way the show is setup also demonstrates that they weren’t ready to end it). However, many anime studios in Japan apparently don’t like making money, so it did not receive a second season. The show ended in the wrong place, somewhat ambiguously, and not very well all arond.
Of those three I’ve only seen Trigun, but Firefly and Bebop only really share the “asian space-western” setting with Trigun. They share a lot more similarities with each other then that.
Smiling Bandit, are you sure your thinking of the right show? Bebop’s ending came up a lot in the semi-recent “best series endings” thread, and seems to be pretty highly regarded. And
I don’t really see how the series implied more seasons. Even before the ending where they kill of the protagonist, they were already disbanding the crew letting Edward go find her/his father
Also, I’d say the tone is more consistant then most anime series I’ve seen. Certainly more so then Trigun.
Cowboy Bebop is brilliant. The music is phenomenal, I’m not really a jazz fan but Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts kick ass, CB is the perfect vehicle for their music.
I’m heavily influenced by nostalgia. I watched the series out of order over the course of several years on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. It was the first and still the best anime I’ve ever seen.
I love Cowboy Bebop. It was my gateway into anime series. There are several CDs of the great music and I’ve got 8 of them.
And pardon the grammar-Nazi digression, but many people, like Simplico, confuse ‘then’ and ‘than’ in online posts. I wonder, do they actually speak the error that way or just type it?
I find this to be one of the least convincing lies in the history of show business. It’s not just similar; several characters are almost identical.
Aargh. I liked Firefly, but mentioning Joss Whedon is a good way to get me to run away from anything. I do not like him, nor his die-hard fans. 
If Joss didn’t take from Cowboy Bebop then it’s an amazing coincidence that Firefly shares so many traits. But, even if he did, he would have been best off stealing more or he should have changed direction and gotten the rights to redistribute CB in the US instead of making Firefly.
…Identical? Really? I can’t think of a single character in CB that lines up with any other in Firefly in personality or background. Maybe River and Ed if you squint, but beyond that?
There are some similarities between Cowboy Bebop and Firefly; the Asian/space fusion and a motley crew of underdogs. On the whole though, the shows seem very different to me.
The cowboy link is thin. The cowboy stuff in CB is a joke but there’s a lot of people living a pioneer/wild west lifestyle in Firefly right down to the weapons tech.
“Small group of mismatched underdogs” is a trope unto itself. It covers a lot of ground from WKRP in Cincinnati to Stand by Me. A small, disparate group becoming cohesive against the odds is damned near every sports movie, it pops up in the Bible - it’s way too broad to count.
Cowboy Bebop and Firefly are both character-driven shows and I just don’t see the similarity between the casts. I’m definitely interested in hearing more about it though.
I pronounce the two words the same way when I speak. I know the difference, but I have a weird problem where I switch homophones when I write, sometimes really blatant ones like “right” vs “write” or “no” vs “know”. When I’m writing for work or the like, I read over a couple times to catch it, but I don’t really bother for “conversational writing” like emails or SDMB posts.
I realize it drives some people nuts, so the SDMB can consider this my board-wide apology.
Eh, it happens. Neil Gaiman wrote a comic book that was remarkably similar to the premise for Harry Potter a few years before Rowling wrote her book. I tend to believe it was a coincidence (as both authors have said), they were both riffing off TH White and the general trend towards popular urban fantasy, and so ended up writing similar books.
I imagine both Whedon and the director for Bebop had seen other anime go with the space western theme, and for whatever reason ran with the idea in a similar direction. And of course Firefly has an asian inspired setting because Whedon pictured the Chinese being major cultural contributers to the future, Bebop has one because it was made in Japan. Coincidences happen. In anycase, the two are amongst my favorite series, and I’m glad the later one didn’t shy off filming just because it was similar to something already out there.
I don’t buy Cowboy Bebop = Firefly but Firefly = Outlaw Star is looking pretty good. Damn!
Yes, I know exactly what I speaking of. The show was cancelled unexpectedly, and they had exactly three episodes to wrap it up. That was not the originally intended ending, it’s clear, and it’s makes utter hash of the show thus far, rendering the entire thing a waste of time. That ending is sickeningly wrong for that show.
I will grant that’s exceptionally good on its own, with the exception of the fact that it completely fails to introduce or properly use Julia.
We should probably avoid too much detail, because its a spoiler free thread, but aside from the similar settings, the two shows just have a similar feel.
They both have a band of misfits running from their pasts. Both go to great lengths to feature the space-ships as characters in their own right (and both are named after the ships). They both have a space-faring society that exists in a single star system after Earth undergoes a disaster. The characters in both are always running close to the edge, with shortages of food/fuel being a big issue to force them to find their next job. They both have crews that seem like a family, always threatening to break apart but coming back together. Both tend to visit worlds and places that are run-down and impovrished
Again, I think its a coincidence, but especially as Firefly started airing shortly after Bebop aired in the US for the first time, it was kind of weird how similar they were.
Smiling Bandit, do you have a cite for the show being canceled? My understanding is that the whole series was “filmed” by the studio before they sold it to anyone (and indeed, they had trouble finding anyone to buy it in Japan).
It wasn’t cancelled. TV Tokyo jerked them around, only showing 4 or 5 random (and non-consecutive) episodes, which resulted in the production schedule getting rather messed up while they found a broadcaster that would run it intact - that broadcaster being WOWOW. Due to the production problems caused by TV Tokyo’s idiocy, the finale wasn’t finished until the day WOWOW aired it.
But that is a completely different situation than the one smiling bandit is claiming. (Which is closer to the (also wrong) rumours about Evangelion’s finale, which was a departure from the rest of the series, and really, really weird - although even there the rumour is simply that they ran out of money, and couldn’t film their intended finale.)
nods Yep, all true, particularly your point about the timing of the shows. I can see why people draw the parallel. I’ve always been surprised by the accusations of wholesale copying because I don’t think the shows are THAT similar.
Now that I’ve seen a comparison of Outlaw Star and Firefly, I can understand where people are coming from when they talk about JW copying right down to the characters. Maybe people get their anime titles crossed?
I liked Firefly a lot. I love Cowboy Bebop. Outlaw Star never did hold my interest that well.
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Anaamika** - I don’t know if this speaks well of the show or not but I don’t think it holds up as well when you take it in big bites. I might argue that about any show though. As much as I love a good marathon run through a boxed set, story arcs have a lot more punch when stretched over a TV season rather than a few hours.
Yes after I looked at that list I realized I might have gotten my wired crossed. I watched them both in quick succession, and smushed them up a bit in my mind.
I was mostly just teasing about the Whedon thing. I still get a lot of Whedon praise forced on me, and honestly I just don’t think he’s all that and a bag of potato chips! That doesn’t mean I won’t watch something if I enjoy it.
I don’t mind the plot-specific dicussion as long as it (please) stays in spoilers). I should have put “no open spoilers” in the title, but forgot. But by all means, carry on.
As to watching it in blocks. Well, Netflix sends it disc by disc, and I usually get through a disk a week, so it will still take me at least a month, maybe two, before I finish it. Is that enough time to space it out? I can always switch to something else in between if I need to.