Is anyone else out there watching this wonderful anime series, either on Cartoon Network or on video/DVD? I’ve been collecting this series on DVD for a while, and then I heard that Cartoon Network was going to show the series as part of it’s new “Adult Swim” lineup. Wow–this is the purest US television showing of anime yet! I am impressed! I suppose it helps that the episode and series titles are already in English. They didn’t even change the Japanese ending song :). I had a little bit of trouble getting used to the English voices, especially Faye’s. Faye’s English voice still seems “wrong” to me.
I love the music in this series. You can tell that the makers of this anime really cared about the music. Unfortunately, there are no US releases of the music yet, and each Japanese CD is selling on Amazon.com for over $40! Do you think that these CDs will eventually be released in the US, or should I just bite the bullet and order the imports?
I don’t really have a favorite character–I like them all! I do have a soft spot for Edward, though–she’s just a bit of chaos injected into the middle of everything. I also like Punch and Judy, the “Big Shot” people, especially when they speak in Japanese.
I was a bit dismayed when Cartoon Network didn’t show “Cowboy Bebop” the week after the terrorist attacks. I know that the attacks haven’t really lessened my enthusiasm for watching the show. I’m glad it came back, though. Do you think this is why they’ve skipped episodes 6 and 8? I can’t remember anything specifically troubling about those two episodes at the moment–I’ll have to watch them again. I will be very surprised if they show episode 22 (the last one I’ve seen so far), though. That episode involves a misunderstood “Teddy Bomber” who blows up (usually unoccupied) buildings with bomb-filled teddy bears.
Is “Cowboy Bebop” a good intro to anime for the uninitiated? I know that I as an anime fan rate the series as one of the best, up there with “Neon Genesis Evangelion”. (Actually, I think that NGE would be a good replacement for Bebop in the Adult Swim lineup sometime in the future.)
I hate Evangelion. But I loooooooove Cowboy Bebop!!
I’ve seen the entire series and won’t spoil it for you. I don’t think they’ll show the Teddy Bomber episode either. Pity, that one’s funny as hell. “I’m not gonna eat this can of crap.”
I’d like Bebop music too, so if anyone knows where to buy some, I would be very, very happy.
I hate Evangelion. But I loooooooove Cowboy Bebop!!
I’ve seen the entire series and won’t spoil it for you. I don’t think they’ll show the Teddy Bomber episode either. Pity, that one’s funny as hell. “I’m not gonna eat this can of crap.” I thought the buildings were occupied, though. And that first one he blew up looked a lot like the WTC, so I doubt they’ll show it.
Edward is so adorable.
I’d like Bebop music too, so if anyone knows where to buy some, I would be very, very happy.
P.S. No, it’s not a good anime intro. It’s an experimental series that’s really not like any other anime out there. (The first person to mention Outlaw Star gets their ass kicked.) It’s a great thing to watch, and can be good for non-anime fans, but it shouldn’t be used as an intro to anime.
As far as buying CDs… try imageanime.com, who are in NYC.
I like the first album and the remix album the best, myself, though the titles escape me, I’ve got to go dig the actual CDs out from the changer.
I’ve got to say, Ed improves in dubbing, going from whiny kid to disturbingly strange individual. The DVDs are worth every penny.
And there’s a secret Ein gallery on 6.
I have the series on DVD, and I of course watched it in Japanese with English subtitles. So when I caught it on cartoon network in English, it just seemed really weird.
I think Jet’s voice is the most incongruous, compared to the original.
The music is by Yoko Kanno and performed by the Seatbelts!. I don’t know if you can find it on CD here, but I’ve got it on mp3. It’s really good driving music.
Does anyone know if the plan was/is to show the whole series, or are they only going to show the ones that aied on Japanese TV? IIRC, Pierot Le Fou wasn’t aired, but it is one of my episodes.
Cowboy BeBop is one of my all time favorite animes and I’ve bought all 6 DVDs. I hear they’re going to be making a movie and I can’t wait to watch that one as well.
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BeBop doesn’t have much graphic violence, harsh language, or nudity. That combined with the fact that Cartoon Network realized that a lot of adults watch toons means they can afford to show them relatively uncut. Uh, I guess. Since I have them on DVD I haven’t bothered trying to catch an episode on CT Network.
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It is the only anime soundtrack out there that I actually enjoy. The episode where we see Viscious and Spike fight in the church included the song Greenbird which I thought was beautiful. Very impressive, especially considering I have a low opinion of most of the music I hear in anime.
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The “Big Shot” folks are hilarious. Especially when the Indian type guy says stuff like “Howdy folks!” I especially love it when we get to see what happens to them at the end of the series. That was hilarious. And by the way Edward is one of the few kids in an anime series that I thought was pretty funny and not annoying.
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One of my favorites is the one with the alien that kind of looks like a pile of pudding. I especially love how they end up getting rid of it.
Cowboy BeBop isn’t a bad one to start people out on. It is easy to follow, has great animation, and the characters are all pretty darn cool. There’s no huge amounts of blood, women don’t have sex with tentacled things, and there’s even some humor involved.
Well, I’ve heard that the first episode (with Asimov and the illegal BLOODY-EYE eyedrop-drugs) was not shown on Japanese television, but they did show that one on Cartoon Network. Therefore, I think that the original plan was to show the whole series.
The strange thing is that they leave the original “Coming Episode” teasers on the episodes before the ones they skip. Episode 5 still had the teaser for Episode 6, “Sympathy for the Devil”, so I was very surprised when they started the next episode and it was number 7, “Heavy Metal Queen” (one of my favorites, BTW, and I love the teaser for it, too.) Either they are very lazy, or they were originally planning on showing the whole thing and decided not to at the last minute.
Hmmm…actually, I liked Jet’s voice best out of all the English voices. However, I keep expecting him to say “Spiku” like his Japanese counterpart. And the English Punch (from “Big Shot”) doesn’t say “AMIGO!” the way the Japanese Punch does. Yes, the DVDs are well worth the money. Apparently, they are releasing a box set soon of all the episodes.
Couldn’t Cartoon Network run the Japanese soundtrack on the SAP track (I’ve heard that some stations put a Spanish soundtrack for “Simpsons” there) and then run subtitles closed-captioned? That would be great! Best of both worlds!
“Cowboy Bebop” has a great mix of comedy and drama. I think that helps make it a great series.
I now have the last DVD. I have not opened it, though, because I want my husband to watch it with me. Perhaps tonight :).
Cowoby Bebop is my favorite anime series yet. I was introduced to them by Aaron, (Mr. Jeeves), who is lucky enough to work for Bandai. He had just started working there right after they had released DVD 2, and he was given a copy of 1 and 2 by a coworker in the Bandai Entertainment division that he had done a favor for. The only anime that I had seen before was Ghost in the Shell. He brought it home, and a week later or so we watched it.
I was hooked. I made him bring home each DVD as soon as copies were available to employees (About 2 weeks before commercial release, Heaven!). I cried at the end. I still re-watch it every so often, but I can't bring myself to watch any of the episodes on the last DVD.
I also bought the first soundtrack cd, I got my copy through http://www.animenation.com, but it took forever for it to arrive. Bandai will be releasing a set of figures next spring around the same time they release the box set of all the dvd's. It will be Spike, Faye and the swordfish, and I am going to make Aaron get me two sets. One to keep and one to play with! Also, I am looking fwd to the movie which is being made!
Ok, enough otaku babbling, I sound like a commercial for the series. We are currently watching Evangelion, which while I really enjoy it, it isn’t quite CB for me. Nobody does music quite the same way. While Yoko Kanno also did the score for Escaflowne, it is very different, and not nearly as good.
There’s a DVD box set coming along which will definitely get my cash. I was hooked from the first disc; all strong characters, witty writing, characters with dark pasts that don’t spend eight times forever moping and being angst-ridden, and when they do a more serious-episode it still kicks butt. After watching the last episode on the first dvd, I thought they’d just out-John-Woo’ed John Woo.
I don’t think of it as a “good intro to anime”, simply because it’s not like “anime” is a single genre–it’s only fairly recently that America’s started getting a wider selection of the stuff than the Battling Seizure Robots! variety. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty fond of some of the Battling Seizure Robots! genre, but still.
I started watching the series when the guy who owns a local anime/Japanese shop recommended it (they rent anime there, and have a reeeeeeally large collection). Most of the series had not been released on VHS here, yet, but I started out and was immediately floored. I watched the whole series and then started on the DVD’s a little while after they came out. I don’t have them all, yet (1-3; 2 & 3 thanks to a wonderful b-day gift from a friend), but I did pick up the first soundtrack from the shop I rent from.
There’s so many great things about the series and I think they’ve all been brought up, here. It’s definitely my favourite series.
BTW, it’s Tokyo 7, if you wanted to get the CD’s cheap and fast. It’s in Canada, and their prices are relatively pretty dang low (especially since it’s in Canadian).
I can’t really add anything that hasn’t already been said. I started Bebop about a year to half a year ago, can’t remember the exact date. I also think that Cartoon Network isn’t showing the episodes in order.
I love Cowboy Bebop! I’ve just been watching it on Cartoon Network, but it’s been added to my list of stuff to buy. It’s even a good dub too, so I don’t feel the urgent need to strangle a voice actor or anything. I am a bit upset that Cartoon Network skipped episodes though. Such actions peeve me, even though I understand the reasoning behind them.
The word spread quickly at my school once the series started showing. To teenagers who’ve only had access to overly edited anime and fuzzy Realplayer fansubs, it’s a pretty big deal.
jessica, who is humming along to Tank! as she types, as it’s playing on her mp3 player
Seriously, I heard there were a couple of episodes that never made it onto Japanese TV. I doubt any network would out Jupiter Jazz Part 1 on the air. Does anybody know which episodes got cut, and why?
Cowboy BeBop has put a huge amount of effort into every detail of its futuristic spacefaring civilization.
It’s kinda unfortunate, then, that the basic plot and character elements are a simple cross of modern-day spy novels and Wild West bounty-hunter B-movies.
As Gardner Dozois (I think) put it, “The past was not 1980 with horses; the future will not be 1980 with chrome. THINGS CHANGE.” The reality of space travel, even if the people of the future develop super-efficient fusion powered rocket motors, is that it will always he hideously expensive compared with staying put or taking a short hop from one place on the planet to another. If we had so much spare energy that even the lowliest gray-market bounty hunters could afford to zip back-and-forth between the planets the way you or I might decide to go for a drive in the country, then the run-down just-scraping-by impoverished civilization of Cowboy BeBop simply would not exist, no matter how much economic power gets concentrated into a few greedy hands.
Okay, okay – but did they have to put a motorcycle twist-grip throttle on a spacecraft? Next thing you know, they’ll be showing space ships coasting to a stop just because their engines shut down.