Cowboy Bebop theme by V4oLDbOY
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| Cowboy Bebop | |
 Key visual of the series, featuring the entire Bebop crew | |
| カウボーイビバップ (Kaubōi Bibappuu) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Created by | Hajime Yatate |
| Manga | |
| Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star | |
| Illustrated by | Cain Kuga |
| Published by | Kadokawa Shoten |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Monthly Asuka Fantasy DX |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | September 18, 1997 – June 18, 1998 |
| Volumes | 2 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Shinichirō Watanabe |
| Produced by |
|
| Written by | Keiko Nobumoto |
| Music by | Yoko Kanno |
| Studio | Sunrise |
| Licensed by | Crunchyroll LLC[c] |
| Original network | TXN (TV Tokyo), Wowow |
| English network | |
| Original run | TV Tokyo broadcast April 3, 1998 – June 26, 1998 Wowow broadcast October 23, 1998 – April 24, 1999 |
| Episodes | 26 |
| Manga | |
| Illustrated by | Yutaka Nanten |
| Published by | Kadokawa Shoten |
| English publisher |
|
| Magazine | Monthly Asuka Fantasy DX |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | October 18, 1998 – February 18, 2000 |
| Volumes | 3 |
| Anime film | |
| |
| Live-action television series | |
| |
Cowboy Bebop (Japanese: カウボーイビバップ, Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu) is a Japanese neo-noir space Western[12] anime television series which aired on TV Tokyo and Wowow from 1998 to 1999. It was created and animated by Sunrise, led by a production team of director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno, who are collectively billed as Hajime Yatate.
The series, which ran for twenty-six episodes (dubbed "sessions"), is set in the year 2071, and follows the lives of a traveling bounty-hunting crew aboard a spaceship, the Bebop. Although it incorporates a wide variety of genres, the series draws most heavily from science fiction, Western, and noir films. Its most prominent themes are existential boredom, loneliness, and the inability to escape one's past.
The series was dubbed into English by Animaze and ZRO Limit Productions, and was originally licensed in North America by Bandai Entertainment (and is now licensed by Crunchyroll) and in Britain by Beez Entertainment (now by Anime Limited); Madman Entertainment owns the license in Australia and New Zealand. In 2001, it became the first anime title to be broadcast on Adult Swim.
Cowboy Bebop has been hailed as one of the best animated television series of all time. It was a critical and commercial success both in Japanese and international markets, most notably in the United States. It garnered several major anime and science-fiction awards upon its release, and received acclaim from critics and audiences for its style, characters, story, voice acting, animation, and soundtrack. The English dub was particularly lauded and is regarded as one of the best anime English dubs.[13] Credited with helping to introduce anime to a new wave of Western viewers in the early 2000s, Cowboy Bebop has also been called a gateway series for anime as a whole.[14]
Plot[edit]
In the year 2071, roughly fifty years after an accident with a hyperspace gateway that made Earth almost uninhabitable, humanity has colonized most of the rocky planets and moons of the Solar System. Amid a rising crime rate, the Inter Solar System Police (ISSP) set up a legalized contract system, in which registered bounty hunters (also referred to as "Cowboys") chase criminals and bring them in alive in return for a reward.[15] The series' protagonists are bounty-hunters working from the spaceship Bebop. The original crew is Spike Spiegel, an exiled former hitman of the criminal Red Dragon Syndicate, and Jet Black, a former ISSP officer. They are later joined by Faye Valentine, an amnesiac con artist; Edward, an eccentric child, skilled in hacking; and Ein, a genetically-engineered Pembroke Welsh Corgi with human-like intelligence. Throughout the series, the team gets involved in disastrous mishaps leaving them without money, while often confronting faces and events from their past:[16] These include Jet's reasons for leaving the ISSP and Faye's past as a young woman from Earth injured in an accident and cryogenically frozen to save her life.
While much of the show is episodic, the main story arc focuses on Spike and his deadly rivalry with Vicious, an ambitious criminal affiliated with the Red Dragon Syndicate. Spike and Vicious were once partners and friends. Still, when Spike begins an affair with Vicious's girlfriend Julia and resolves to leave the Syndicate with her, Vicious seeks to eliminate Spike by blackmailing Julia into killing him. Julia hides to protect herself and Spike, while Spike fakes his death to escape the Syndicate. In the present, Julia comes out of hiding and reunites with Spike, intending to complete their plan. Vicious, having staged a coup d'état and taken over the Syndicate, sends hitmen after the pair. Julia is killed, leaving Spike alone. Spike leaves the Bebop after finally apologizing to Faye and Jet. Upon infiltrating the syndicate, he finds Vicious on the top floor of the building and confronts him after dispatching the remaining Red Dragon members. The final battle ends with Spike killing Vicious, only to be seriously wounded himself in the ensuing confrontation. Looking up to the sky, Spike sees Julia. The series concludes as Spike descends the main staircase of the building into the rising sun before eventually falling to the ground.
Genre and themes[edit]
Watanabe created a special tagline for the series to promote it during its original presentation, calling it "a new genre unto itself". The line was inserted before and after commercial breaks during its Japanese and US broadcasts. Later, Watanabe called the phrase an "exaggeration".[17] The show is a hybrid of multiple genres, including westerns and pulp fiction.[18] One reviewer described it as "space opera meets noir, meets comedy, meets cyberpunk".[19][6] It has also been called a "genre-busting space Western".[20][21]
The musical style was emphasized in many of the episode titles.[22][23][24] Multiple philosophical themes are explored using the characters, including existentialism, existential boredom, loneliness, and the effect of the past on the protagonists.[16][25] Other concepts referenced include environmentalism and capitalism.[26] The series also makes specific references to or pastiches multiple films, including the works of John Woo and Bruce Lee, Midnight Run, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Alien.[23][27][28] The series also includes extensive references and elements from science fiction, bearing strong similarities to the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson.[29] Several planets and space stations in the series are made in Earth's image. The streets of celestial objects such as Ganymede resemble a modern port city, while Mars features shopping malls, theme parks, casinos and cities. [27] This setting has been described as "one part Chinese diaspora and two parts wild west".[18]
Characters[edit]
The characters were created by Watanabe and character designed by Toshihiro Kawamoto. Watanabe envisioned each character as an extension of his own personality, or as an opposite person to himself.[30] Each character, from the main cast to supporting characters, were designed to be outlaws unable to fit into society.[31] Kawamoto designed the characters so they were easily distinguished from one another.[17] All the main cast are characterized by a deep sense of loneliness or resignation to their fate and past.[17] From the perspective of Brian Camp and Julie Davis, the main characters resemble the main characters of the anime series Lupin III, if only superficially, given their more troubled pasts and more complex personalities.[29]
The show focuses on the character of Spike Spiegel (voiced by Kōichi Yamadera), an iconic space cowboy with green hair and often seen wearing a blue suit, with the overall theme of the series being Spike's past and its karmic effect on him.[32] Spike was portrayed as someone who had lost his expectations for the future, having lost the woman he loved, and so was in a near-constant lethargy.[17] Spike's artificial eye was included as Watanabe wanted his characters to have flaws. He was originally going to be given an eyepatch, but this decision was vetoed by producers.[31][33]
Jet (voiced by Unshō Ishizuka) is shown as someone who lost confidence in his former life and has become cynical about the state of society.[17][32] Spike and Jet were designed to be opposites, with Spike being thin and wearing smart attire, while Jet was bulky and wore more casual clothing.[31] The clothing, which was dark in color, also reflected their states of mind.[17] Faye Valentine, Edward Wong (voiced by Aoi Tada), and Ein joined the crew in later episodes.[32] Their designs were intended to contrast against Spike.[31] Faye was described by her voice actress Megumi Hayashibara as initially being an "ugly" woman, with her defining traits being her liveliness, sensuality and humanity.[33] To emphasize her situation when first introduced, she was compared to Poker Alice, a famous Western figure.[31]
Edward and Ein were the only main characters to have real-life models. The former had her behavior based on the antics of Yoko Kanno as observed by Watanabe when he first met her.[31] While generally portrayed as carefree and eccentric, Edward is motivated by a sense of loneliness after being abandoned by her father.[32] Kawamoto initially based Ein's design on a friend's pet corgi, later getting one himself to use as a motion model.[34][35]
Production[edit]
Cowboy Bebop was developed by animation studio Sunrise and created by Hajime Yatate, the well-known pseudonym for the collective contributions of Sunrise's animation staff. The leader of the series' creative team was director Shinichirō Watanabe, most notable at the time for directing Macross Plus and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. Other leading members of Sunrise's creative team were screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical art designer Kimitoshi Yamane, composer Yoko Kanno, and producers Masahiko Minami and Yoshiyuki Takei. Most of them had previously worked together, in addition to having credits on other popular anime titles. Nobumoto had scripted Macross Plus, Kawamoto had designed the characters for Gundam, and Kanno had composed the music for Macross Plus and The Vision of Escaflowne. Yamane had not worked with Watanabe yet, but his credits in anime included Bubblegum Crisis and The Vision of Escaflowne. Minami joined the project as he wanted to do something different from his previous work on mecha anime.[23][33]
Concept[edit]
Cowboy Bebop was Watanabe's first project as solo director, as he had been co-director in his previous works.[36] His original concept was for a movie, and during production he treated each episode as a miniature movie.[37][38] His main inspiration for Cowboy Bebop was the first series of the anime Lupin III, a crime drama focusing on the exploits of the series' titular character.[23] When developing the series' story, Watanabe began by creating the characters first. He explained, "the first image that occurred to me was one of Spike, and from there I tried to build a story around him, trying to make him cool."[36] While the original dialogue of the series was kept clean to avoid any profanities, its level of sophistication was made appropriate to adults in a criminal environment.[23] Watanabe described Cowboy Bebop as "80% serious story and 20% humorous touch".[39] The comical episodes were harder for the team to write than the serious ones, and though several events in them seemed random, they were carefully planned in advance.[31] Watanabe conceived the series' ending early on, and each episode involving Spike and Vicious was meant to foreshadow their final confrontation. Some of the staff were unhappy about this approach as a continuation of the series would be difficult. While he considered altering the ending, he eventually settled with his original idea. The reason for creating the ending was that Watanabe did not want the series to become like Star Trek, with him being tied to doing it for years.[31]
Development[edit]
The project had initially originated with Bandai's toy division as a sponsor, with the goal of selling spacecraft toys. Watanabe recalled his only instruction was "So long as there's a spaceship in it, you can do whatever you want." But upon viewing early footage, it became clear that Watanabe's vision for the series did not match Bandai's. Believing the series would never sell toy merchandise, Bandai pulled out of the project, leaving it in development hell until sister company Bandai Visual stepped in to sponsor it. Since there was no need to merchandise toys with the property any more, Watanabe had free rein in the development of the series.[36] Watanabe wanted to design not just a space adventure series for adolescent boys but a program that would also appeal to sophisticated adults.[23] During the making of Bebop, Watanabe often attempted to rally the animation staff by telling them that the show would be something memorable up to three decades later. While some of them were doubtful of that at the time, Watanabe many years later expressed his happiness to have been proven right in retrospect. He joked that if Bandai Visual had not intervened then "you might be seeing me working the supermarket checkout counter right now."[36]
The city locations were generally inspired by the cities of New York and Hong Kong.[40] The atmospheres of the planets and the ethnic groups in Cowboy Bebop mostly originated from Watanabe's ideas, with some collaboration from set designers Isamu Imakake, Shoji Kawamori, and Dai Satō. The animation staff established the particular planet atmospheres early in the production of the series before working on the ethnic groups. It was Watanabe who wanted to have several groups of ethnic diversity appear in the series. Mars was the planet most often used in Cowboy Bebop's storylines, with Satoshi Toba, the cultural and setting producer, explaining that the other planets "were unexpectedly difficult to use". He stated that each planet in the series had unique features, and the producers had to take into account the characteristics of each planet in the story. For the final episode, Toba explained that it was not possible for the staff to have the dramatic rooftop scene occur on Venus, so the staff "ended up normally falling back to Mars".[41] In creating the backstory, Watanabe envisioned a world that was "multinational rather than stateless". In spite of certain American influences in the series, he stipulated that the country had been destroyed decades prior to the story, later saying the notion of the United States as the center of the world repelled him.[42]
Music[edit]
The music for Cowboy Bebop was composed by Yoko Kanno.[43] Kanno formed the blues and jazz band Seatbelts to perform the series' music.[44] According to Kanno, the music was one of the first aspects of the series to begin production, before most of the characters, story, or animation had been finalized. The genres she used for its composition were western, opera, and jazz.[31] Watanabe noted that Kanno did not score the music exactly the way he told her to. He stated, "She gets inspired on her own, follows up on her own imagery, and comes to me saying 'this is the song we need for Cowboy Bebop', and composes something completely on her own."[39] Kanno herself was sometimes surprised at how pieces of her music were used in scenes, sometimes wishing it had been used elsewhere, though she also felt that none of their uses were "inappropriate". She was pleased with the working environment, finding the team very relaxed in comparison with other teams she had worked with.[33]
Watanabe further explained that he would take inspiration from Kanno's music after listening to it and create new scenes for the story from it. These new scenes in turn would inspire Kanno and give her new ideas for the music and she would come to Watanabe with even more music. Watanabe cited as an example, "some songs in the second half of the series, we didn't even ask her for those songs, she just made them and brought them to us." He commented that while Kanno's method was normally "unforgivable and unacceptable", it was ultimately a "big hit" with Cowboy Bebop. Watanabe described his collaboration with Kanno as "a game of catch between the two of us in developing the music and creating the TV series Cowboy Bebop".[39][45] Since the series' broadcast, Kanno and the Seatbelts have released seven original soundtrack albums, two singles and EPs, and two compilations through label Victor Entertainment.[46]
Weapons[edit]
The guns on the show were chosen by the director, Watanabe, and in discussion with set designer, Isamu Imakake, and mechanical designer, Kimitoshi Yamane. Setting producer, Satoshi Toba said, "They talked about how they didn't want common guns, because that wouldn't be very interesting, and so they decided on these guns."[47]
Distribution[edit]
Broadcast[edit]
Cowboy Bebop debuted on TV Tokyo, one of the main broadcasters of anime in Japan, airing from April 3 until June 26, 1998.[48] Due to its 6:00 p.m. timeslot[49] and depictions of graphic violence,[50] the show's first run only included episodes 2, 3, 7 to 15, 18 and a special. Later that year, the series was shown in its entirety from October 23 until April 24, 1999, on satellite network Wowow.[51] The full series has also been broadcast across Japan by anime television network Animax, which has also aired the series via its respective networks across Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia.
The first non-Asian country to air Cowboy Bebop was Italy. There, it was first aired on October 21, 1999, on MTV, where it inaugurated the 9:00–10:30 p.m. Anime Night programming block.
In the United States, Cowboy Bebop was one of the programs shown when Cartoon Network's late night block Adult Swim debuted on September 2, 2001, being the first anime shown on the block that night at midnight ET.[52] During its original run on Adult Swim, episodes 6, 8, and 22 were skipped due to their violent themes in wake of the September 11 attacks. By the third run of the series, all these episodes had premiered for the first time. Cowboy Bebop was successful enough to be broadcast repeatedly for four years. It has been run at least once every year since 2007, and HD remasters of the show began broadcasting in 2015. In the United Kingdom, it was first broadcast in 2002 on the adult-oriented channel CNX. From November 6, 2007, it was repeated on AnimeCentral until the channel
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There are 6 different backgrounds, I guess you need to switch between original background and Cowboy Bebop to alternate randomly through the 6 backgrounds.