Reviewed by: James Zhang
Ratings:
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Comedy, Science-Fiction
Year: 1998 (TV) and 2001 (Movie)
Series Length: 26 + 1 movie

It's the year 2071 and the world has degraded into a hi-tech but troubled spread of planets and warp gates that links civilization as we know it, with many racial groups mixed together.

Spike and Jet are bounty hunters who navigate the infinite realms of the cosmos to catch notorious criminals that are usually advertised on the intergalactic bounty hunter TV show.

Their bachelorhoods get more exciting as they rescue the top-secret 'data dog', bump into the viciously attractive Faye Valentine, and finally get forced to take onboard a kid computer whiz because he (actually, she) hacked into their spaceship computer.

One word immediately comes to mind as one is immersed into the fantastic vision of future space life that is Cowboy Bebop, aided by eye-popping visuals and the diversity of characters, from heroes to hoodlums, and victims to villains. That word is 'cool'. Call it super-cool, ultra-cool, or hyper-cool, but that Cowboy Bebop is cool is an established fact.

Each character has his or her past tale and unique approach to life, from the ex-policeman whose robotic arm lends weight to the motto: 'if we can't talk to them, we bash them', to the laid-back master of Jeet Kune Do (martial arts style developed by Bruce Lee), to the 'Mistress of Debt' whose financial deficits exceed her sex appeal, and the take-nothing-seriously kid who nevertheless takes computers seriously enough to manipulate almost anything electronic.

Cowboy Bebop is largely episodic, with occasional snapshots and references that shed light on each character's past, and how that has contributed to who they are now. There are also several short story arcs (two to three episodes each) that do a good job of revealing the characters' relationships to each other and how it developed.

But Cowboy Bebop's greatest shortcoming is that there are many episodes that add little to the broader picture (episodes of pure entertainment), and that picture is very broad indeed. While most of the main characters' lives can be summarised by one or two episodes, Spike's life story can fill an entire 26-episode run in itself.

When the coolness of Cowboy Bebop was emphasised, some may realise this is not always a good thing. The characters look good, act slick, and have firm personalities but while they do change, it seems to be more out of pragmatism than the result of detailed thinking and reflection. So like its aura of coolness, Cowboy Bebop can appear to be superficial at times, winning over the audience by its combination of awesome graphics and portrayal of ideal characters for an unideal world (as opposed to good characters in a bad world) over a more modest story that resonates with strong core values (any Hayao Miyazaki film will illustrate this point).

Cowboy Bebop has a little bit of everything for everybody - a bit of a crowd-pleaser. While this is not necessarily bad, experience tells me that nothing beats a holistic story that embraces a more specific theme like Berserk, and even a show like Trigun can explore a plethora of issues while interweaving all its events, coherence that Cowboy Bebop lacks.

Nevertheless, Cowboy Bebop is an excellent show and I can think of no better starting point for anyone unfamiliar with anime.

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