Feb 14, 2025
Cowboy Bebop is probably my personal favorite anime. Cowboy Bebop is a mostly episodic show, featuring a vary unique cast of characters that are bounty hunting in space!
Cowboy Bebop is a mix of different genres action, thriller, comedy, western, drama, romance, sci fi, noir, horror etc.
Each episode is unique exploring different themes, concepts and genres which is what makes Bebop so fun to watch. Combine this with likeable, unique and mysterious main cast (which we slowly start to find out more about throughout the show) and you get yourself a very enjoyable and unpredictable show.
Animation is absolutely phenomenal and holds up even to
...
this day. Some of the best action scenes I've ever seen in anime are here! Music is also amazing, the soundtrack is a mix of jazz, blues and rock and it's easily my favorite anime soundtrack.
Despite being an anime, its influences are mostly from the west, some episodes are even paying homages to popular movies (for example "Toys In The Attic" is sort of a tribute the movie "Alien"). But don't worry there's still elements from other cultures as well, this weird mix of influences and cultures is what makes Bebop so unique.
There are also some incredibly emotional scenes, so even if you're looking for deep characters, you can still find that. But Bebop has a very unique way of telling its story, its very subtle, with a lot of important dialogue being kind of vague, as well as some plot points that are not deeply explored. So while world building *is* there, its very sparse and subtle, some people might think that its not deep enough but I disagree. You get to see different planets and the way people live on them. Bebop never outright tells you that the country/planet is poor, instead it shows you life on the said planet through short montages of the cities and people's activities in them. This makes the world feel alive and real, despite no words being said. You get to see how people live there and you can see that despite them being in the future, some people live in poor and underdeveloped environments. The show also likes to mix futurism with retro, resulting with a very unique aesthetic.
And every one of the 26 episodes are good and bring something different to the series, if Bebop wasn't episodic it would have been impossible for it to tackle as many subjects, themes and ideas as it did. So while some people would prefer a more linear, straightforward narrative that lasts from first to the last episode, I think that Bebop executes episodic story-telling pretty much perfectly. If you like episodic shows (or if you don't mind them) and very subtle storytelling with compelling and deep main characters (that are also incredibly fun to hang around with), you're probably gonna enjoy this show, hopefully as much as I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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