To many Westerners, anime is either all nonsensical cartoons for children or escapist nonsense aimed at teenagers. Of course, this idea is ludicrous, as anime is as much equal parts transcendent and trash just as any other medium, and yet, that negative, reductive perception persists.
Even with anime getting bigger than ever in the West these days, with shows like Yuri On Ice!!! and Attack On Titan becoming mainstream hits, Ghost In The Shell and Battle Angel Alita getting big-budget, live-action Hollywood remakes, and climatic episodes of Dragon Ball Super being streamed in public to huge crowds, this reputation refuses to disappear, with older generations thinking there's few exceptions to the rule of "Anime was a mistake." One of those exceptions, Cowboy Bebop, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its original broadcast finale (kind of; we'll explain), and all these years later, it's still as striking as ever.
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For the uninitiated, Cowboy Bebop (created and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, Watanabe, and others and animated by Mobile Suit Gundam franchise creators Sunrise) is a 26 episode, or "session," TV anime about a disparate group of bounty hunters in the year 2071. Cool-as-ice Spike Spiegel, avuncular ex-cop Jet Black, the wily femme fatale Faye Valentine, smarter-than-he-looks corgi Ein and loopy child hacker Ed cruise the galaxy in their starship, the Bebop, searching for that next big score...or at least a decent meal.
Originally airing in 1998 on TV Tokyo, Bebop was put in a 6 PM time slot, an ill fit for its mature undertones and constant violence (shootouts, stabbings, etc.). Only half the episodes were aired before TX Network (TV Tokyo's parent company) axed it due to low ratings. As a compromise, the show's staff quickly threw together "Mish-Mash Blues," a bizarre half hour with the show's characters ruminating on various topics that aired on June 26, 1998, concluding with a title card saying "This is not the end. You will see the real 'Cowboy Bebop' someday!" (This special was never released outside of Japan.)
Luckily for everyone, Japanese satellite network Wowow stepped in and broadcast the series in its entirety in 1999. After being dubbed and aired on Italian MTV, the show would make history when its English dub aired as the first anime on the first broadcast of Adult Swim on September 2, 2001.
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Adult Swim was an immediate hit, eventually becaming a television institution, and Bebop had an immediate impact. The top-notch animation, the incredible jazz music soundtrack by composer Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts (a band consisting of jazz greats from Japan, New York and Paris) and the remarkable English dub, written by Marc Wilder and Mary Claypool, directed by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and starring Steve Blum as Spike in a career-defining role, was like nothing American audiences had ever seen in broadcast animation.
To this day, the show remains a staple of Adult Swim's programming (it currently airs at 3 AM EST on Adult Swim's all-anime Toonami programming block on Saturdays), has inspired an upcoming zine by the Eisner-nominated publisher Short Box, and is touted by anime fans as a good "gateway drug" to get people into the medium. But why?
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Well, a lot has to do with Watanabe. In a promotion for the series' original airing on TV Tokyo (included on home video releases as "Session #0"), he stated, "People see a lot of things over time, they find things they like, and these days, many people try to recreate what they've seen. That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to create something that had never been seen before."
In other words, while the look, tone and content of most anime (even back in the '90s) is inspired by other anime, Bebop had outside influences (although Watanabe has also stated long-running anime/manga franchise Lupin III was a primary inspiration) ranging from American film noir to the cyberpunk of William Gibson to defective fiction and many others, resulting in something that can only be described by Watanabe's original tagline for the show (derived from similar language used to describe bebop jazz around its founding): "a new genre unto itself."
It's familiar concepts executed in a new, exciting way. Spike and Jet are unlikely partners--Jet is, again, an ex-cop while Spike is gradually revealed to have a criminal past--but they don't seem to really be friends, mostly drifting together out of necessity. Faye lives utterly in the moment, for good and for ill, ultimately as a way to cope with a past she doesn't remember. Ed is a Deadpool-esque force of comedic nature, butting in whenever the series gets a bit too bleak and grim and it always works without being too overbearing.
The show itself is also perfectly constructed on an episodic basis. In today's binge-watching climate where the individual episode is unimportant and shows like Daredevil vary in length from episode to episode resulting in uneven storytelling, it's easy to appreciate when a tight 22 minutes of TV is right in front of you.
Other than two two-parters, most episodes of the show are stand-alone. But as the show unfolds, you watch the characters grow and change. Spike, Jet, Faye and even Ed all have to answer and confront questions about their pasts and face their future. And the last moments of the finale are some of the most emotionally resonant animation ever made.
A spinoff film, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (also directed by Watanabe and written by Nobumoto), was made in 2001. Taking place between episodes 22 & 23, it sees the Bebop crew go up against a biological terrorist on Mars. It's stunning, with amazing cinematography and Moroccan elements added to the stellar Seatbelts score, but is honestly best viewed after you watch the show, not before.
Besides airing on Toonami, the show is widely available on Blu-Ray & DVD and is currently streaming on Hulu, FunimationNow and on demand. Start from the beginning, lean back and settle into the groove.