![]() ![]() ![]() These guys aren't bounty hunters because they want to fight crime and keep the peace - all they want is a wad of cash, and bounty hunting seems like the best place to make big money fast. Their motivation, too, is far from the usual anime fare. Ultra cool Spike, grumpy strategist Jet, trigger-happy Faye, nutball Ed and intelligent dog Ein are as far away from the usual brats and bots anime as you can possibly get. And whilst I'm assured that shows such as Escaflowne (schoolgirls and magic) and Evangelion (boys and robots) are actually rather good, they completely fail to get my blood pumping.Įnter Bebop. Most anime that makes it over here seems to be either about schoolgirls with supernatural powers who battle evil, or adolescent boys who - for some convoluted reason - wind up having to pilot big giant robots. All of which sounds terribly impressive, but why on Earth should you watch it? Because, buddy, it's one of the finest television shows ever made. composer Yoko Kanno faultlessly turns her hand to an eclectc selection of genres and instruments, ably backed up by her band, "Seatbelts". And the music - tribal drums and chants give way to electronic pulses that give way to jazz sax and trumpets that give way to rock guitars that give way to blues harmonicas. Scenic bays would look for all the world like they were taken from modern-day Japan were they not dwarfed by Jupiter, the enormous gas giant looming in the sky like some enormous benevolent god. The world that the series inhabits is distinctly post-modern, too space ships fly through hyperspace gates, but once on the ground their pilots fight with twentieth-century handguns. Were it not for the recurring characters, it would be hard to believe that the brightly-coloured blaxploitation parody "Mushroom Samba" could possibly come from the same series as the bleakly violent "Real Folk Blues". It's a show where each episode really is different from the last. But Bebop is not content to be merely that, so there are added dashes of film noir, gothic horror, creature-feature, black comedy, screwball comedy, spy action, crime, romance, tragedy, action, philosophy, science, spirituality, fatalism, optimism, buddy-buddy stories, slapstick humour, parody- just about every type of tale under the sun appears in some shape or form during Bebop's run. At the most basic level it's a Space Western. Not in the tired "Scream" sense of self-awareness, but in its willingness to mix genres and blur boundaries. Cowboy Bebop is a truly post-modern show. ![]()
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