COWBOY BEBOP

is a Japanese anime series created by Sunrise. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto, it consists of 26 episodes (called "sessions") and one feature-length film. It follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071.
''Cowboy Bebop'' was a commercial success both in Japan and worldwide, notably in the United States. After its commercial success, Sony Pictures released the ''Cowboy Bebop'' movie, '' to theaters worldwide and followed up with an international DVD release. Two ''Cowboy Bebop'' manga series were adapted based on the anime, as well as two video games, one each for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles.
''Cowboy Bebop'' has been strongly influenced by American music, especially the jazz movements of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and the early rock era of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many of its action sequences, from space battles to hand-to-hand martial arts combat, are set and timed to music. Episodes are called ''Sessions'' (in reference to musicians playing a "jam session"), and titles are often borrowed from album or song names (such as ''Sympathy for the Devil''), or make use of a genre name (''Mushroom Samba''), indicating the episode's musical theme.

Contents

Plot

Background

Characters

Production

Staff

Reception

Japan

International

Content ratings

Longevity

Soundtrack

Cowboy Bebop The Series

Cowboy Bebop The Movie

Theme songs

Other media

See also

References

External links

Plot

In the year 2071, the crew of the spaceship ''Bebop'' travel the solar system trying to apprehend bounties. In the slang of the era, "Cowboys" are bounty hunters. Most episodes revolve around a specific bounty, but the show often shares its focus with the pasts of one of each of the four main characters and of more general past events, which are revealed and brought together as the series progresses.

Background

In the year 2021, ring-shaped hyperspace gateways were constructed across the solar system, allowing easy interplanetary travel. Unfortunately, the gate network contained a fatal instability that was ignored by the contractors who built the system. The instability grew until a gateway near Earth exploded, releasing a powerful burst of energy that cracked the Moon. In a cataclysmic disaster referred to as "The Gate Incident", meteoric debris from the devastated Moon rained down on the planet, destroying much of Earth's surface. The death toll was catastrophic; around 4.7 billion lives were lost. People on Earth mostly live underground, under a militarized government since debris rains down on the planet daily. Most left Earth after the Gate Incident and spread out across the solar system, living in colonies on Venus, Mars, some habitable asteroids, Saturn's moon Titan, and the Galilean moons of Jupiter, as well as many space stations and a penal colony on Pluto. As shown by posters and ads the solar community is very interracial and English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian and Japanese are some of the languages shown to be currently used. The total population of the solar system in 2071, when the series takes place, is only 1.5 billion.^[4]
Many of Mars' impact craters were domed and transformed into thriving metropolitan areas for those who could afford it. Venus was terraformed, with oxygen provided by a species of oxygen-producing plants floating in the atmosphere. This is not a perfect process, however, since the spores of these plants cause “Venus Sickness” in some people. This condition, left untreated, may lead to blindness or death, and proper treatment is expensive. Many moons of Jupiter, such as Callisto, Io, and Ganymede, have been terraformed and colonized with varying degrees of success. Callisto is a cold, inhospitable moon (with the entirely male city, Blue Crow), while Io is a volcanic ball of sand with a toxic atmosphere. Meanwhile, Ganymede is almost completely covered by water and is known for its declining fishing industry. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is a barren desert world whose population has been at war since the 2060s. The Titan War II in 2068 was survived by veterans such as Vicious, Gren, Vincent, and Electra. There is a Solar System Penitentiary on Pluto, and certain asteroids (such as Tijuana, the asteroid colony seen in the first episode) have been colonized for their minerals and other natural resources.
After the advent of space travel, the bounty system of the Old West was reinstated by the government to help curb growing crime levels. Bounty hunters are encouraged to capture criminals and return them (alive and relatively unharmed) to the authorities for monetary rewards. These bounty hunters are now referred to as "Cowboys" in slang. In addition, ruthless crime syndicates have large influence in the Solar System, indulging in such fields as bribery, murder, extortion, drug dealing, money laundering and other criminal offenses. The Woolong is the universal currency, and paper money is less common since more people carry convenient money cards and rely on digital transfers.
The technology in the world of ''Cowboy Bebop'' has undergone advances to accommodate 21st century life in the Solar System. Medical advancements such as artificial organs, organ regrowth and cryogenic freezing have been mastered and are in full use. Home entertainment hardware called “Alfa Catch” provide a mind-machine interface for capturing or projecting images, games and movies. Virtual reality gaming is standard, and analog hardware such as videocassettes (VHS or beta) can only be found as antiques. Finally, World Wide Web has evolved into a massive Solar System Web (SSW). With these technological advancements also came a new breed of hackers, known as "Net Divers" in slang.

Characters

Main articles: List of Cowboy Bebop characters

The series features distinctively different main characters. The first two introduced in the series are Spike Spiegel and Jet Black. The two pilot the spaceship, the ''Bebop'', and work as bounty hunters. Spike is a former member of the Red Dragon crime syndicate who is haunted by a past love triangle between his former syndicate partner, Vicious, and a mysterious woman named Julia. Jet is a former Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP) officer and the owner of the ''Bebop''. Once called "The Black Dog" by his fellow officers for his relentless nature, he bears a cybernetic arm as constant reminder of what happened when he rushed into trouble without looking first. Like Spike, he is haunted by the memory of a woman: Alisa, his longtime girlfriend who left him without notice.
More characters are introduced and become members of the ''Bebop'' crew. The first was Ein, a Welsh Corgi and former lab animal and referred to as a "data dog" by scientists that created him (the terminology is never explained - though he is seen hacking into a computer system in a late episode). He has enhanced intelligence and comprehension but is usually depicted as a regular dog and is often seen hanging around the ship. Next was Faye Valentine, an amnesiac, awakened from a 54-year cryogenic slumber. She is tricked into assuming the debt of the man that woke her, and constantly attempts to gamble on quick cash as a solution to her problems. Her past is a mystery, even to herself, and is unraveled progressively throughout the series. The last addition was Edward, a young, eccentric computer genius and master hacker. Though she is a girl, there is a popular confusion as to Ed's gender. She gave herself the long and fanciful name "Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV" after being abandoned at an orphanage by her father, but it is revealed later on that her real name is Françoise Appledelhi. She goes by the name Radical Edward when hacking.
One of the main antagonists is Vicious, Spike's former syndicate partner. Though he is not featured in most of the episodes, he is mentioned and shown in flashbacks in several episodes throughout the series. Other antagonists include a variety of bounty-heads that the crew hunt to collect funding.

Production

Staff

★ Director: Shinichirō Watanabe

★ Management: Noriko Kobayashi, Tetsuo Yamazaki

★ Planning: Sunrise

★ Original Concept: Hajime Yatate

★ Series Composition: Keiko Nobumoto

★ Character Design: Toshihiro Kawamoto

★ Mechanical Design: Kimitoshi Yamane

★ Set Design: Isamu Imakake

★ Art Director: Junichi Higashi

★ Color Coordinator: Shihoko Nakayama

★ Director of Photography: Yoichi Ōgami

★ Sound Director: Katsuyoshi Kobayashi

★ Music: Yoko Kanno

★ Music Production: Victor Entertainment

★ Music Producer: Toshiaki Ōta

★ Music Director: Shirō Sasaki, Yukako Inoue

★ Stage Settings: Shōji Kawamori, Masaru Satō

★ Producers: Masahiko Minami, Kazuhiko Ikeguchi

★ Series Organization: Shinichirō Watanabe

★ Production: Sunrise, Bandai Visual

★ Copyright: (c) 1998 Sunrise Inc.

Reception

Japan

''Cowboy Bebop'' almost didn't appear on Japanese broadcast television due to its depictions of violence. It was first sent to TV Tokyo, one of the main broadcasters of anime in Japan. However, at the time, TV Tokyo was avoiding violence and sexuality in anime after the notoriously controversial broadcast of ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' between 1995-1996. The show had an aborted first run from April 3, 1998 until June 19, 1998 on TV Tokyo, broadcasting only episodes 2, 3, 7-15 and 18. There are rumors that the network purposely tried to "sabotage" the series (perhaps due to the climate in the aftermath of Evangelion), but there is evidence to suggest the time slot after April 23 was already booked, leaving little room for the new series. In fact, the episode number XX is said to have been protested by staff for the treatment of the show.
Later that year, the series was shown in its entirety from October 23 until April 23, 1999, on the satellite network WOWOW. With the broadcast slot fiasco, the production schedule was disrupted to the extent that the last episode was delivered to WOWOW on the day of its broadcast. Cowboy Bebop won the Seiun Award in 2000.
The full series has also been broadcast across Japan by the anime television network, Animax, who has also aired the series via its respective networks across Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. ''Cowboy Bebop'' was popular enough that the movie, '' (''Knockin' on Heaven's Door''), was commissioned and released in Japan in 2001, and later released in the United States as ''Cowboy Bebop: The Movie'' in 2003.
In a recent poll by TV Asahi, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was 40th for Japan's Favorite Anime of 2006.^[5]

International

On September 2, 2001, ''Cowboy Bebop'' became the first anime title to be shown as part of the U.S. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block.^[6] It was successful enough to be broadcasted repeatedly. The success of ''Cowboy Bebop'' paved the way for Adult Swim's later mature themed anime, including ''Outlaw Star'', ''Gundam Wing'', ''InuYasha'', ''Trigun'', ''Fullmetal Alchemist'', ''FLCL'', ''Witch Hunter Robin'', ''Samurai Champloo'', ''Wolf's Rain'', and ''Neon Genesis Evangelion.''

★ In the United Kingdom, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was first broadcast in 2003 as one of the highlights of the ill-fated 'cartoon network for adults', CNX.

★ In Australia ''Cowboy Bebop'' was first broadcast in 2002 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and began broadcasting on ABC2, a digital free-to-air network, on January 2, 2007.

★ In France ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast during summer 2000 on Canal+.

★ In Germany ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast during 2003-2004 on MTV.

★ In Poland, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast several times by Hyper and TVP Kultura.

★ In Israel, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast during 2001-2002 on Bip's late-night anime block.

★ In Spain, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast during 1999 in Buzz, during the early 2000s in K3's 3XL.net and the summer of 2006 on Cuatro's late-night show Cuatrosfera.

★ In Canada, ''Cowboy Bebop'' finally made its debut on December 24, 2006 on the young adult-oriented specialty station, Razer

★ In Italy, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast after November 1999 on MTV and again in 2007.

★ In Singapore, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast on Arts Central at the 11pm time slot, and had several scenes cut for violence and other graphic content.

★ In Portugal, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast on SIC Radical in 2001 and again in 2007.

★ In The Netherlands, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast by TMF in 2005

★ In Latin america ''Cowboy Bebop'' was broadcast in 1999 on Locomotion.
In 2005, seven years after its original Japanese broadcast, ''Bebop'' was finally licensed and released in the European market by Beez, an extension of Bandai Entertainment.

Content ratings

''Cowboy Bebop'' contains strong violence, language, and nudity. The given ratings are 'TV-MA' in the USA (for the uncut version; the Adult Swim broadcast is rated 'TV-14' with some edits), 'M' and 'MA15+' in Australia, '14A' and '14+' in Quebec, Canada, '12' and '15' in Britain and '16' in Poland and Germany.

Longevity

A poll in the Japanese magazine ''Newtype USA'' asked its readers to rank the "Top 25 Anime Titles of All Time"; ''Cowboy Bebop'' placed second (behind ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'') on a list that included such anime as ''Mobile Suit Gundam''.^[7] In a recent poll by TV Asahi, ''Cowboy Bebop'' was 40th for Japan's Favorite Anime of 2006.^[5]
In the U.S., Cartoon Network has regularly rotated ''Cowboy Bebop'' in and out of its Adult Swim block line-up several times. The network has also moved ''Cowboy Bebop'' out of its anime lineup periodically in order to show other anime features such as ''Read or Die'' and ''Blue Gender''.

Soundtrack

Main articles: The Seatbelts

One of the most notable elements of ''Cowboy Bebop'' is its music. Performed by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts, a band Kanno assembled to perform music for the series, the jazz and blues themed soundtrack helps to define the show as much as the characters, writing, and even animation. Many fans find the soundtracks enjoyable to listen to as albums on their own, independent of the series. ''Cowboy Bebop'' was voted by IGN in 2006 as having the greatest soundtrack for an anime.^[9]

Cowboy Bebop The Series

★ ''Cowboy Bebop''

★ ''Vitaminless''

★ ''No Disc''

★ ''Blue''

★ '' sets itself in the Cowboy Bebop universe, and purports to be a broadcast from the pirate radio station Radio Free Mars. This album includes remixes of Seatbelts tracks from the previous 4 albums, remixed by popular American and British DJs.

★ Box Set: ''CD box set'' - A compilation of tracks from the first 4 albums, and previously unreleased/live material as well as dialogue tracks.

★ Greatest Hits: ''TANK! THE! BEST!''

Cowboy Bebop The Movie

★ ''Future Blues''

★ ''Ask DNA''

★ ''Cowgirl Ed''

Theme songs

Tim Jensen produced lyrics on songs:

★ "Ask DNA" sung by Raj Ramayya

★ "Gotta knock a little harder" sung by Mai Yamane

★ "Call me, call me" sung by Steve Conte

Other media

★ An official side story to Cowboy Bebop was released on the Original Cowboy Bebop website called ''Cowboy Bebop: UT''. Taking place long before the series started, it features Ural and Victoria Terpsichore (V.T. from episode Heavy metal Queen) when they were bounty hunters. The story is available at the site mirror hosted by Jazzmess.com. ''Cowboy Bebop: UT'' Dai Sato

★ Bandai released a ''Cowboy Bebop'' shoot 'em up video game in Japan for the PlayStation in 1998. A PlayStation 2 ''Cowboy Bebop'' video game was released in Japan, and the English version had been set for release in North America during the first quarter of 2006. However, as of May 2007, there has been no release date set for the American release. ''Cowboy Bebop for the PS2''

★ Two short manga series based on the Cowboy Bebop property were released in the US by Tokyopop.

See also

★ List of Cowboy Bebop voice actors

★ Space Western

References

1. . Accessed 2007-02-04.
2.
3. . Accessed 2007-02-04.
4. Essay: See You Space Cowboy
5. ''http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-10-13/japan's-favorite-tv-anime''
6. http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/cowboy-bebop/200706
7. ''Newtype Press Release'' - ''Anime News Network''
8. ''http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-10-13/japan's-favorite-tv-anime''
9. IGN: Top Ten Anime Themes and Soundtracks of All-Time, IGN.

External links

★ Mirror of ''Cowboy Bebop'' official site

★ Adult Swim - ''Cowboy Bebop''

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★ Cowboy Bebop on AnimeNFO