Hoo boy, I guess it's time to talk about Cowboy Bebop.

I'm actually surprised at how late I was in watching this anime, considering how this is considered as "the anime that even anime haters love". But well, I finally watched this show.

__And what an experience it was.
__

So, the first time I watched this show, I was just getting back into anime after a gap of 2 years. Bebop was among one of the more popular options for anime that newcomers could watch (and for good reason, but I'll get to that later). So I checked it out, gave it 3 episodes, and I didn't think it was all that great. So I put it on hold indefinitely, until a few days earlier. Recently, I saw a post about Netflix adapting Cowboy Bebop as a live action TV show, so I thought to myself, "Why not check out the anime before the live action comes out?". Then I came back to the show, and made a small change in the way I was watching it, and personally, I felt that the change made me view the anime completely differently, and enjoy it a whole lot more.

For me, the mistake I made was watching this show in the original Japanese version with subtitles.

Now, for almost every single anime I watch, I watch them in sub since I feel like that's the way it was pretty much intended to be watched. I thought that out of the anime I watched, I only preferred one dubbed show to it's subbed alternative, and that was Naruto Part 1. However, after asking around, I decided it would be best to watch Bebop in dubbed, and I had an absolute blast while watching it.

I apologise if this tangent was boring, and I'm going to get into the review now.

As usual, I'll be talking about Plot, Characters, and the Art & Animation, and then rate the series overall at the end of the review. (10 is S tier, 9 is A tier, 8 and 7 is B tier, 6 5 4 are C tier, 3 2 1 are D tier). Sorry if I'm not the most eloquent in this review, again, I'm just doing this for fun so don't expect it to be this incredible analysis.

Also, remember 10/10 does not mean perfect, it just means "S tier"

PLOT:

Cowboy Bebop is about a group of bounty hunters uhhhh.... well..... hunting people with bounties on their heads, basically. It feels like a western story and I think that it handles the plot wonderfully. Even with it having the action scenes and the overarching plot, I would very much argue that Bebop is a slice-of-life anime. The show is mostly episodic, with an overarching plot related to the main character Spike Spiegel.

This show is considered as the anime that even anime haters love, and I understand why. Like I stated before, it really feels like an American TV show, but with a unique "anime" touch (I really don't know how to explain this to be honest) and so I think that most people who watch shows like that would at least derive some form of enjoyment from Bebop.

One thing I find very interesting, from what I've read, about Shinichiro Watanabe's works, is how they are all inspired by different music genres. Cowboy Bebop is inspired by jazz, and I think this fact is enhanced by the incredible soundtrack that this anime boasts.

Personally, I really enjoyed the overarching narrative, and I surprisingly liked the slice of life episodes more due to how well done they were and also because the characters really shined in those episodes.

CHARACTERS:

Cowboy Bebop is a show which is VERY character driven, so I'd say don't expect to love the show if you don't like, at the very least, one character. Thankfully, I don't think anyone needs to worry about that, as I think that the main cast is really great. The characters are fun to watch, you get attached to them, and it's also really great to see their progression.

I feel like the show has a theme of "letting go of the past", and I think that it executes upon that theme beautifully with it's main cast, especially Spike, Jet and Faye.

Spike Spiegel is honestly, just an incredibly cool character and one of my favorites in anime and manga in general. He is an amazing protagonist and always makes whichever moment he's on screen enjoyable. Jet and Faye Valentine are also really great characters and their dynamics with each other and with Spike is really well done in my opinion. Ein is a great companion creature to throw in there, and Edward, although I hated her at first, is now a character I'd consider decent.

I do, however, have a complaint. I don't think the characters other than the main cast are necessarily remarkable. I felt like Vicious was a very one-dimensional antagonist, and I didn't get attached to Julia either. However, in my opinion, this does not take away from the incredibly strong main cast.

Overall, I think that the cast is, by far, the strongest aspect of Bebop.

ART & ANIMATION:

Cowboy Bebop is an anime from 1998, and it holds up INCREDIBLY WELL artistically. The artstyle of this anime is incredible, and it can be taken as a perfect representation of the "90's anime" aesthetic. The animation is also really well done, with incredibly fluid motion in almost every scene, and well choreographed fight scenes. Bebop has a world which I would describe as "retro futuristic", and by that i mean that although it takes place in the future, it looks very retro.

I also have to mention that the OST of this anime is FANTASTIC. Yoko Kanno has done an incredible job at creating a medley of jazz that you can enjoy even when you are not watching the anime, and it enhances the anime as it is well-known that Cowboy Bebop is inspired by jazz.

Overall, I think that the artstyle, animation and OST of Cowboy Bebop hold up incredibly well and are surprisingly better than that of most anime today.

Now, before getting into my final thoughts, I'd just like to tell you guys what I think is the ideal way of consuming the series. Obviously, everyone can have different opinions on what is the best way to consume it, but this is just what I think it, so just take it with a pinch of salt.

I think that Cowboy Bebop is best experienced in the English dub. In my opinion, the subbed version doesn't bring out the characters as well as the dub does. The show feels very Western and the dub helps a lot in enhancing that feeling. The voice actors do an incredible job as the characters, especially Steve Blum as Spike Spiegel, and most of the iconic phrases in the show are also taken straight from the English dub.

IN CONCLUSION:

Cowboy Bebop is one of the most influential series of all time, and it is very obvious why. The show has an absolutely phenomenal main cast, an incredibly atmospheric world enhanced by the aesthetic, an interesting overarching plot, and very well done animation even by today's standards. I have very few complaints regarding this anime.

Overall score: 9/10 (A tier)

Although I personally don't see the series as a masterpiece, I would very much understand why people percieve it as one, and I don't think I have anything else to say about this anime.

And until the next review, see you space cowboys....~~~~~~