Cowboy Bebop is a legendary anime series made by the legendary studio Sunrise. Cowboy Bebop is often hailed as a masterpiece by the vast majority of people, and I’m no exception. Yeah, I’d usually save the personal side for the end of the “review” but I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, I believe Cowboy Bebop to be a masterpiece. It’s one of the few times I watch something & I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it. So instead of writing a review in the way I usually would, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m instead going to give my top 5 reasons as to what makes Cowboy Bebop just work. Without further ado, lets go.

Reason number 1 Bebop works, the way in which it does the episodic format.
Episodic formats are incredibly difficult to get right. The episodic format often suffers from lacking character development, & a formulaic, repetitive nature. Cowboy Bebop has neither of these. Cowboy Bebop’s episodes are largely different from each other. Even though they use the structure of the bebop crew going after a bounty, the setting, scenarios, sequences, etc. Are all different from one another. Going back to the line of “lacking character development”. This is something a lot of episodic shows have, which isn’t always a bad thing provided the series in question gives us characters with enough depth & interesting attributes attached to them, but it can be underwhelming to not see somebody grow. Cowboy Bebop hits the perfect sweet spot of giving us characters with interesting attributes, yet still developing them at the same time. These characters subtly grow as the series goes along, & it’s heavily appreciated.

Reason number 2 Bebop works, Art, Animation, & Attention to detail. So I’m cheating a little bit & doing a 3-for-1 here, but they all tie into one another. Cowboy Bebop has phenomenal artwork that looks like it hasn’t aged a day (aside from the CGI). There’s incredible attention to even the tiniest of details that most viewers wouldn’t even notice that’s how much the team cared about this anime. The animation is also incredibly stellar, there’s a few times where they cheap out a little bit, but 99% of the time Bebop is consistently well animated, even the shots with little movement in them have that attention to the tiniest details that I mentioned earlier. The character art is also spectacular, the choice of colors used for the crew of the Bebop allow them to stand-out & look good in just about any setting.

Reason number 3 Bebop works, the cast of characters, main & side. I’m not going to mention every single character in this segment of the review, but I’ll say it right now, Bebop has a phenomenal cast of side characters. Each & every one of them has something to offer, are interesting characters in their own right, have motivations for what they’re doing & why they’re doing it, if I could sum up the side characters of this show in one word, “Memorable” would be my word of choice.

But if the main characters aren’t very interesting, then it means nothing. Thankfully, Bebop has a cast of individual & interesting characters. Much like the side characters, Spike, Jet, Faye, & Ed are all given their own backstories, character traits, & personality. Spike is the laid-back one who would rather sit back on the Bebop until something exciting happens. Jet is somewhat of a father figure amongst the crew, keeping everybody in check. Faye is the feminine badass who’s always on the look-out for any money-making opportunity that may come her way. Ed is the comic-relief of the group who’s a computer hacker & teenage genius. What makes these characters just work are not only the dynamics between all of them that the show creates, but the fact that everybody has something to contribute to the show.

Reason number 4 Bebop works, the audio department. This is perhaps one of the most important parts to what makes Bebop work, not just its soundtrack, but the voice acting on both sides.

I’ll start out with the music, Bebop makes use of Jazz, Blues, & Bluegrass for its OST. The music itself is not just great on its own, but the show is made around the music. Before anything else, the music for Bebop was created, for god sake “Bebop” which is a form of Jazz is in the title of the anime’s name, music was very important to the series. Yoko Kanno is a name I hope all of you are familiar with, because she’s the one you have to thank for creating this incredibly dynamic soundtrack.

Now onto the voice acting, the voice acting on both sides are phenomenal. The thing with Bebop, it has a much more realistic & grounded nature to its overall tone than most other anime do, despite the fact that Bebop takes place in the future & the characters live in space. So the style of voice acting they would want for this series would be something that sounds natural, almost as if the voice actors were the characters themselves, & Bebop absolutely nailed it. The character dialogue sounds incredibly natural, & you can just tell that the actors were getting into their roles. There’s incredible nuance on both sides. Again, as if the characters themselves are in the studio recording their own lines

Reason number 5 Bebop works, the way it portrays the reality of its world & handles tone. I’d have to say, my absolute favorite thing about Cowboy Bebop above all else is how it portrays the realities of its world. The characters don’t always win, sometimes they win big, but a lot of the times they don’t, sometimes they half win, half lose. Above all else though, the characters just move on from it, they never dwell on their misfortunes, & neither does the show itself. Life goes on in the Bebop world, & so do the characters along with it, I can’t state enough how much I love this aspect of Bebop.

Another appreciative part of Bebop is how it balances both darkness, & light-heartedness. There are more comedic scenes, & more dark, serious, & somber scenes where character development & world building is usually going on. What makes this work though, is that Bebop not only knows when to use these, but it knows not to go overboard with them. Cowboy Bebop never becomes so laughably dark that you can’t take it seriously, nor does its comedy become overbearing enough to the point where it becomes annoying. So again, just more examples of how balanced Bebop is as a show.

Final Thoughts/Overall

I probably haven’t said enough great things in this review, but if I said every single little thing about what makes this anime work so well, we’d be here all day, & I don’t want to make you guys read a college essay about why some guy on the internet loves Cowboy Bebop so much. I said it at the beginning of the review, but I’ll say it again. Cowboy Bebop is one of the few times I watch a show, & I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it, I don’t even think I could nit-pick something about this series that’s how quality Bebop is. With everything said, Cowboy Bebop is going to receive a deserving 10/10, it’s not my favorite anime, but I’ll be damned if it’s not the most quality anime I’ve ever seen.