Cowboy Bebop

Introduction:
Let me start by saying that there’s a lot to like about Cowboy Bebop. The animation and designs are sublime, the soundtrack is fantastic, the action is great, and when all three come together the show can occasionally become a jaw-dropping audiovisual masterpiece, especially in the 5th episode. However, I feel like I am the only person in the world who doesn't LOVE this series. To me, it was a slow-paced, episodic mess that felt like a chore to watch sometimes. It isn’t trash, but it definitely isn’t the masterpiece people claim it is either.
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Plot:
The episodes that contributed to the main plot of the series were few and far between. It felt like I was watching fillers most of the time which would have been fine if the fillers were actually interesting, but unfortunately, most of them aren’t. However, there were a few episodes that really drew me in, only to be shattered by disappointment when the next episode focused on something entirely unrelated. It felt like a slap in the face after being mesmerized by something cool.

The character backstories were so lackluster. If they had used all those filler episodes to fill in some of the blanks about the pasts of each of the main characters, it might have become a great series. Instead, we got a bits and pieces of information here and there and that was pretty much it. I wanted to know more about Jet during his police force days, or about the things Faye remembered when she regained her memories, or how Ed managed to survive by herself for so long before meeting the Bebop crew. Instead, we got tons of throwaway episodes about Spike getting his ship repaired, Ed playing chess, and the crew getting high off of space mushrooms, which held no relevance to the main story-line whatsoever.

The biggest example of filler would have to be the Toys in the Attic episode. Some blob monster goes around making the entire crew sick and it is up to Spike to stop it. Most of the crew spent the entire episode unconscious and Spike spent most of it shooting at the creature, so you can’t even excuse it as simple character development. It was nothing but an utter waste of my time.

It's because of this that the quality of the episodes vary dramatically. For an episodic show that only has about five episodes that build an overall story, that's saying a lot. You have some of the best and worst episodes of the series coming out back to back, and that really threw me off.
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Characters:
Like I said before, character depth definitely isn’t one of this show’s strengths, due to the lack of time the writers spent trying to actually develop them and flesh out their backstories. They were boring, so I never ended up feeling any sort of attachment to any member of the cast.

Spike and Jet are the only remotely decent characters, but that really isn’t saying much in all honesty. They’re both badass bounty hunters with seemingly tragic backstories, but the show didn’t spend nearly enough time revisiting their past lives. Instead, the show focused more on their jobs in present day and that’s a huge shame in my opinion.

Faye exhibits many of the worst characteristics that can be written about a female character. She's bossy, greedy, obsessed with her looks, and is only a hindrance to the group for most of the show. She constantly needs to be rescued or tracked down, and now that I think about it, I don’t think she ever did anything useful in the entirety of the show. She mostly served as a fan-service character for the audience to drool over and nothing more.

Edward did nothing but annoy me for the entire show. She was an utterly pointless character that hardly receives any development beyond her introductory episode. She merely existed to provide some more wholesome humor to Cowboy Bebop, but it had the exact opposite effect on me. Not to mention, I still don’t know why anybody would name their daughter Edward in the first place.

The main villain Vicious is especially bad. He has zero personality aside from his desire for more power, and even though the show goes a bit into his backstory, it never establishes his motivation and reasoning for his behavior in present day. At the end of the show, Vicious is little more than an evil guy in a black coat with enough fighting skill to make Spike struggle to land a bullet in him, aside from the obvious fact that Vicious becomes a representation of the syndicate Spike ran away from. As a result, the five episodes that involve him never left me feeling all that amazed, as the show intends them to be.
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Conclusion:
All in all, the show is still pretty good. Although the writing is clearly lacking most of the time, the animation, music, and voice acting are phenomenal for the entire series. It’s not the best anime has to offer by any means, but I could definitely see this being a solid gateway show for people new to the medium.