Cowboy Bebop Highly recommended

Publisher
BEEZ
Director
Shinichiro Watanabe
Production
Bandai, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
1998

Cowboy Bebop Volume 4

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
19th May 05

Cowboy Bebop is an action packed, funny, and emotional and with an excellent soundtrack and the fourth DVD volume is certainly no letdown.

Containing another four episodes staring the crew of the spaceship Bebop, the fourth volume contains the best mix of seriousness and comedy so far. The first episode sees Faye telling Ein about her “first love”, or at least the first she can remember. Telling how she was awoken from a cryogenic state and told she would have to pay hospital fees even though she had amnesia (by a Doctor who seems strangely like the Simpson’s’ Doctor Hibert). She falls in love with the lawyer who takes on her case, however Faye’s past also catches up with her in the same episode. In the second episode on this disc it Jet’s turn for his past to re-appear. A prison ship containing several prisoners headed for death row is overtaken by the prisoners. Led by a man who was placed behind bars by Jet (and in the process caused Jet to lose his arm). Jet teams up with his old partner to take down this deadly criminal once and for all. Mushroom Samba, the third episode on volume four, is hilarious. Run out of food (and emergency rations) and little money, the crew is forced to land to make repairs to the ship, and so send Ed out with Ein in order to find some cheap food. Ed encounters a man who deals in narcotic mushrooms, picking up the mushrooms dropped by the man Ed tests them out on the others to see if their safe. Causing some very strange effects. Ed then sets out to collect the bounty on the mushroom man; however she is not the only one. The last episode on this disc is certainly the weakest of the four; a package arrives for Faye who, believing it to be from a debt collector vanishes. Spike and Jet in her absence open it finding an old BETA video cassette. Taking the video to a 20th century expert, they see what appears to be a young Faye, before the player breaks. Spike and Jet then journey to the devastated Earth in order to find another player.

Once again the music that accompanies each episode is amazing, ranging from Jazz, Classical, Rock and Techno to name but a few. The artwork does show its age a little but is still perfectly viewable as the amazing animation holds everything together. There are some brilliantly done space dogfights, and the animation on Mushroom Samba at its most hectic is some of the key examples of this.

Once again Cowboy Bebop stands out from the crowd as a great anime with both action, story and compassion, an essential purchase.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English dub, Japanese with English subtitles, Beez Trailers.

Release information: Publisher: Beez Release date: May 23, 2005

Notes: Once again nothing really of note in extras on this volume, the majority of traillers are the same one used on previous volumes.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 19th May 05

Cowboy Bebop Images