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 Box Sets 1 and 2

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
21st Nov 05

Cowboy Bebop first hit the UK on DVD earlier this year, a six volume series and generally regarded as a masterpiece. Strong emotional and comedic episodes and classic characters both accompanied by a spectacular soundtrack courtesy of Yoko Kanno, each volume was a slice of anime heaven and is now available in two box sets for around forty pounds each.

Set in the far future when humankind has moved away from Earth into other parts of the Solar System it becomes increasingly difficult to enforce law and order. Here we meet Spike and Jet two independent bounty hunters who attempt to capture the scum and slime of the universe and hand them over to the authorities for large sums of cash. Early on in the series Spike and Jet are also joined my the “data dog” Ein, the deadly and sexy Faye Valentine (and a bit later in the series) the insane hacker known as Ed. This motley crew find themselves after mundane criminals, large criminal organisations and tripping out on hallucinogenic mushrooms…seriously.

While most of the episodes are pretty much stand alone, some episodes delve deep into our main characters pasts, and it is not always welcome. This is especially true of Spike whose links to the “syndicate” and love for the missing Julia drive the overall plot of the series.

While the animation is starting to show its age a bit in places the style still fits together perfectly well. Use of CGI is rare and when it is used, it still fits with the theme of the episode and doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb as it would in other series. The soundtrack by Yoko Kanno is still amazing, and thanks to Bebop’s huge scope, the soundtrack is equally impressive, from classical, heavy metal, jazz and lots more this is arguably some of Yoko Kanno’s best work.

The box set themselves aren’t so good. The artwork on the box sets is ok but they could have been a lot more impressive, with one still image taken from an episode on the front the title on the side and another picture (Faye in set one and Spike and the Swordfish on box two) and some blurb, it does pale in comparison to some of the region one box sets. Also, when you release a series in a set (or rather two in this case) it’s a great opportunity to add more extras, interviews; making of documentaries would have been a welcome addition. However the DVDs themselves are just the standard issue DVDs that have already been released separately. This means that there’s no point in buying the box sets if you already have the series (unless you just want the boxes themselves), either Beez are trying to be extremely honest or the idea of sticking a few extras on so that people would re-buy the series didn’t occur to them.

If you do not already own this series, then the box sets are certainly the way to go as it works out somewhat cheaper than buying the series individually. If you already own the series or have got the first four volumes then there is no point in buying the boxes themselves, as the DVDs are identical.

Still Cowboy Bebop is a great series that should not be missed, if you’ve been looking for an reason to buy it, the box sets are certainly a good one.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English/Japanese Audio Track, English Subtitles, BEEZ Trailers.

Release information: Publisher: BEEZ Released: Box 1: November 14th 2005 Box 2: November 21st 2005 Classification: 12 Running Time: Box 1:225mins Box 2: 225mins

Notes: As mentioned there's nothing in the way of extras on the box set discs other than a few trailers.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 21st Nov 05

Cowboy Bebop Images