Yokokanno Watanabe a Space Cowboy?
January 23, 2019 9:20 PM   Subscribe

A Fistful of Woolongs - A Cowboy Bebop Retrospective (SLYT) Why watch Cowboy Bebop and other Shinichirō Watanabe anime and listen to Yoko Kanno's musical score you ask?
posted by zengargoyle (9 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm one of the rarities that actually dug Samurai Champloo a bit more, but Bebop was exactly the bolt from the blue that he described when I discovered it in Canada in waning days of the 1990s. I feel like it was more a part of a wave of innovation and renewal in animation than completely sui generis -- Perfect Blue preceded it slightly, FLCL was right on its heels -- but it was definitely mind-blowing the first time I saw it. I still have a bunch of cruddy burned CD-Rs I bought off some guy on eBay back when eBay was a place where you could buy cruddy burned CD-Rs off a guy.

A nice little love letter -- thank you for sharing it!
posted by Shepherd at 3:48 AM on January 24, 2019 [7 favorites]


Cowboy Beebop will always have a warm place in my heart. I owned the soundtrack for awhile. And most importantly it introduced me to Erik Satie and the Gymnopédies.
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:39 AM on January 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


This is lovely. Thank you for sharing it.
posted by Fizz at 5:07 AM on January 24, 2019


You’re gonna carry that weight.
posted by gc at 7:34 AM on January 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


Bebop went on sale for the Playstation Network a year ago and I picked it up. I couldn't resist having a cloud version for $20, especially after having bootlegs through the aughts. Thanks for this!
posted by Busithoth at 8:47 AM on January 24, 2019


I'm one of the rarities that actually dug Samurai Champloo a bit more, but Bebop was exactly the bolt from the blue that he described when I discovered it in Canada in waning days of the 1990s.

I really liked Champloo while watching it, but it hasn't really stuck with me the way Bebop did, for whatever reason. It's a great show, though, and anybody who liked Bebop should at least give it a try.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:05 AM on January 24, 2019 [5 favorites]


Samurai Champloo had some really excellent episodes, some that I'd place as better or at least equal to all but the final episode of BeBop, but it didn't seem to quite build to a greater whole as well as BeBop did, but I might need to revisit that thought since it could be that I'm holding what I wanted to happen against what did happen in a way that I shouldn't. I have the nagging feeling the ending played a variation I didn't properly appreciate at the time.

I also need to watch Space Dandy some time since it gets good reviews from people I know who haven't even watched BeBop or Champloo. Kids on the Slope was almost great. It started strong, built its story and the tension well, but it lost its footing a bit right at the end, failing to give better balanced accounting of all the characters. I don't want to spoil it by going into detail for those who haven't seen it, because its still good enough that you should if any of the series worked for you.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:06 AM on January 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


Space Dandy does remind me of Cowboy Bebop, and is quite good, if you can get past the minor ironic misogyny in the first half of season 1. It's got a few of "all the feels" episodes, but the ending wasn't as satisfying because it ends with a "May be continued?" after two seasons. Cowboy Bebop was one of the first of the prestige-style shows I ever saw, with an underlying storyline (and a twist!) which bound all the episodes together.

I still have Blue somewhere in my cd list, and watched Yoko Kanno piano concert on next-room simulcast, which was excellent.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 1:07 PM on January 24, 2019




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