Average Rating: 
Rating: - Cowboy Bebop
Argueably the BEST anime series ever to grace human eyes, Cowboy Bebop has it all. I was reluctant to watch it at first as the intro looked like it was an old 80's anime...I was so wrong. Cowboy bebop is just an extremely well balanced series of 26 episodes (a standard length for anime series). The animation is just so fluid and realistic and the characters are just so well characterized that you can't help but not consider them real people somewhere out there in the world, hiding from us. Their movements are nothing short than accurate and you can tell that the artists have studied the human movements. The animation is true artwork...a masterpiece that moves before us. The smallest things are detailed and as an artist, I appreticate all these small details nonartists don't bother to look at. The attention to detail is remarkably placed through out the series as well as the movie, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", which in the begining has incredable detial on the store window with adertisments. No other anime I have seen compares quite to Cowboy Bebop. You DragonBall Z lovers know nothing of true anime, DBZ is barely classified as anime in fact. DBZ artwork vs Cowboy Bebop artwork is laughable at best as if comparing Michelangelo's work to the pop art of today. The shadows are great in Cowboy Bebop, especially in episode 20, Pierrot Le Foul. The music is a soundtrack of beautiful melodies, mostly jazz, bebop, or blues. Much of the best music is seen in episode 5, Ballad of Fallen Angles. But music is through out the series and is very nice. The mood and tone is sharpened by the great music scores by Yoko Kanno and Mia Yamane. Sound effects are also great in the series and nothing small goes unnoticed without realistic sound effects. The translation of Japanese to English is the best translation I have ever seen, and trust me, dubbing and translations can get bad. The story is....the story is really good. Talk about every kid's wish for a great story. It would make those DBZ fans weep. The villian or antagonist is more bad azz than all the villians in DBZ combined (not to gang up on DBZ but DBZ is widely popular and known). Who needs Frieza the feminent loser or Buu the pink blob when you have Vicious, Cowboy Bebop's main villian. Spike is the main character who has unmatched skill in fighting, yet Vicious always appears to be almost equal. Spike is a gun slinging type guy while Vicious is ol' skool and uses a samurai sword. It's a very nice mix of old and new, past and future. The fights with the sword and gun are truely original and eye boogling the way they use their weapons. This is especially seen in episode 5, Ballad of Fallen Angles and episode 26, The Real Folks Blues Part Two. The scene where Spike falls to the floor and has his gun pressed onto Vicious's body while Vicious has his sword arked on Spike's body...in a standstill. I can't say anymore of what happens except that it ends with a big bang and some very emotional scenes with a superb tone. The other characters in this series include Faye: The sexy tomboy who uses guns and brut force to catch her bounties...she's like a downgraded Spike with less skill. Next is jet, the owner of the ship they fly in and also the one who has a lot of knowledge of what they do. Ed is a super intelligent girl often mistaken for a boy and she is a hacker. Ein is the dog who was a test subject which made him intelligent. That's the whole crew. If you were to only watch a couple of episodes to test it I would definately reccomend episode 5, Ballad of Fallen Angles (for the coolness of it all), episode 20, Pierrot Le Fou (for great aninimation and fighting), and episode 11, Toys in the Attic (For great humor). The strangest thing is that lots of the episodes have terrific replay value, I can watch an episode more than twnety times and still love every little detail, and I'm no anime freak, just the average guy who like good things too watch. Amazing considering watching something so many times will cause a decline if attention. Other anime I recommend:
Inuyasha
Samurai X
Rating: - Quite Simply Put, The Greatest Anime In Existance
I've watched a fair amount of Anime, some of my favorites include IRIA, Trigun, and Ghost In The Shell. Put compared to Cowboy Bebop all three of those fall short by a long shot. First the characters: We have our classic anti-hero Spike, with his cool persona and mysterious past he's not exactly an original take on your main character, but somehow seems fresh. Faye is your average attractive chick thrown in, but she too seems fresh. Jet is the the more sane individual who proves vital to the team, and from there it gets rather odd with a 9 year old hacker genius in Ed and a super smart dog named Ein. The story is only really present in about 6 or so episodes, the rest of the series is totally off track, usually just explaining the characters pasts better. The voice acting is exceptional compared to most dubs. The story line is supurb, and the action in the series is great too. The music in this series is also great, bluesy and jazzy, it sets a great mood.
Rating: - Simply the best
I first saw Cowboy Bebop on the Cartoon Channel. I was instantly hooked from the first episode I saw, "Sympathy for the Devil" (#6). This show is the best implementation of combined CGI with hand-drawn anime out of the excellent examples out there--this is a true work of art. It is also excellent science fiction, describing a dark yet hopeful near future as the Earth's suface is rendered nearly uninhabitable. The music is the most eclectic mix I've heard in any anime series. One doesn't have to watch the episodes in order, except the first four (which introduce us to Spike and Jet, then Ein, then Faye, then Ed, rounding out the cast) and the last few (in which a grander design slowly becomes evident).This show was popular in Japan, and is destined to become so in the U.S. I've got the DVDs....the extra features are OK. The best aspect of the DVDs is that I can watch the show the way it was meant to be...in Japanese, with literal English subtitles rather than the cleaned-up English dubbing.
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