Cowboy Bebop: A Fleeting Dream that Holds On

Cowboy Bebop is hailed as one of the greatest not only anime, but television shows in history. Being two decades old with only a twenty-six episodes run; it is shocking that this show has had the lasting impact it does. There are plenty of cult-classic shows that were cut too short that have a loyal fanbase and are held in the regard of entertainment gatekeepers. Classics like Firefly, Birds of Prey, Spectacular Spider-Man, or more recently Swamp Thing. Cowboy Bebop, however, was not just a good show that had a short yet impactful run, but rather redefined the perception of anime in America and what animation could be.

Fair warning, to properly discuss this show there will be spoilers. If you have not watched this show, stop reading and watch it, then come back.

The aspect most people take note of when first turning on Cowboy Bebop is the style. It is a cross between jazz noir and spaghetti western with comedic elements throughout. Some episodes like: ‘Asteroid Blues’, ‘Ganymede Elegy’, part one and two of ‘Jupiter Jazz’, and the two-part finale ‘The Real Folk Blues’ are very serious and dark. The best way to describe them are a sad balled. They pull you in and often do not have a happy ending, often leaving our characters just as broken as they were before, only merely forcing them to confront the trauma they have been running away from. On the other hand, many episodes are fun and lively like ‘Mushroom Samba’, ‘Cowboy Funk’, or ‘Heavy Metal Queen’. It is a nice break from the deep and dark episodes, after all, television is as much entertainment as it is art. However, even these episodes still do not have a happy ending, often leaving our characters still down on their luck.

This style goes hand in hand with the themes of Cowboy Bebop. The overall message of the show is that you cannot run from your past, nor do people want to change. Both will be the death of you. Every character in Cowboy Bebop is broken in some way. Spike is haunted and hunted by his past and cannot move on from the woman he loves. Jet wants to stop criminals and help others, but has been burned by the system before, resulting in him losing his arm. Faye has no memory of her past and is stuck with massive debt after the only person who was nice to her conned her. So now she does the same, conning and gambling to make it by. Ed and Ein are the only exceptions, they themselves having experienced pain and abandonment, however through their innocence they can move past it. Ed is quite odd and partially crazy, but maybe that’s what it takes to make it in this world. As the Mad Hatter once said about crazy individuals, “The best people are”.

The animation is much more realistic and proportional than other popular anime like Dragon Ball, Pokémon, or Sailor Moon. While there is a definite style, especially Spike’s hair, no character has extreme proportions where we could not believe they are a real person. I think that helps with the audience connecting with the characters, as it can be harder to connect with a ninja with multiple tails and cat eyes. The animation was consistent throughout the run, though some episodes had that much better quality. All of it was good, but I feel several episodes were especially well done. I can see special time being dedicated to these. The episodes that come to mind are the pilot, the two-part finale, and the two-part ‘Jupiter Jazz’. And it may be less so that the animation was that much better, but rather the setting and atmosphere enhanced the existing animation. All three had very drab and dark scenes, almost if the screen is being shown through a filter, that Cowboy Bebop thrives on. The action was always top notch. The fight sequences were fluid and creative and flowed well. The dogfights, which were more common than you may expect, were just as well done. Especially Spike’s flying and fighting mimicked his personality. Cool and collected but risky and seeming as though it just scrapes by.

For as strong as the animation and action are, what makes this show, or any show really, are the characters. Let’s start with the least important characters first.

Ein the corgi is the crew’s dog. And obviously as a dog he cannot do a whole lot. He is a super intelligent corgi, but that only translates to intelligent chimpanzee level of capability. He often has purpose in a few cases as an Ex-Machina to realize there is a problem the crew overlooks because they are bickering or generally inattentive. He has no character arc himself to speak of, rather he adds to other member’s arcs. Mostly he is the companion of Ed, with whom he shares the closest bond. Both found their way onto the Bebop because of bounties the crew were hunting but ended up being fruitless. They are also similar souls; both being abandoned and orphaned while being smarter and more capable than they appear.

Ed, the eccentric hacker, is an orphan girl from the now disheveled Earth. She acts as both the comic relief but also as a foil for the crew, Faye in particular. She is hopelessly optimistic and almost untouched by the hardships the rest of the cast endures. She is in many ways the opposite of Faye. While they are both orphans, Ed does not let her past define her, but rather constantly pushes forward. The episode Hard Luck Women showcases this, having Faye and Ed both discover their pasts. They both find home, but they cannot really go back or there is no place for them, Faye has a crisis. All her memories and identity were devoted to finding her place of belonging and now she has nothing except for what she already had, the Bebop. On the inverse, Ed sets off with Ein. Possibly to meet up with her father, possibly to go back to the orphanage. We don’t know, and that is part of the beauty. Where Faye blows in and out one place to the other because she is in trouble, Ed is just more of a free spirit by nature. Ed represents the freedom on innocence of childhood, contrary to the other characters who have lost their innocence.

Now let’s discuss the woman herself, Faye Valentine. Faye on the outside is the classic femme fatale, strikingly beautiful and cold as an iceberg. She dresses in a crop top and tight pants and uses her looks to her advantage. But there is much more to her. The rude and condescending demeanor she has and tendency to leave are walls she puts up to protect herself. The last person she let herself get close to scammed her to get rid of his debt, leaving her alone and on the run. More importantly though, it left her callous. She doesn’t want happy or a family because it is just someone to lose or betray her again. Where Spike is trapped by his past, Faye is constantly on the run from hers. At the end of Hard Luck Women, Faye lays in the rubble of her old home, specifically what used to be her room. She draws a box in the dirt, which is supposed to represent her bed. But it also shows that Faye is trapped in the box of her trauma, and she in part keeps herself there. Her accident and loss of her family, the conman lying to her, being stuck with the debt from being cryogenically preserved; none of that is her fault. However, her habit of trying to luck, con, and gamble her way to paying off her debt is. More so, her tendencies to push away the people who could help her hinder her emotional growth and keep her trapped in a cycle of loneliness.

On paper, Jet Black is the complete opposite of Spike Spiegel. Jet a former cop, Spike a former hitman. Where Spike is light on his feet when fighting, Jet is a wall of muscle. Jet likes to plan and do things by the book. Spike takes risks and jumps in headfirst. Jet likes the easy jobs and has no shame getting smaller basic criminals that pay the bills. Spike is only in it for the big, interesting fish as he thrives on the adventure. They constantly bicker and butt heads. He is the perfect foil to Spike. Yet, despite all that, they are best friends, even if they don’t say or necessarily show it. This is because they are both so similar, having similar injuries, skeletons in the closet, and challenges they face. Both lost a body part after they were betrayed which resulted in them having to scrape by as bounty hunters. Both have a woman they left behind. Both want to be good people but are burdened by their past. For all their similarities though, the main difference is that Jet can walk away. Jet is burdened by his past, but he wants to heal and move on. When he met with his old girlfriend, he let her go. He didn’t beg her to stay but rather accepted that pert of his life is over. He keeps the bonsai trees, a simple hobby, but I think it shows he wants some normalcy and a sense of taking care of something. We see this as the show progresses, he comes to care for Ein, even though, in his own words, hates dogs. He is still stubborn and the self-proclaimed Black Dog but, in his heart, he wants and tries to move on, unlike Spike.

That brings us to the man himself, Spike Spiegel. One could spend hours trying to describe the complexities of Spike’s personality and actions, which is ironic as he doesn’t say much and is more a man of action. By his own explanation, Spike is a man with one foot in the past. He is held captive by his love who left him behind, Julia. He is a man who does not want to move forward, not knowing if he is truly alive. Spike constantly dances with death, taking unnecessary risk when doing jobs. He is cool under pressure. The line from The Outlaw Josey Wales comes to mind: “I got nothing better to do”, in reference to dying in an unwinnable gunfight. Spike is very much portrayed as the cool, silent type but the writers knew how to also pull more out of him. He is not always right; he gets frustrated and acts eccentric. The episode ‘Cowboy Funk’ show Spike at his most hilarious after getting sucked into a rivalry with a dimwitted bounty hunter who takes the space cowboy title a little too seriously, horse included. This goofy episode humanizes Spike and makes him relatable, not some John Wick character that while cool, is hard to see yourself having a meal with, whereas you could see yourself interacting with Spike and the rest of the crew. They seem like people, not forces of nature for the sake of the plot.

Cowboy Bebop is as much an exploration of broken people as it is an exploration of melancholy. The crew is often seen just laying around, down on their luck and piddling through job listings for bounties. They often eat janky food, consisting of beef and bell peppers with little to no beef, or just dozens of boiled eggs. The crew, especially Spike, often complains about being bored. Our protagonists are shown in this light to show that they are not heroes. These are not the guardians of the galaxy or the lofty idols but just humble bounty hunters on the fringe of society.

One constant in Cowboy Bebop is foreshadowing. While no two episodes are direct follow-ups to the last chronologically, save the two-part sessions, there is an overall build to the final confrontation between Spike and Vicious. From the fifth episode, we know that Spike is the only one who can kill Vicious and he the only one who can kill Spike.

Let’s look at the pilot episode. Spike and Jet are hunting a drug trafficker who is on the run with his girlfriend. He death mirrors Spike’s arc in a lot of ways. They both are stuck in these toxic elements because of their emotional connection. Katrina with her boyfriend Asimov and Spike with his lost love Julia. Both had every opportunity to walk away. Both directly or indirectly got their lover killed. Both had someone wanting them to stay and not do the foolish thing. And both died alone. There is also the fact that the shaman that Spike visits to help him find Asimov lets sand run through his fingers, similar to an hourglass. He tells Spike where he can find Asimov, but that a woman will appear and there will be death. Spike replies that he has already died at the hands of a woman. And while there is death at the end of the episode for Asimov and Katrine, this prediction comes true for Spike at the end of the series.

With that, let’s explore the finale. Spike finds out Julia is alive and that the Red Dragon Syndicate is now after them. Instead of just going on the run, Spike tries to stay and fight, resulting in Julia being killed. Spike decides to confront Vicious, knowing that he will not come back. There are many good conversations between Spike and other cast members, but the most impactful is probably his conversation between himself and Jet. The two longest running characters, the dynamic duo if you will. Spike tells Jet a story, clearly about himself, about a cat that lived a million lives but finally died after his love died. They share a laugh and go their separate ways. Faye then begs Spike to stay and not get himself killed, but he tells her that he is not going to die, but rather see if he truly alive, implying that he has been dead a long time, at least spiritually. Spike goes to the Syndicate tower and rampages toward the top to the final confrontation with Vicious, though he is badly wounded. The fight, which is very brief for a final confrontation, results in Spike shooting Vicious through the heart at the same moment Vicious slices Spike through the mid-section. Spike then shuffles down the steps, holding his organs inside of himself, and faces the dozen killer Syndicate members. He raises his finger at them like it is a gun and says “Bang”, then collapses and dies. The show then crawls to the final credits ending with a blue star, which the shaman spoke about, going out and the words ‘You’re Gonna Carry that Weight’ at the bottom right where ‘See You Space Cowboy’ usually appears. This confirms that this is the end and we as the viewer must accept and carry that. While sad, it is also poetic. Most television shows go for seasons on end and usually leave its main cast with a happy ending. Cowboy Bebop leaves pretty much no one with a happy ending and a definitive end.

With the show and its characters well discussed, the other major area to discuss is the impact that Cowboy Bebop has had on animation, storytelling, and perception of anime in Western cultures.

Anime and other Eastern animation had been in America before Cowboy Bebop, but it was much more niche and to some degree ostracized. When Cowboy Bebop was first streamed, it was on Adult Swim and it instantly became a hit. Fans and workers at Adult Swim maintain it is the best thing they ever broadcasted. Now, anime is streamed in major networks and companies have created their own original content. From Naruto to Bleach to Attack on Titan, these properties can be found on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and the new titans of the entertainment industry, streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. And it is not just hosting other properties but creating their own. Netflix has several true anime original series including Violet Evergarden, based off the popular light novel, and Castlevania. Anime inspired shows are even more popular. The best examples of this are Avatar: The Last Airbender and the follow up Legend of Korra. While there are still some holdouts, there is little shame in liking anime, and it is being recognized as a respectable medium.

Cowboy Bebop deserves all the accolades it receives, as it is a smartly written and crafted show with stunning visuals. The story is timeless as it deals with the human experience with lovable characters who are eccentric enough to be interesting but not so out there that you cannot identify with them. This show has persevered for two decades and will continue as one of the great examples of lending genre and style with a clear vision to tell a compelling story.