Cowboy Bebop

[Hagi]

Thought it was decent but really wouldn't go as far as calling it great.

Maybe I'm just missing something, probably even, but I just couldn't really find a central thing it was about. It just seemed to be several random disconnected storylines with characters that happen to look and be named the same. Not bad storylines mind you, but once one finished I always had the sense that it might as well have never happened in the first place or one of the characters just suddenly changed, basically replaced with a different characters that looks and sounds the same.

 

[Mikejames]

Honestly, it depended on the episode for me.

I loved the more plot orientated episodes like Hard Luck Woman, and the finale. And Ballad of Fallen Angels was amazing.
But a lot of the standalone stories were fairly passable in my opinion.

That wasn't really ambiguous though... at all.

The very moment Ed left the Bebop you knew something very serious was gonna happen, like someone dying. And then what's-her-name the blond woman dies who is the love of Spike's life, and the outcome becomes pretty clear. That and ofcourse the white birds flying off, the camera slowly panning up toward heaven as a sad tune plays, a star fades out, and the final scene showing Spike's lifeless yet peaceful face.

He's dead.

I guess you could say, he finally woke up.

 

[tangoprime]

Cowboy Bebop was probably the first series I watched to completion, and is still probably my favorite.

You should check out Area 88 (OVA version). It's an older anime from the 80's (love the older animation before they started shoehorning in CG) about a flight school pilot tricked into signing a contract to fight as a mercenary pilot. The only way out of the contract is serving 3 years as a combat pilot on "the frontlines of hell", making $1.5mil to get out of the contract, or deserting and being shot down. Of course making the money is nearly impossible since they have to pay for everything from toilet paper to missiles out of their meager bounties (show opens with the main character knocking out a tank platoon only to be paid $6k).

The old SNES shooter "UN Squadron" was based on this anime/manga. If you liked the animation style and any of the flight-action scenes in Cowboy Bebop, you'd probably like this one. The newer anime that as a 12-episode series was not bad, but the original 3 episode OVA is awesome, and free to watch on youtube since nobody has distribution rights at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z_BewoOw1w
That's the subtitled one, although I personally prefer the english dub for this series.

If you watch it, let me know what you think!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I watched it recently too. Or at least the first 3 episodes of it.

I didn't like it. Too much wacky-ness and too little interconnection between episodes (I don't like anime in which every episode is a separate adventure) along with some characters that I didn't exactly care for and a world that also didn't tickle my fancy.

But I'm very much open to convincing as to why it's so DAMN GOOD like everybody and their dog says it is.

That's exactly why I like it. I would fucking kill for another Anime series that does standalone episodes. I have nothing against a series that wants to tell an interconnected story over a whole season, but I am so sick that those shows seem to be the ONLY thing we get. Bebop stands out because each episode, for the most part, can play out in an entirely self contained story. The characters of Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed are easy enough to grasp that you can watch any random episode and not feel lost because you didn't watch the 15 episodes leading up to the one you jumped into.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

But making single episodes is way easier than a complete and though off story from beggining to end, that's another reason it's hard for me to accept the adoration this series gets.

Sure the characters are nice and all, but it can't give us stuff other series can.

I prefer to stick with long running stories, except if it's comedy or Dr House.

Are you fucking serious? Do you honestly think that making standalone episodes is somehow easier than making a long story? Because if anything, it's harder. If you're making a serialized show, like Code Geass, you need to establish the character only once, in the first episode, and let them grow from there. You have hours and hours of television to craft an ornate, convoluted web of stories that is impenetrable to anyone just jumping in.

With episodic shows, including non anime examples, you have thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to reestablish characters, set up your episode's conflict, and get to a resolution. You know how hard that is? You're juggling a dozen pieces with a limited time frame and you need to piece them all together before the clock runs out.

It's the same ignorant reasoning that people give when they think Short Stories are easier to write then novels because there's less words. Let me tell you, short stories and episodic shows are much harder to create when you're on such strict limits.

 

[Hagi]

It's the same ignorant reasoning that people give when they think Short Stories are easier to write then novels because there's less words. Let me tell you, short stories and episodic shows are much harder to create when you're on such strict limits.

But making single episodes is way easier than a complete and though off story from beggining to end, that's another reason it's hard for me to accept the adoration this series gets.

My preferred format of stories is better than your preferred format of stories?

Way I see it they're two different things, each with their own challenges.

Establishing a whole storyline including characters, conflict and a resolution in just 30 minutes is hard.
Having a character continually experience development over the course of dozens of episodes in a way that feels meaningful to the viewer is hard.

Besides, it's utterly impossible for either of them to be truly harder than the other when it comes to quality content. The moment it's easy it means you could be trying harder, doing even better and making more improvements because there's no such thing as the perfect story. Every time you reach a new level of quality the bar goes up. If you think it's easy to write a particular format of story then you're simply not trying hard enough.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

My preferred format of stories is better than your preferred format of stories?

I didn't say that, I was just correcting him in his assumption that the episodic format is somehow lazier. I said above that I have nothing against serialized shows, but when that is all we get it becomes tiresome. And I don't think that a show should be subjected to scorn over alleged laziness just because it's format is different than what a person is used to. If the pacing or editing or animation is bad, by all means, rip it a new one. Just know what you're talking about before you start making base accusations.