Cowboy Bebop is one of those series that takes a relatively tired concept and manages to breathe new life into it. In this case, the formula is a small band of bounty hunters, tooling around in their quirky space ship, headed up by a slick gunslinger with a mysterious past--I think just about every anime fan has seen at least something like that. But through some stylish directing, not-quite-formula characters, an interesting setting, a mix of offbeat humor and drama, and a whole lot of very cool music, Cowboy Bebop manages to be both good classic space-adventure and refreshingly original.
To start with, though there is a bit of ongoing plot, most of the episodes are essentially self-contained stories tied together loosely by the motley crew of characters. But the mood(s) of the series are one of the things that set it apart; there is a roughly even mix of dark, serious episodes full of grim situations and stylish set-pieces, and of generally light (though never to the point of being truly silly) ones, with a relatively subtle, quirky sense of humor. The two moods were almost never mixed within an episode, and interestingly enough, I thought that blend worked very well; the fun episodes were very much so, but never so silly that you couldn't take the other half of the stories seriously, and the serious half were executed well enough to easily stand with the best of that genre. And, by clearly segregating the two types of stories, the series avoided almost all of the emotional tug-of-war that you (or at least I) get with some series that try to be both funny and dramatic at the same time. This is one of the only truly multi-genre series I can think of, and the mix of stories has something to satisfy almost anybody.
Actually, the range of this series is even more impressive than just dark and light: although most of the humor in the series is of the low-key, offhanded, quirky sort, there were even a couple of parody-heavy episodes that were straight comedy. Those not only didn't seem out of place, but were downright hilarious--in one case (Mushroom Samba) a semi-parody of exactly the sort of too-cool hero the series is about (it even has several Shaft references), and Toys in the Attic, a direct parody of the original Alien movie. The latter is pretty darned funny in and of itself, but it builds to a 2001-inspired crescendo of music and visuals that has to be one of the most oddly appealing pieces of filmmaking I can think of. I'll freely admit that I have a weird sense of humor, but I thought it was sheer brilliance.
Well, that's the broad picture, but this series has so many other things worth mentioning that it's hard to know where to start, so I'll go with the one thing that the series is pretty much built on: style. Cowboy Bebop has style all over the place--from the visuals, to the music (I'll be getting to that later), to the settings, to the stories, this series was as slick as you could ask for in even the most serious of sci-fi. And actually, that is the only significant problem I personally had with the series--there was style to spare, but substance was sacrificed to make room for it. All the plots (the serious ones in particular) may have been cool and slick, but they were also entirely predictable. There were a few ongoing questions surrounding Spike's past, and about three minor points at which you weren't quite sure how something would turn out, but for the most part the dramatic stories were about as formula and obvious as they come.
Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not saying the stories weren't good. Quite the contrary, they were usually quite interesting, exciting, and the classic plot lines (particularly the dark, moody ones) were executed so well that they were a pleasure to watch anyway, but don't come expecting anything unpredictable or many original stories. If you just can't stand obvious plots or the occasional sacrificing of realism (or even making much sense) for the sake of style, you might get annoyed once in a while, as I was, but on the other hand, those who prefer style over substance should be drooling over what Cowboy Bebop has to offer.
That said, Cowboy Bebop easily made up for the lack of story originality elsewhere. For one thing, there was the world (or rather worlds--the characters are always hopping around the solar system) it is set in. Each had a very distinct feel to it, and none of them were generic sci-fi--the whole series had an international feel to it, with each location having the flavor of some particular period or nationality. Building on that was the fact that the locales weren't one shot deals--the characters did return to familiar areas once in a while.
Adding to the variety of the settings is the detail that went into them and almost everything else. It isn't as good as a few series I've seen, but the towns and cities of Cowboy Bebop have a level of crowded detail and a sense of being lived in (and of being functional enough to live in) that isn't too common, particularly in sci-fi. Beyond that, there were a collection of little touches surrounding the main characters that gave the series a sense of realism that it could have easily been lacking. For one thing, they do stuff like cook food and eat, look up information on a variant of the Internet, and lay around on a beat-up couch... in their spaceship.
That brings up what was probably the best part about the setting of the series: it was sci-fi, but it didn't feel futuristic. There were spaceships and warp gates, sure, but that sort of thing wasn't prevalent at all, and almost all the technology had a down-to-earth, almost retro feel--the spaceships run out of gas, the computer links crash, the TV gets poor reception on backwater planets, and there is a grand total of one laser gun in the series--Spike's fighter has one that is used very infrequently, and everything else just shoots regular bullets (I thought the shell casings in space concept was really cool, as a matter of fact). Heck, there were even space truckers. In a few cases, it was so low tech that the realism was perhaps questionable (in fact, they actually made an effort to patch a few tech holes in the dubbed dialogue), but in all it gave me the feeling that these were normal people living in a slightly different place and time, and made it very easy to get a grasp on the setting (it also contributed a bit to the wild west feel, though that theme was usually surprisingly subtle considering the title).
Moving on, no discussion of a good anime series would be complete without bringing up the characters, and Cowboy Bebop had plenty of good ones. None of the characters are terribly original--we have the grumpy old bounty hunter with a mysterious past, the slick young bounty hunter with an even more mysterious past that keeps coming back to haunt him, a self-serving gambler on the run with a mysterious past, and a slightly mentally unstable hacker punk (with--big surprise--a mysterious past). Oh, and there's a genetically modified Welsh Corgi (with a mysterious past), too, but it never does anything as impressive as you'd expect--it has unusually high intelligence, but only by dog standards. The characters each have a good chunk of personality on their own, and they all develop a sort of semi-antagonistic dynamic that, by being neither too over the top nor too vicious, is not only fun, but gives the series its foundation. Their relationships also provided plenty of banter, which I enjoyed.
This dynamic is fueled by the acting, and this is one series where both languages are top-notch. The casting is dead-on and the match-up between the originals and the dubbed versions is impressive. And, in both cases, all the characters have an effective emotional range all the way from silly to serious. Of particular note is the quality of the writing in the dub--almost shockingly good. Plus, the dialogue, in addition to being well written, manages to be quite colorful--lots of accents, unusual voices, and odd expressions (particularly Jet's)--without seeming at all out of place. The Japanese has its own appeal and is equally well done (though a bit less colorful) so it's just plain enjoyable to listen to in either language--take your pick. It's hard to choose any particular standouts in a cast this good (even most of the minor characters are solid), but I'd single out Hayashibara Megumi's Fay in Japanese for her perpetually annoyed tone and Ed in the dub for some really bizarre (and very funny) speech patterns that fit the character to a T.
As for the visuals, they live up to the rest of the production. The character designs are distinctive and varied, the character art is very sharp, and the backgrounds are pretty, appropriately creative for a good sci-fi series, and usually quite detailed. The animation is also of very high quality--from the well done character animation to the fast and slickly produced action sequences (they are rare, but there are some great aerial dogfights), everything is well toward the top end of the OAV scale... and this is a TV series. Plus, there is lots of neat zero-gravity stuff (all executed marvelously, unless you get really picky). And, all that style I talked about before is carried though in the art--dark, moody scenes and John Woo-esque action set pieces (there's a classic church shootout, for example) abound.
I haven't mentioned the music yet--the series is called Cowboy Bebop, after all--because I was saving the best for last. The score is downright amazing, and I don't throw terms like that around lightly. The primary musical style is blues or jazz, but the range of musical genres represented is a thing to behold--almost every episode has a different musical motif. From heavy metal (for the space trucker episode), to the perfect musical accompaniment to the funky '70s-style opening sequence, to "The Real Folk Blues" (the jazz end theme for most of the series), to the very cool worldbeat end theme used for "Jupiter Jazz," this series at one point or another hits just about every musical genre you can think of. And, even more surprisingly, they all sound authentic and are written very well. As if that weren't impressive enough, the bulk of the music was written by a single person, Yoko Kanno (of Macross Plus fame among other things). Considering her previous work, it shouldn't be a surprise that she can cover such a wide range of styles, but all of it sounds so authentic, and so good, that my hat goes off to her. I can't think of anywhere else you can find this sort of musical variety, but I can say that the music alone could carry the series (not that it has to), and it gives Cowboy Bebop a flavor all its own.
That is pretty much everything I can think of to mention about this series; in one episode it may be dark, stylized, and serious, and in another light and filled with offbeat humor and antagonistic banter, but in every case it's done right. Back that up with a great cast and writing (in dub and Japanese, no less), fine visuals, cool retro-high-technology, and some of the most varied and well written music I've ever heard in a series, and you've got good anime. Cowboy Bebop isn't deep, but it has style and little bits of creativity everywhere to make up for what it lacks in substance, and from start to finish it's a marvelously well-built production. Worth at least a chance from almost any anime fan, and is almost guaranteed to be loved by fans of stylish action and sci-fi, as well those into not-too-serious space adventure and way-too-serious space adventure.
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