Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 10: Ganymede Elegy

We don't often see Jet's Hammerhead craft in action.

The Bebop crew have captured a bounty and are delivering him to the police on Ganymede, which was Jet's homeworld and original posting when he was in the ISSP. While there, he re-unites with his ex-girlfriend Alisa, who had unexpectedly left him. Meanwhile, one of Jet's former colleagues contacts Spike and reveals that Alisa's current boyfriend, Rhint Celonias, is wanted for murdering a loan shark.

This is the first episode to delve into Jet's past, and is more about him coming to terms with his break-up. We also see how burdened by guilt Rhint is after killing the loan shark, and suspicious of strangers (including Jet). When Alisa learns that Jet's now a bounty hunter, she and Rhint attempt to flee, but are pursued by Spike in the Swordfish. After almost colliding with the Hammerhead, he relays the bounty details to Jet, who sends him back to the Bebop while he finishes the job. It's a good action sequence, the the Hammerhead having to negotiate tight spaces, but there's a greater focus on the emotion than the action. It's great to see the more level-headed Jet in comparison with the impulsive Spike. The conclusion is heart-wrenching, but also provides a glimmer of hope to the people involved. 

Despite this being a dramatic episode, there is still one comedic moment at the beginning. While en route to Ganymede, Ein barks at the prisoner they're carrying, who tries to shut him up by kicking a can at him. That's not very funny, I know. It gets funny when Ed drops out of a vent on top of the guy, hisses at him like a cat, and then starts biting him while Ein looks on with a dog smirk.

All in all, I'd say this is one of the stronger episodes in the series.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 9: Jamming with Edward

 

That satellite is a mood.

A satellite network orbiting what remains of Earth has been using laser to re-create the Nazca Lines in what was once South America, prompting the government to post a hefty bounty on a suspected hacker. Not believing the reward to be challenging enough, Spike opts out while Jet and Faye investigate. They soon learn that the prime suspect is a notorious yet mysterious hacker known only as "Radical Edward". Meanwhile, the actual Radical Edward - a quirky androgynous teenager - is doing her own investigation of the satellite and discovers that it's controlled by an artificial intelligence. She soon relays this information to the Bebop crew in exchange for a favour.

This is one of the more comedic episodes, and sees the introduction of Edward, who provides most of the show's comic relief from this point onwards. In one funny moment, she's playing with a remote-controlled aircraft which looks like it was cobbled together. When the police knock on her door, she hacks into their craft and begins remotely flying (and crashing) it. This joke later returns at the end of the episode. I've heard that Edward's peculiar mannerisms were inspired the series composer, Yoko Kanno.

There's still some great action, with Spike showing off his ace piloting skills in order to reach the satellite. Speaking of which, I also kind of like the artificial intelligence, which Edward dubs "MPU". The interactions between them are actually kind of sweet.

One strange thing is that there's no real "villain of the week". The AI is not malicious at all, and its laser satellites are merely a defence mechanism (and artist's toolkit). It's motivations seem lacklustre, but I guess that's the joke, and gives it some depth. After all, even an artificial intelligence can get lonely.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 8: Waltz for Venus

That might be the first time I've seen the Bebop crew successfully bring in a target alive.

Spike and Faye apprehend a gang of notorious hijackers on a space liner to Venus. After collecting the bounty, Spike is approached by Rocco Bonnaro, who had witnessed him dispatch the hijackers and wishes to learn Spike's technique. Eventually giving into Rocco's pestering, Spike gives him a brief lesson. Rocco promptly flees when he notices a group of thugs, but leaves Spike with a package in his possession. Back at the Bebop, Jet suggests they go after the minor crime boss Picarro Calvino and his gang, who had stolen a prized "grey ash" plant used to treat a local malady. When Spike discovers that Rocco is one of the wanted gang members, he opens the package and finds it contains a grey ash plant. Digging deeper, he learns that Rocco has a sister, Stella, who has been left blind due to the malady.

This is one of the more poignant episodes. While Rocco is seemingly built up to be an annoying sidekick, he does get some interesting depth, looking after a sister but trying to conceal his criminal endeavours from her. We also get a chance to see Spike having a caring side beneath his bitter exterior when he meets Stella and learns that she idolises her brother.

We also get to see a moral debate when the Bebop crew discover the stolen grey ash. Faye is adamant on selling it on the black market, Jet is hesitant due to the risk, while Spike realises it's bait to draw out the rest of the gang.

There's a bit of humour too. Especially Spike getting a high-pitched voice from a minute level of helium in Venus' atmosphere. Rocco offers him a pill to counter-act the effects if Spike teaches him. Spike immediately takes the pill and leaves, but it doesn't work and turns out to just be a throat sweet.

End the ending is a pretty sad one. I won't reveal the details here though.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 7: Heavy Metal Queen

Does anybody else have "Space Truckin'" by Deep Purple stuck in their head?

Spike and Faye are at a truck stop in search of a bounty named Decker, who's transporting volatile explosives. Unfortunately, their sting operation results in heavy damages to their craft and puts them in contact with "The Heavy Metal Queen", a trucker named V.T. who loves heavy metal and harbours a prejudice against bounty hunters. After one of V.T.'s friends is sideswiped by Decker, V.T. pursues him into an old asteroid mine, forcing Spike and Faye to fly in after them. The trio must then work together to escape from the highly unstable mine.

The first act has a more comedic tone, with Faye staking out a family diner. She witnesses a rather burly thug and confronts him after thinking he's Decker, who's identifiable through a dragon tattoo. She promptly realises her mistake when the small man resembling Woody Allen whom she asks to get the police runs off and she notices his dragon tattoo. She promptly tears open the other man's shirt to discover that his tattoo is an eel. Apparently the guy had a thing for eels. It also establishes the danger which Decker presents, who escapes after throwing a small vial of nitro which is powerful enough to down Faye's craft, the Red Tail.

While that's going on, Spike is staking out a bar which V.T. frequents. Unfortunately, it's full of bounty hunters also after Decker. And to make things worse, Spike's got "a hangover the size of Neptune". A brawl ensues when V.T. confronts a trio of bounty hunters who harass a waitress, but Spike is preoccupied with making a prairie oyster. Until someone gets knocked into him and he spills the egg onto his trousers. At which point he steps in and single-handedly subdues the trio (although they do vandalise the Swordfish in revenge). It just shows how badass Spike is, and warms him up to V.T. (until she discovers he's a bounty hunter).

The second act utilises a lot more jeopardy, as V.T., Spike, and Faye try to escape from the mine, made more difficult due to the fact that the Swordfish and the Red Tail haven't been repaired. Although it is still kinda funny when V.T.'s method of motivation is to blast out heavy metal.

V.T. is a pretty interesting character. She's tough, but also principled. One recurring element is a sweepstake she runs in which people bet to guess her real name, which has nested her a tidy profit. It's a subplot which has an interesting payoff.

Overall, this one's pretty good.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 6: Sympathy for the Devil

Hmm...I'm not too sure about this one.

Spike and Jet shadow a bounty known only as "Giraffe" at a blues club where a child prodigy named Wen is on stage playing the harmonica. As Jet distracts rival bounty hunter "Fatty" River, Spike continues to shadow Giraffe as he shadows Wen and his wheelchair-bound guardian to a hotel. Unfortunately, Giraffe his mortally wounded and thrown out of a window. Before he expires, he gives Spike a gemstone and an obscure warning. Jet subsequently learns from Fatty that Wen's guardian, "Zebra" was part of the same militia that Giraffe was a part of, and apparently betrayed him during a raid on an R&D facility. As Spike goes after Zebra in a bid to save Wen, he soon discovers the meaning behind Giraffe's warning.

Okay, I think this one has a pretty interesting twist. It turns out that Wen is a lot older than he appears to be due to a disaster involving the hyperspace gate some fifty years earlier. While his parents were killed by the disaster shielding him, Wen survived but is now eternally a child due to...weird space magic. Often subject to experimentation, he was in the R&D facility that was raided, and took the opportunity to escape by drugging up and kidnapping Zebra to pose as his "parent". Like the episode title suggests, the reveal of Wen's background is meant to present him in a more sympathetic light. For the most part, he seems to just make a living by performing at blues clubs, but he also has to get by through kidnapping and murder since he's either seen as a child or experimented on.

Spike and Jet later realise that the gem in their possession is apparently the key to solving Wen's condition. Again, I don't really understand the "science", but I don't think Spike does either.

The notion of Spike having to kill a person who is seen as a child by all probably doesn't sit well, which meant this episode had to be censored in it's Western release. The original American airing actually had to be delayed due to some imagery many viewers would have associated with 9/11.

All in all, this one was a mixed bag.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels

This might be one of the strongest episodes so far.

Spike and Jet are looking at pursuing a bounty on Mao Yenrai, a capo in the Red Dragon Syndicate who is apparently wanted for the murder of a rival syndicate boss. However, Jet backs out when he thinks that Spike is hiding something. It's revealed at the beginning of the episode that Mao had formed an alliance with the other syndicate boss, only for both to be assassinated by a syndicate enforcer known only as Vicious. Faye pursues the bounty, only to find that Mao is already dead and the bounty posting itself was a trap meant for Spike, with whom Vicious has a history.

This episode takes the opportunity to delve into Spike's past as he shares a drink with Anastasia, a corner shop owner who secretly deals in weapons. We also have the introduction of Vicious, and his sinister presence instantly makes the episode darker. With his cold demeanour, his katana, and his cormorant, he certainly lives up to his name.

While it's a shame that Faye ends up becoming a damsel-in-distress this episode, I love the showdown between Spike and Vicious' goons in an abandoned church which also holds significance to Spike's past.

All in all, this is a pretty good episode. We know a little more about Spike's past, but we don't have the whole story. Just enough to find out a little more.

Plus the resolution is kinda funny.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 4: Gateway Shuffle

These days it feels like being regressed to a primate could actually be a step up.

While watching a bounty at a restaurant, Spike and Jet witness an attack by the Space Warriors, an eco-terrorist group led by Twinkle Murdoch. With their initial proposed bounty killed in the attack, the pair capture Twinkle instead. Unfortunately, they find that the bounty has been cancelled under mysterious circumstances. As they make their way to Ganymede, they encounter Faye Valentine, who has been drifting through space after gambling away the money she had stolen from them in the previous episode. Also in her possession is a vial which she'd recovered from a derelict spaceship after the ship's dying pilot instructed her to take it to the ISSP.

This episode takes a much darker tone, personified by Twinkle Murdoch. This is established when she has her gang shoot up an entire restaurant just because she overheard an obnoxious customer order a dish which contained the endangered Ganymede Sea Rat (which Jet explains doesn't actually taste very nice and is only eaten as a status symbol). It's later revealed that she's developed a bio-weapon known as "Monkey Business", which causes humans to regress to apes, and is threatening to release it on Ganymede if they don't meet their demands.

This episode is genuinely tense, especially during the climax in which Twinkle launches a warhead filled with the Monkey Business towards Ganymede from hyperspace, forcing Spike to reluctantly accept Faye's help to intercept it. There's also a darkly hilarious moment in which Spike tries to open the protective casing in which the vial is carried while Twinkle looks on in horror.

Which does lead me to a minor gripe I have with the episode; when Spike and Jet release Twinkle, it's revealed at the end that Spike discreetly slipped the vial into her pocket. While this does provide a resolution, I'm just wondering what Spike was thinking at the time.

Regardless, it's only a minor issue. It's still a great episode, and one which sees Faye becoming a regular member of the Bebop's crew (much to Spike's chagrin).

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 3: Honky Tonk Woman

I kinda like the idea of a space casino.

This episode sees the introduction of Faye Valentine, a con artist with a substantial debt. After caught cheating at a casino orbiting Mars, she agrees to do a job for the casino's ruthless owner, Gordon. Posing as a blackjack dealer, she's instructed to clean out a player in order to discreetly retrieve a special chip in his possession. When Spike plays at her table, she mistakes him for her contact, and when he leaves without handing over the chip, he bumps into the real contact and swaps chips. Faye attempts to escape, but is captured by Spike and Jet, who simultaneously learn that she's wanted, and that there's more to the chip than meets the eye. When Gordon pursues them to recover the chip, Jet agrees to an exchange.

In addition to the introduction of Faye, this is the first episode to reveal that Jet previously worked for the Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP), when he discusses the truth behind the chip with Gordon.

Personally, I think the misunderstanding is a little contrived. However, it's still a good episode with some great action. Faye's introduction involves her walking into a shop and then firing on the casino security trailing her with a submachine gun. We later have Spike demonstrating his martial arts on more guards after he accuses Faye of cheating, and a zero-gravity scuffle outside the casino ship when Gordon attempts to double-cross Spike and Jet. I also love the design of the casino ship, having the glitz associated with Vegas in outer space.

That's about it. Easy come, easy go.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 2: Stray Dog Strut

After the somewhat dark and edgy previous session, the show decided to tease a more light-hearted episode.

Spike and Jet travel to Mars in pursuit of a serial pet thief named Abdul Hakim, who has recently stolen a "data dog" from an illegal research lab. The "data dog", a Welsh corgi named Ein, ends up on the Bebop, despite Spike's hatred of dogs, and Jet devises a plan to use him to draw out Hakim. However, things get complicated when the scientists who had experimented with Ein attempt to retrieve him.

As stated above, this episode takes a more comedic tone than the previous one, with Ein causing mayhem for Spike, Hakim, and the researchers. This episode also sees the introduction of Big Shot, a recurring segment consisting of a show-within-a-show marketed towards bounty hunters, advertising the latest bounties. That actually makes the previous episode more of a downer, as it reveals that no bounty is paid if the criminal is killed.

There's still some great action, with both a foot chase and a vehicular chase. Hakim has a menacing presence, and it's interesting to Spike looking out for Ein despite not liking dogs.

All in all, there's not much else to say.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon - Session 1: Asteroid Blues

As promised, here's my look at the first episode (or "session", as they're called), "Asteroid Blues".

Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are bounty hunters who drift the Solar System in their converted trawler, the Bebop. Their current target is Asimov Solensan, who has stolen a large consignment of a combat drug known as "Bloody Eye" and has fled to the asteroid colony of Tijuana with his pregnant girlfriend Katerina.

The episode opens with a dialogue-free, sepia-toned montage of Spike getting involved in a shoot-out in a church. This is one of many hints of Spike's mysterious past, along with him telling one of his informants that he once died because of a woman, and telling Katerina that he was originally from Mars. We also get an insight into how Spike operates as a bounty hunter, when Jet cooks him bell peppers and beef. Spike points out the lack of beef in said dish, to which Jet explains he couldn't afford beef because most of their last bounty went into paying damages incurred by Spike during the job.

The Tijuana asteroid colony is painted as a bleak place where poverty is rife, like some small town in a more modern day American West setting (despite it being sci-fi). Spike seems to grow closer to Katerina, who dreams of a more comfortable life on Mars.

Of course, there's plenty of action. One sequence involves Asimov and Katerina going to a bar, where Asimov attempts to sell the Bloody Eye. As he's giving a demonstration, the bar is raided by members of the syndicate he'd stolen from, who kill his buyer before being killed by Asimov while under the drug's influence. The use of Asimov's POV makes the event kinda blurry, but we later see the aftermath when Jet investigates the bar and interrogates more hitmen.

In the second act, Spike poses as a buyer to confront Asimov and engages him in a fight, which is interrupted by another syndicate hit squad. Asimov and Katerina steal a ship and try to escape, pursued by syndicate gunships and by Spike in his modified racer, the Swordfish. Again, it's a thrilling chase, but ends on a low note. It also shows how little Asimov cares for Katerina.

All-in-all, I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Cowboy Bebop Marathon

It's been a while since I've written anything on here. I handed in my last assignment a month ago, and now I'm dealing with the dread of what comes next after university. With that in mind, I decided I might do another review marathon.

I got an email threatening to close my Channel 4 account since it had been inactive for two years. As I browsed their library, I noticed that Cowboy Bebop is on there. It's one of my favourite animes and crosses multiple genres, and it's been a while since my last blogging project, so I decided I'm gonna do another marathon.

I'll post a review a day, with my first review appearing later today.