Forum - View topicAnswerman - Will There Ever Be A "Next Cowboy Bebop"?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
|
|||||||
Yeah, right time, right place and just the right kind of talent to make it leave an indelible impression on viewers is the only right answer to really give. And honestly, we don't need a next Cowboy Bebop because it would just make the original less unique.
Just because most one to two cour anime series don't stay long in the general fandom memory doesn't mean they are truly forgotten or that they aren't gateways to someone somewhere. Bebop did it's job and did it well. Now, let other series do theirs in their own way. Also now I'm curious what Justin thinks is the best anime of all time. (The real objective answer is there simply isn't one because there will always be some people to disagree with that view no matter what.) |
||||||||
Wyvern
Posts: 1561 |
|
|||||||
"Hate" is a strong word. BWFS is certainly the weakest episode of Bebop, but it's not BAD. It's just not as good as the others. I'm willing to bet that it was still the best episode of any anime that aired that week. I like Heavy Metal Queen even though it's probably below average for Bebop. The use of a different music genre (which not everyone watching Bebop is going to be a fan of) is a bit jarring, but that's kind of the point. As far as I'm concerned, Bebop has no bad episodes, just (inevitably) some episodes which are better than others. Not everything can be Pierrot Le Fou. |
||||||||
Mr Kibbles
Posts: 2 |
|
|||||||
I guess I'm in the minority because Boogie Woogie Feng Shui is one of my favorite Bebop episodes. LOL I didn't realize that its supposedly hated so much.
|
||||||||
FLCLGainax
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
Tenchi
Posts: 4471 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
|
|||||||
I said earlier in the thread that the North American release of the "1st Session" (Volume 1) on DVD had a street date of April 4th, 2000, which is the date given by both Amazon and eBay. I was, however, forgetting something really obvious about North American anime distributors around two decades ago: they were still releasing anime on VHS back then and, quite often, the VHS release preceded the DVD release. The first release of Cowboy Bebop in any format in North America was the two episode VHS tape "Asteroid Blues" for which Amazon lists a street date of September 14th, 1999, so Justin was right, Then again, the Amazon listing for this tape also lists the language as being "English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog", which would be an impressive feat for a VHS tape. I think it was technically possible to have two different mono audio tracks playing simultaneously on a VHS tape if you split the stereo but most VCR's didn't give you the option of playing only one audio channel. |
||||||||
Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
|
|||||||
Same. Like any other show, Cowboy Bebop has some episodes that are weaker than others, of course, but I don't think any of them can actually be called "bad". Not everyone's cup of tea, certainly, but they still do what they do well enough. |
||||||||
DangerMouse
Posts: 3983 |
|
|||||||
Yeah, I feel like all three of these really came at the right time to give the US market another large boost one after the other and also to reignite Toonami. AoT especially, at least from my experience, really came at the perfect time and with those perfectly timed epic cliffhangers week to week to get that big "event series vibe" word of mouth going that really became the next "anime addiction" making waves during that first season. Both streaming with the sub and later on Toonami with the dub. Even though many of us had already gone through the epic ride of the first season, it still felt pretty special to me the night they aired and posted the first trailer for AoT coming to Toonami and taking the opening spot.
Yeah. The way it navigated both halves and the gradual way it delves into those things and themes likely eased new viewers being exposed to anime for the first time, compared to western cartoons at the time, into that touch (even though it's only in some series of course), making them open and perhaps unknowingly hungry for more.
Such a fun episode!
Yeah, its initial run (and future runs), and the timing of it of course, on CN/AS were a big influence as well. |
||||||||
penguintruth
Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||||
Based on...? The only thing we can discern is our favorite anime, because nobody has seen every anime ever made, and therefore "best anime ever made" is an entirely useless designation. Cowboy Bebop is still, after a couple decades of anime fandom, my favorite anime. But I agree that it's foolish to chase the "next Bebop" dream, because Bebop is Bebop, and other anime are other anime, and none of them should try to be Bebop. I was going through a post-Bebop depression, at least as anime was concerned, for a while, but then I saw Fullmetal Alchemist. And Fullmetal Alchemist wasn't Cowboy Bebop, but it was really, really good, and in a different way than Bebop was.It didn't have to imitate the popularity of it, it had its own merits. If you keep chasing Bebop's shadow, you'll never find anything different that casts it. You end up missing out on a lot of great anime that way. |
||||||||
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||||||
There's also the old theory stemming from the story that 60's rock group The Beau Brummels deliberately chose their odd name so that they would be alphabetically next to the Beatles in every record store in the country, where kids would see them. And until we get a decent plausible show explanation for Coyote's alphabetically suspicious action title, that's the theory I'm sticking with. In answer to your question, no, I don't think it was the Western distributors' desperation to compare themselves to the big standout industry hit. (But yes, does emphasize that Bebop was the "Default" go-to title to symbolically represent ALL guns-blazing PG-13 action-anime, back in the transitional late-90's, when nobody on either coast could picture a middle-ground between mainstream kids' anime and blood-soaked OAV's.)
Yes, Justin missed the Big Trumpeting Jumbo In the Bathroom: Like the later similar 00's monomaniacal preoccupation with Death Note, the show "looked American", but also, like Death Note, it was one of the shows that noobies could watch on late night for free on Cartoon Network Adult Swim--in those long-ago days before streaming, when searching out 90's-00's anime on hard-to-find DVD was not for the halfhearted, and Broadcast Deals drove the dub market--discover that this stuff actually started to make sense, and tell the world "Hey, world, I'm one-a you new 'Anime otaku' fans! " The hard part afterwards was getting them to watch anything else. You can usually tell which decade a new anime fan became one--and WHERE--if they still sentimentally try to start discussions over "The Big O" , "Trigun" or "Witch Hunter Robin", but it's Bebop that had the lasting shelf value. That was a show that both Noobs and Vets could agree on. |
||||||||
AutoOps007
Posts: 245 |
|
|||||||
I feel that people who ask this question don't really understand what made cowboy bebop the hit that it was and/or understand the impact it made at the time.
If you were to make another anime similar to cowboy bebop, it wouldn't make much of (if any) impact (cause you're just mimicking Bebop). And if there was to be an anime that made a similar impact one day, it would likely be very different to Bebop, cause it would be something that hasn't been done before. |
||||||||
KarateCowboy
Posts: 35 |
|
|||||||
The thing about a masterpiece is that it is virtually impossible to do twice. You don't have two swan songs. That's just how it is. It would be nice if we could do that awesomeness all over again. Too bad it's almost impossible.
|
||||||||
Lann
Posts: 268 |
|
|||||||
A number of anime have come since Bebop which have been just as good. Most notable for me would be the original Eureka Seven and Samurai Champloo, both of which have one over-arching story with individual episodes being their own thing too. This to me is the magic formula to make an above average amazing series.
|
||||||||
FLCLGainax
|
|
|||||||
Last edited by FLCLGainax on Thu Feb 14, 2019 12:05 am; edited 2 times in total |
||||||||
DangerMouse
Posts: 3983 |
|
|||||||
Oh wow, Coyote Ragtime Show. I really enjoyed that little show back when I watched it a long time ago. I think it was pretty average overall but really a lot of fun.
Agreed, also yeah, FMA got me hooked and excited in a similar fashion. Another show for me that sucked me in like no other like these and was similarly special to me was Last Exile. E7 also had that thanks to its long run of episodes getting me so attached to the cast and its setting. Edit: Beaten |
||||||||
Surrender Artist
Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
|
|||||||
I first watched Cowboy Bebop shortly after coming home from having visited friends of my family for the evening and for no Earthly reason was searching for some anime to watch on basic cable, which was about the best that I could do at the time. I happened luckily upon the last few minutes of the premieres of "Asteroid Blues" and all of "Stray Dog Strut." The day after that, the new school year started and my friends were talking enthusiastically about the thing that I had seen. It went on to be an essential aspect of my later adolescence, keystone of my closest personal relationships and spurred my interest in jazz music.
Now I have no friends, almost the only that music I listen to is that played on the solitary stretch of the underground corridors that I trudge through several times daily and have a drinking problem!* You can't go home again, not just because the bus company shut down, and there will never be another Cowboy Bebop, because it only really made sense and was only really needed at the time. *Don't worry, this is an ostensibly comical observation that is only half true; as Tom Waits put it, "I only have a drinking problem when I can’t get a drink." |
||||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group