Forum - View topicAnswerman - Will There Ever Be A "Next Cowboy Bebop"?
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Raikuro
Posts: 347 |
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I'd say shows like Death Note and Attack on Titan are definitely underestimated in how big of an impact they had and each in their own way has come as close as we're going to get to "another Cowboy Bebop"
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Hiroki not Takuya
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I tend to remain hopeful in saying "never say never again" (remember Sean Connery!) but agree that while fans never need something like it, with creativity someone someday might come up with a concept so startlingly different and intriguing compared to what came before that it will take the world by storm. It might not come as much of a complete surprise for Western fans as Cowboy Bebop did because it will likely be in LN/Manga/Web first... |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Actually, think I made a mistake in quoting the poster who was talking about Bebop's Japanese business, not its US reception-- My point was, when it aired in the late 90's to '00, everyone in the US wanted to show off that they were "into" anime, but apart from the DBZ/Sailor syndies, there wasn't any anime to be found...Unless you could afford to buy it on VHS/disk, and then heaven help you. If you didn't have a favorite local mom-and-pop rental that stocked anime TV titles, you were guaranteed not to find them at Blockbuster and would rarely find a complete series on disk-by-mail Netflix...And even worse, most people pretended to be "Anime fans" after watching the dreary, obscure director-indulgent art-features that Sony imported to the arthouses. For years, every press critic thought an "anime fan" was one who'd seen Paprika, Metropolis and Princess Mononoke. Bebop's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" feature movie did get some arthouse release, but there it just fell in among the other Weird Art-Movies, and critics thought it had neat bang-bang, but couldn't follow the story without the TV series. Basically, if you were a US junior/high-schooler, wanted to become an Anime Fan just like the cool fringey kids in the DBZ shirts, and didn't have any money, Bebop on CNAS WAS your intravenous-solution of anime, period. And then, when CNAS switched to all fight-serials, we got (the nickname for Naruto fans that the Moderators won't let us use), followed by the fans who only lived to discuss Bleach. And then, of course, Death Note, followed by Sword Art Online. |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 888 |
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Some of the series's creators would find it extremely difficult to create another Cowboy Bebop series after the death of Jet Black's voice actor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPupZFZ0VXw&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2u4H2Yg564JiGG1rZfS2y-bBLq4J8X2P_r26GankRzAuNY9UgPNCTJcHA |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5335 |
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Velius
 Posts: 36 |
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I would say that AoT has been the most impactful anime in the fandom since Cowboy Bebop. Even though it has added more seasons, after that first season in 2013, you could argue if the series had ended there, it would still be just as popular now.
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
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What does "the next Cowboy Bebop" mean?
Another show that seems designed for westerners? An anime that was a "hit" in America? A critical darling? Haven't we gotten that multiple times? Isn't Dragon Ball a bigger franchise in the US that's been around longer and have more commercial success and continues to have commercial success to this day? I'm not hating Cowboy Bebop, but to me it seems like a big important show for a certain generation of anime fan, but is it actually like the biggest anime ever or that just something people from that generation feel and elevate it to? They don't put out sales numbers for anime but is it really #1? Like it's smashing Dragon Ball, smashing both FMAs, smashing GitS TV, smashing all Naruto, smashing AoT, smashing My Hero... is that really happening and just nothing is anywhere close to Cowboy Bebop levels of success? |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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This is easily my favorite answerman article ever! Cowboy Bebop has always puzzled me. I didn't think the show was bad, but I just didn't get the hype. I recently posted in the "unpopular opinions" topic that I just didn't understand Cowboy Bebop's popularity and I wished someone would explain it. It seems that my wish came true because this article hits the nail on the head.
I had already been seriously into anime for several years when Bebop came out so it came across as just another nondescript action anime to me. However, I can now see that the perfect storm of the time it came out, the fact it got a TV broadcast stateside, and the fact that it is so accessible to a western audience more than made up for its flaws (which, IMHO, are many). That detail about accessibility was a huge revelation to me. I had already been watching anime for years so it never occurred to me that some of it might seem strange to a Western audience. Heck, I embraced those things because I enjoyed how new and different they were compared to the Western tropes and ideas that pervaded Hollywood movies and American TV. Japanese names, cultural references, folklore, etc infusing a lot of anime didn't bother me one bit--rather it was a nice breath of fresh air. But yeah, I can see how those kinds of things in some anime could be a turn-off to some viewers and Bebop had very little of that. Bebop is/was far from the best anime ever, but it certainly did hit a magical combination that made it popular with a new generation of fans. I think EricJ2 nailed it:
I was in the college crowd who had money, and had connections for both fansubs and Japanese imports so Bebop wasn't anything special to me. But looking back, if I didn't have those connections I would be looking at it through a totally different lens. |
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Steve Minecraft
 Posts: 120 |
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You hit the nail on the head. Cowboy Bebop is important to a specific generation of Americans who were introduced to anime through it. All the stuff you listed are way more popular overall. Closest thing I've seen to the next Cowboy Bebop is My Hero Academia, which drew in tons of anime non-fans who have been harassing and attacking Kohei Horikoshi nonstop over the past few years. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2866 |
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And even in that generation, cowboy bebop was not that big.
It did not air in tv or cable in countries not named usa , in other countries series like slayers or rayearth were bigger that CB. As far as impact on the fandom goes, Death Note did, by far, had more impact that cowboy bebop while ocupying the same niche and it actually did a similar impact outside of the usa. |
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Chichiryuutei
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No offense but this seems to be a US only thing (kinda like Star Wars).
I watched Cowboy Bebop ~7 years ago and I still share the same opinion. It's a 7/10 at most (think the Destiny 1 of anime). I don't really see the appeal. Then again, I grew up watching anime (late 80's & early 90's hit anime which I just called comiquitas [cartoons]). To me this article theme boils down to someone been star struck and not getting over it. Example in Latin America, everyone talks about the next Dragon Ball or Saint Seiya (MHA, AoT now). In fact, many don't care for any other anime except the aforementioned. Also, poster seems to have a confirmation bias. There are many 12/24 episodes shows that are still talked about Steins;Gate, Valvrare, Madoka, etc. And, let's not forget the titan itself Evangelion. Good article though. Hope more people read it |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5426 Location: Iscandar |
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Before AoT Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Death Note came the closest to matching the excitement and impact of Cowboy Bebop in my opinion. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
Posts: 2523 |
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Last edited by Hiroki not Takuya on Thu Feb 14, 2019 12:19 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1122 |
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I'm going to speak as a non american casual anime viewer. I was too young when Cowboy Bebop arrived here in latin-america in the early 2000s, anime was becoming pretty popular with series like Pokémon and Dragon Ball, among other. There was this channel called Locomotion where they aired anime and adult cartoons, and Cowboy Bebop was one of them, the show was more of a cult hit here, it had a pretty good dub and magazines covered it. It seems to me that Cowboy Bebop was more influential in the U.S than other parts of the world where anime was less censored and was more abundant. I still think that Cowboy Bebop is an excellent show, I rewatched it a couple of times, and it was made in a period where the anime industry was changing in Japan, with shows targeting an older demographic (I heard that even Evangelion was targeted at teens at first). But I don't think is fair to asume that a show will become an instant classic right off the bat, they should become popular by their own merits without comparing them with what came before. Maybe this has to do with how sometimes hype can kill the excitement for a new show, game or movie. All in all, I believe Cowboy Bebop is what you call, lighting in a bottle, it can't be replicated no matter how hard you try.
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1114 Location: Puget Sound |
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Mr. sickVisionz makes an error in conflating "big" ("important") with "sales numbers". You make the same basic mistake by assuming that important to a certain generation means that it's influence is limited to that generation. Importance and influence are not bound by time, nor by the height of the stacks of dollars collected. The numbers for Kuroswa's "Seven Samurai" no doubt pale beside those of the (US) domestic epics it spawned... And I know few people who've actually seen it other than on commercial TV - but you'll find few that would argue that it's influence wasn't, and continues to be, widespread. You'll find very few that will argue that, in the history of film, it's not one of the most important movies ever made because of said influence. The same hold true for Bebop. As Justin points out, it was the right series at the right time to provide a spark. Few sensible people would argue that the Western anime community of today would exist in it's current without that spark. Denigrating it because it's not important to current fans is a short-sighted mistake. |
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