This Week in Anime

Beyond Bebop

Coop
It's safe to say that Watanabe has come a long way since starting his anime career as a production manager on 1985's Blue Comet SPT Layzner. After almost a decade of working his way up the ranks, Watanabe made a splash with his first directorial effort— 1994's Macross Plus.

Not to mention that this little Super Dimensional follow-up kicked off a decades-long collaboration between the director and regular collaborators Keiko Nobumoto and Yōko Kanno.
Having recently revisited the series for review, I was struck by how Macross Plus set a perfect tone for the rest of Watanabe's career. Plus demonstrates the director's tremendous talent for balancing granular sci-fi elements with a thrilling interpersonal drama. He knows that even though he might be playing in a cool sandbox, it doesn't matter if his characters aren't compelling.

That is Watanabe's secret sauce...along with the killer tunes that punctuate his work (even if those tunes aren't always from Yōko Kanno).

Macross Plus is an absolute must-watch for any Cowboy Bebop enjoyer. It's the initial jam session brought this team of legendary creatives together and made them think, "What if we did more of this together?" Additionally, it's worth pointing out that Shōji Kawamori allegedly played a big role in helping Watanabe and Co. get Bebop off the ground.

But you brought up an excellent point there, Lucas. Let's get this out of the way right now: Cowboy Bebop is a stone-cold classic. I know it, you know it, your grandma knows it, the guy who tries to sell bootleg merch at the mall knows it, and it goes on from there. However, I feel that Bebop's outsized reputation in North America has unfortunately pigeonholed Watanabe to a degree. Well, at least whenever he has a new project developed for North American audiences, that is.

We can agree that Shinichirō Watanabe's talents can be seen in more than a single show he directed almost thirty years ago.

Most of my familiarity comes from Samurai Champloo's PS2 outing, Sidetracked, and a few random Adult Swim airings in the early aughts. However, it's been one of those series on my radar for a long while.

However, my interest shot up after I had a wonderful in-person chat with Nujabes collaborator Substantial at Otakon last year. The dude is super cool and incredibly nice. But back to Champloo itself, a collision of hip-hop and samurai stories is right up my alley. Though I'd have to say, I might've been pushed away from the series at a younger age due to the sheer amount of "THIS IS FROM THE BEBOP GUY!" I heard back then.

There's no better way to watch anime than that.
Just a year before Champloo, Watanabe contributed two vignettes—A Detective Story and Kid's Story—to the animated anthology film, The Animatrix. As a kid who randomly caught the film on TNT, I remember being blown away by the tense, sketchy, mad dash to freedom presented in Kid's Story. To my knowledge, the only other Watanabe work that comes close to this visual style is perhaps the wilder moments of a certain dandy series.

And Trinity is even cooler in A Detective Story.

I might be one of those watchers too! When Space Dandy (or Spance Daddy if you're one of the cool kids) hit Toonami in 2014, I was knee-deep in my sophomore year of college without a TV in sight. However, I caught the first episode during the holiday break and was thrilled by how irreverent and deeply unserious the series' setup is. You showed me a Terminator 2 thumbs up in the first episode, and you got me. Well, if I've got cable, that is.

On the topic of cable, you can't talk Space Dandy without pointing out its status as one of the first North American simulcasts ever to be televised. It isn't the first anime with that distinction (Kurokami did that long before our Dandy Guy did), but it sure made a splash.

Speaking honestly, I think Bebop's long shadow was probably a factor in that initially cool reception. Especially since Dandy was aired on the same block that had been rerunning Bebop episodes for a decade by that point. There's something of a "more Cowboy Bebop" expectation built in, for better or worse. It all reminds me of the conversation Chris and I had a while back surrounding the FLCL sequels. It's another case of some viewers (and financiers) chasing that nostalgic dragon instead of taking a wider look at the creative world around them.
It's one of the many reasons we ended up with this little show...

But if you love fascinatingly bad TV, man, does Netflix Bebop give you so much cheese to chew on...

In sharp contrast, Carol & Tuesday goes a long way to highlight its incredibly diverse cast of characters and how the socioeconomics of Mars affect their lives.

The series touches upon these issues in a down-to-earth manner, be it class disparities, the encroachment of generative AI, or discrimination. As I mentioned earlier, it's what makes Watanabe's work sing. He and his team can cut through the sci-fi elements and get to the heart of issues people face every day. That approach is infinitely more relatable than fixating on elements that don't push the characters forward as people.

Carol & Tuesday breaking into a concert hall to jam together hits me harder than a long exposition about super-technology X or Y.

This is the song everyone needs this week.

I'd be inclined to agree. It's nice to see him stretch his feet in other genres like the bone-chilling Terror in Resonance, but whenever he touches anything north of sci-fi, it feels as if he's still "carrying that weight."
This brings us to Lazarus. The series has a great sci-fi action setup, with the titular unit's mad dash to find Dr. Skinner within 30 days lest humanity meet its end. After the trailer gives audiences the rub, it cuts in with the jazzy rock and the Jeet Kune Do. The series looks great, don't get me wrong, but now I'm feeling "that weight."

I'm looking forward to checking it out, but I hope Lazarus can stand on its own two feet—divorced of any Bebopities. Who knows, maybe Watanabe said, "I'm doing it myself," after seeing how the Netflix show turned out.

I'd be more on board with that line of thinking rather than, "I was told to direct another show like this one I made 30 years ago." In reality, it could be a little bit of column A and column B; we'll have to see.
Vicious is my favorite part of Netbop by the way...

He's not good at all, but he is wildly entertaining.

A truly fascinatingly unhinged performance. Makes for a great stockpile of reaction images, too.

Welcome to the ouch, indeed. Regardless of how Lazarus will or won't turn out, it's safe to say that Watanabe and his collaborators have more than a few amazing series for new viewers to discover!