See You, Space Cowboy

Nowadays I don’t watch much anime which is pretty surprising given that I live in Japan and used to watch epic amounts of anime as a college student and young adult.

I think it came down to a combination of burnout and just that the quality of shows started dropping off pretty sharply. I’ve also never been into shows such as Naruto, Bleach or One Piece that stretch on and on over what feels like decades.

Despite the apathy I’ve had towards anime over the last few years I just went and pre-ordered the new Blu-ray release of Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop is the story of a group of down on their luck bounty hunters in the near future and the adventures they get into. There’s also some excellently written back story weaved into a longer plot thread that winds its way through the various episodes and ends the series on a spectacular note.

What made the show so phenomenally good for not just me but most other anime fans is that it had the perfect mix of character development, action, music, cinema influences and was just darn cool.

Furthermore the English voice work that was done also bucked the trend for contemporary anime shows and was actually almost as good, if not better than the actual Japanese soundtrack. This was when anime still had pretty poor voice acting throughout the industry which was why it was so surprising!

It also took a different approach to its story compared to long running shows such as Naruto and focused on a shorter series of stories with a definite end. The end of the series was also a huge talking point for fans as it ended on a cliffhanger that led to internet forums debating what would happen next right up until today.

All in all this is a show that has stood the test of time for me and is something I will watch countless times. Like Blade Runner it should be on every collectors shelf and with Funimation seemingly putting a lot of effort into this release, us fans may finally have found the perfect Blu-ray to add to our collections.

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