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I haven't seen this in a while either! Just finished the first four episodes, I remembered how cool the show was, but forgot how funny it can be. Really enjoying it so far. I have never seen the movie, but am hopeful I can find a way to watch.Arc Hammer posted:Bebop is about a lot of things but one I don't see discussed enough is how the world is used. It's essentially the inverse of most stories. Instead of the world changing by the actions of the protagonists, the show is instead about how the world changes on its own terms and the protagonists have to move through it or fall behind getting hung up on the past. The world doesn't care what happens to Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed, Ein or anyone. It'll still be there in one way or another long after we've all left it.
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Sep 8, 2021 15:36
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Argus Zant posted:It's even present, though not as obvious, in Asteroid Blues. in retrospect, Asimov is trying to do the same thing Spike did and leave the syndicate life behind him, and the parallels between the two are probably not pleasant for Spike to think about. Yep. Doubly uncomfortable for Spike because his job as a bounty hunter puts him in the same position as the syndicate thugs who tried to kill him when he faked his death, which essentially puts Spike right back into the old life he tried to leave behind. Someone wants out, so someone has to kill them. I've got some things to say about the characters who mirror Spike in the series but I'll wait until after the thread has watched Ballad of Fallen Angels.
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Sep 8, 2021 16:24
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raditts posted:Cowboy Bebop and Fullmetal Alchemist are probably the only two animes where I think the dub is superior. For me its Bebop and DBZ. I can't do the Japanese DBZ voices. Akira is 50/50, they're both equally good. Otherwise I usually prefer subs. Arist posted:Spike no, that's not for eating Its a magic trick
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Sep 8, 2021 18:47
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Arc Hammer posted:Bebop is about a lot of things but one I don't see discussed enough is how the world is used. It's essentially the inverse of most stories. Instead of the world changing by the actions of the protagonists, the show is instead about how the world changes on its own terms and the protagonists have to move through it or fall behind getting hung up on the past. The world doesn't care what happens to Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed, Ein or anyone. It'll still be there in one way or another long after we've all left it. If anybody ITT hasn't seen it already: (Note, spoilers if this is your first watch) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip5CpjXR4CI Great analysis of the tragic and mature (in the 'grown up' sense, not in the violence or sex sense) themes of Bebop. Eyepatch Wolf's is great too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvXw_5jlW3Y Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 18:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8-GrO25zBQ Steak Bentley's video is also excellent.
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Sep 8, 2021 19:22
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Zaphod42 posted:For me its Bebop and DBZ. I can't do the Japanese DBZ voices. For DBZ it's the opposite for me, like the current dubs are okay but I'm probably biased having watched unsubbed DBZ episodes in the early 90s on this local cable channel combined with the godawful dubs from the mid-90s to the early 2000s, so unnaturally high-pitched voice Goku is the only one that seems "right" to me. It was kinda weird watching the japanese version of Voltron much later on and hearing Goku's voice coming out of Pidge though.
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Sep 8, 2021 19:47
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Question regarding the Blu Ray release of Bebop. I have the DVDs. Is the audio quality for the English track cleaned up? Some of the episodes literally sound like they were recorded in a bathtub. I know that actually was the case for some dubbing situations but this is the first time I've listened to Bebop with good headphones so it has stuck out to me. The music track still sounds fine but the foley and language tracks are compressed as hell. I did a quick Google search and apparently there are still compression issues with Funimation's Blu Ray release but there is an out of print Sony Blu Ray version that has better audio quality but lacks on-disc extras. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Sep 9, 2021 |
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Sep 9, 2021 05:29
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You should all make the effort to watch the movie, it has an absolutely amazing soundtrack.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:17
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Sankara posted:You should all make the effort to watch the movie, it has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. Definitely agreed. Question is, do we want to rewatch the movie before or after the show finale? I'd argue it's better to watch the movie after the end of the series rather than during the run. It's just another story but the themes of the film make it a really really good epilogue to Bebop.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:54
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Arc Hammer posted:Definitely agreed. Question is, do we want to rewatch the movie before or after the show finale? I'd argue it's better to watch the movie after the end of the series rather than during the run. It's just another story but the themes of the film make it a really really good epilogue to Bebop. I've never seen it so I'll defer to you guys if we wanna change its placement. We might also want to change the schedule a bit anyway because I just realized Jupiter Jazz gets split between weeks.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:59
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Arist posted:I've never seen it so I'll defer to you guys if we wanna change its placement. We could shuffle The Movie to the last week so we watch it alongside the finale and then use that gap week to stretch things out so we're not splitting Jupiter Jazz.
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Sep 9, 2021 19:49
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Something else that strikes me, watching the first few episodes again: Cowboy Bebop is a show about how cool people look while smoking and I think I am a little perturbed that I haven’t seen a single cigarette in the live-action’s promos.
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Sep 9, 2021 21:54
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It's a running joke that Spike keeps trying to smoke in non smoking areas. Here's hoping Cho tries to light one with a flamethrower blowtorch. I watched Honky Tonk Woman last night and I think it's the episode that feels most like a Lupin III riff. I mean Jet basically turned into a palette swap of Jigen with his outfit and crashing onto the windshield of Faye's ship wouldn't be out of place for Lupin's crew. Also I forgot about Jet's rambling Charlie Parker dream rant.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:05
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Arist posted:I've never seen it so I'll defer to you guys if we wanna change its placement. On one hand story takes place between episode 9 and 23. On the other it came out two years after the show. And those preferred watch lists are for rewatches. So watch it after the show.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:13
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Yeah, I think having the movie in the middle would ruin the pacing of the TV show
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Sep 9, 2021 22:23
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All right then, to the end it goes.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:28
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Updated schedule, if this works better:Arist posted:September 3-9: Episodes 1-4
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Sep 9, 2021 22:31
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That looks better. Keeps Jupiter Jazz together as the big watch for the weekend of the 24th and putting the Movie at the end makes a nice capstone.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:37
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Something else that strikes me, watching the first few episodes again: Cowboy Bebop is a show about how cool people look while smoking and I think I am a little perturbed that I haven’t seen a single cigarette in the live-action’s promos. Do we know what the series is going to be rated? Netflix gor flack from all of the prominent smoking in the first two seasons of Stranger Things so they said they wouldn't allow cigarettes or vaping in shows/movies rated PG-14 or below unless it was for historical reasons. Maybe they're just downplaying it in the advertisements.
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Sep 9, 2021 22:52
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Arist posted:Updated schedule, if this works better: I swear I remember being told a few years ago that the movie takes place during Halloween, so presuming that's true, this works out slightly better for multiple reasons, not just pacing ones Arc Hammer posted:I watched Honky Tonk Woman last night and I think it's the episode that feels most like a Lupin III riff. I mean Jet basically turned into a palette swap of Jigen with his outfit and crashing onto the windshield of Faye's ship wouldn't be out of place for Lupin's crew. Also I forgot about Jet's rambling Charlie Parker dream rant. huh, I never noticed before that Jet is cosplaying as Jigen, but now that you mention it it's hard to NOT see. I always thought I was sharp-eyed for noticing that the casino in the first half of the episode is a big David Bowie reference. "Only hands can wash hands" is one of those things I like to spit out when I'm trying to sound deep.
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Sep 10, 2021 04:53
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Argus Zant posted:I swear I remember being told a few years ago that the movie takes place during Halloween, so presuming that's true, this works out slightly better for multiple reasons, not just pacing ones It does indeed take place around Halloween! 
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Sep 10, 2021 05:16
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Oh jeez...Jet is canonically a year younger than I am, now... 
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Sep 10, 2021 05:16
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So, Ballad of Fallen Angels. Still kicks rear end. The best part has to be Spike's whole attitude of being completely done with Vicious's bullshit so he immediately starts gunning everyone down rather than negotiate. And I like the comedy beat for the ending. Now I said I had some things to say about Vicious and more about Spike. Vicious isn't exactly a great character or a particularly deep antagonist. More than anything else, he's a pretentious edgelord who uses violence and intimidation to get what he wants and screws over anyone in his way. Basic stuff, really. What makes Vicious work isn't anything to do with himself being compelling and everything to do with Spike. Spike, despite being the protagonist who feels the most emotionally distant, is the one who interacts with the most guest-of-the-week characters across the show. He's either a dick to them, or helpful, or empathetic, because what Spike does more than anyone else is mirror himself in the people he interacts with. Vicious isn't interesting on his own, his relationship with Spike is what is interesting. Vicious is a reflection of Spike's past life, everything he left behind when his faked his death. Everything he (tried to) move away from. So of course Vicious is a petty, violent jackass teenager's idea of a "cool dude" who kills for pleasure and acts like he's some wise warrior poet with eloquent nonsense about angels becoming demons, ravenous beasts who hunt other beasts and a good heaping of social darwinism. He's the edgy teenager that most of us grow out of, the kind of person we're not proud that we once were and we look back on them and cringe. And yet Spike, despite having moved on somewhat from this edgelord past, still feels compelled to come back and kill the past, because he's not sure that his present is even real, "just a bad nightmare I'm not waking up from." It reveals a lot about Spike's worldview, and for that reason Vicious is an effective antagonist. We see reflections of Spike in nearly everyone he mingles with. In Asteroid Blues Asimov is who Spike was when he ran, but had the bad luck to be on the losing side of that chase, something Spike is aware of and doesn't like. In Sympathy for the Devil, Wen's whole deal is the past finally catching up with him, literally, just as Spike's past won't let him go as much as it feels like a different life altogether. In Waltz for Venus, Rocco's desire to help Stella is a more sympathetic take on the Spike/Julia dynamic than the Asimov/Caterina situation, but it means the same thing to Spike, which is why he ends up getting involved even after he had finished with Rocco's martial arts lesson. Jupiter Jazz has Gren, who is literally another victim of the same dick rear end in a top hat Vicious who keeps dredging up the past to destroy people who've tried to move on. In Cowboy Funk, Andy is the kind of person Spike wants to be, the hero with the white cowboy hat who gets the bad guys, and someone challenging that bruises his ego. It only heals when Andy gives it up, something he does easily in an almost delusional manner, and lets Spike be the real Space Cowboy. Letting go of an old life to start a new one. Pierrot Le Fou is a man who lost his past and isn't really aware of his current self, which sounds awfully familiar. It's also appropriate then that Mad PIerrot and (Movie Spoiler for people who haven't seen it yet) Vincent are the only two times in the show where an antagonist has actually terrified Spike. Vicious is the past, Andy is the ideal Spike wants to be, but Vincent and Mad Pierrot (to a lesser extent) are both the same type of person that Spike is in the present: a man who lives in dreams. Seeing that reflection of himself is enough to make Spike afraid of death and of his current existence. If Vincent or Pierrot are other people sleepwalking through life and they're that detached and horrific, what does that make Spike himself? And I think that's what really makes Spike compelling beyond the cool veneer he throws up to pretend like he doesn't care, and why I think that a Cowboy Bebop show doesn't really even need Spike or Faye or Jet or Ed or Ein to still feel like a Cowboy Bebop show. It's reflections of everybody, everywhere. Spike is just a mirror to them, showing the viewer how things were, how things are, and how things could have been if circumstances changed. It's less about the characters and more about the vibe.
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Sep 11, 2021 23:23
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I'm catching up to the watch order, but I would like to note it's taken me twenty years to notice that the as-you-know-Bob about the missiles in hyperspace bit in episode 4 is less about explaining why everything's hunky dory for the viewer, and more to deliver that line about how Faye doesn't know something that's part of high school physics across the system.
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Sep 12, 2021 00:22
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I mean how would she know when she had a high school education from 2008? I like how that episode concludes with the solution being as simple as "wait why don't we just shut down the highway?" Goes well with Spike's caveman routine trying to figure out the ampule
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Sep 12, 2021 00:25
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Spike falling out of the cathedral window with Green Bird playing is, I think, the show's most iconic moment.
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Sep 12, 2021 01:18
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Debatable. Bang.
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Sep 12, 2021 01:23
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Arc Hammer posted:Debatable. Bang. "Bang" might be more a memorable line, but I've always felt that Ballad of Fallen Angels is the more quintessential Bebop episode as a whole. It's something you can show to anyone fresh off the street and have them understand why you think it's amazing; whereas The Real Folk Blues, as a series finale, is much more about being the culmination of Spike's show-long character arc, and therefore has prerequisite viewing in order to really appreciate it. "Bang" delivers differently depending on how you go into that scene, but there's so little prior context going into BoFA that it stands on its own any day of the week. On that note, I'm always slightly surprised that Ballad, for as much as I think of it as being the Bebop episode, drops in this early in the show's run. The entire crew hasn't even been brought together yet and Faye's only barely been established as being part of the core cast, and yet here we are having one of the most memorable episodes of the whole series before we hit the 1/4 mark. Most other shows you would put money on that kind of episode being closer to the back end, I think.
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Sep 12, 2021 01:59
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I sincerely hope the live action show just goes gently caress it and sticks with spike inexplicably having a full on chief wahoo friend he occasionally goes to for advice
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Sep 12, 2021 03:20
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That's Laughing Bull, aka Sitting Bull but in Space. And I hope he shows up too just to watch people freak out and start writing angry articles. They're actually just jealous that Laughing Bull has the last PS1 in existence in the future.
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Sep 12, 2021 03:42
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Session 6: Sympathy for the Devil. I'll start by saying I like this one, but I'm not entirely sure what was going on, even after sitting down and thinking about it. It's one of those episodes where a lot of stuff happens that doesn't quite make sense before ending on a melancholy note that somehow coalesces the entire thing together. This may sound strange, but if I had to draw a comparison, the closest thing I can think of to relate to this episode is The Blues Brothers. The imagery and music remind me of those opening shots of Chicago's industrial centers in Blues Brothers and the plot felt like a scene right out of the movie, just a collection of bizarre non sequitur scenes that make little sense on their own. All the stuff like the machine that can read comatose memories, or hyperspace time getting infused into a crystal that gets turned into a werewolf bullet or Fatty, none of it really stands up to close scrutiny and you go "okay, then, whatever you say" and you roll with it. Wen only has his soliloquy when he explains what happened to him and his deathbed epiphany, so everything else about him is carried by the music and the visuals, and that's why the ending works so well in spite of the pretty weird plot. The past catching up to someone who has dodged it for so long, a clear victim of childhood trauma and subsequent abuse, having your life stolen from you and in turn stealing it from others. It hits a real mood that sells the episode. Better than the sum of its parts. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 03:14
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The movie was on Canadian Netflix recently and I rewatched it. Visual marvel. This series is one of those anime classics like Evangelion that everyone has seen but I didn’t really enjoy, both at the time and during a rewatch. Characters felt too cold. The movie has that same vibe but is more satisfying? And the music, especially in the opening and ending, are super great. Maybe the best animation ever in the movie opening too. I really like Space Dandy as a warmer and wackier version of Bebop.
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Sep 13, 2021 03:21
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The show has an underlying question of how far the characters can go before they have to throw off their dismissive veneer and actually care about something. That some of the characters never find a way to make peace with that notion adds to the tragedy at the end. And yeah, the movie is on the more optimistic side of the series, but even it tinges that happy ending with melancholy so it still hits the same beats as the show.
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Sep 13, 2021 03:37
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Ccs posted:I really like Space Dandy as a warmer and wackier version of Bebop. I could never get past the objectification Space Dandy could engage in. There are some good episodes, but, man. I really like the genre of anime series Bebop spawned though -- Samurai Champloo, Michiko to Hatchin, Ergo Proxy. But Space Dandy is probably the worst of them. (Are there any others I'm missing? I think that's all of them.)
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Sep 13, 2021 04:09
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Open Source Idiom posted:I could never get past the objectification Space Dandy could engage in. There are some good episodes, but, man. The first season of One Punch Man, perhaps? It's got a more structured narrative to it than Bebop, sure, but it does a similar vibe of "things happening around the protagonist who occasionally is directly involved but otherwise is just doing their thing."
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Sep 13, 2021 04:28
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Megalobox might be worth a look, the visual style matches really well.
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Sep 13, 2021 05:21
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Now that I think about it is there any chance Spike put himself back on the syndicate's radar fighting their guys trying to beat them to asimov
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Sep 13, 2021 05:24
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Milo and POTUS posted:Now that I think about it is there any chance Spike put himself back on the syndicate's radar fighting their guys trying to beat them to asimov I doubt it. Vicious only starts gunning for Spike after Mao Yenrai let's it slip that he believes Spike is still alive. Vicious's crew had already made their play to take over Mao's portion of the syndicate when it became clear Mao favored peace terms with their rivals. Spike was just a loose end, so they put out the bounty as bait. It's pretty clear to anyone who knew Spike from his old life that he wouldn't be able to let go of bait like that. Faye getting involved wasn't part of the plan but the syndicate was pretty quick to run a background check on her and you know she'd have been threatened into selling Spike out. Spike fighting syndicate goons in Asteroid Blues precipitating a complex power play by Vicious just to draw Spike out seems a bit too convoluted.
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Sep 13, 2021 05:39
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Milo and POTUS posted:Now that I think about it is there any chance Spike put himself back on the syndicate's radar fighting their guys trying to beat them to asimov I shouldn't think so, primarily because this episode (as well as others down the line) shows that there are syndicates other than the Red Dragon out there, and Asimov was presumably from one of them. Besides, that would have made the thematic parallels between Spike and Asimov that I mentioned just a little too on-the-nose and plot-heavy for a series premiere , rather than something you pick up on with repeat viewings. I'd say that, in the grand scheme of Bebop's overarching narrative re:Spike, Asteroid Blues is just meant as a preamble that raises the curtain and sets the scene for the series as whole, and isn't necessarily laying out plot beats. Ballad of Fallen Angels is the true first act: it introduces Vicious as an antagonist, establishes his character as a dickhead who acts violently against any perceived weakness in those around him (regardless of their status), and provides (relatively) clear context for the antagonism between Vicious and Spike while alluding to Spike's backstory in a way that never goes beyond what's absolutely required to support the current state of the narrative. e: Sympathy for the Devil is an episode that really gets something added to it on a re-watch, when you realize how narratively similar it is to Pierrot le Fou, despite (or perhaps specifically because of) Wen and Mad Pierrot being thematic opposites of one another. Argus Zant fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 06:18
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Sympathy for the Devil falls into that same category as a lot of the one-off episodes where it's meant to give you some tone more than anything - same with Heavy Metal Queen, Wild Horses, Pierrot Le Fou, and so on. We don't learn anything about our characters, but we do pick up some of the strange world they inhabit. I argue a lot that Bebop is an anthology show that happens to have a couple recurring characters, and I think that's hugely important to the feel of the show and why it's compelling, even if it is a narrative mess. Waltz for Venus sorta lets us in to Spike's inner life just a little bit, then slams the door again. I like this episode, but I have a harder time justifying its existence than the other ones in this block.
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Sep 13, 2021 17:26
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