Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Shortly after I began my undergraduate career at UC Santa Cruz, I soon found myself exposed to an art form I associated with “geekiness.” The people who lived on my hall watched Anime religiously, and being desperate to make friends as quickly as possible – like most frosh – I soon became amazed with the intricacies of the animation. One production, in particular, stood out: the Anime television show -turned-feature film, Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira (Shinichiró Watanabe, 2001, Japan).
Set in the not so distant future of 2071 A.D., Cowboy Bebop serves as a postmodern American western, but set in space. The human race has at this time achieved interstellar travel, but it came at a steep price. The first test of this new intergalactic space-highway resulted in a massive accident that destroyed half of the moon, sending the shattered pieces to Earth, devastating the planet and massacring more than two-thirds of the human race. The survivors scattered across the galaxy in search of a new home. Those who never settled down on a new planet traveled the stars as loners. Many became “Cowboys” or bounty hunters who searched the dark reaches of space for criminals. Both the TV show and its feature-length counterpart revolve around a team of bounty hunters: Spike Spigel, Tank, Faye Valentine, and Ed.
The feature-length Cowboy Bebop follows our bounty-hunter heroes in their attempt to catch a terrorist. The terrorist plans to unleash a deadly virus on the planet of Mars during the most celebrated holiday of Halloween, where thousands of people gather for an annual festival. The desert terrain of mars and the mostly desolate towns resemble the old American west, in the postmodern time of the late twenty-first century. The conflict between the terrorist Vincent and the main character Spike also mirrors the conflict between a Sheriff and the villainous cowboy. Like the television show, the feature-length Cowboy Bebop is set to an eclectic array of music, most notably jazz, and many of the fight scenes are timed along with the music. So, we have a futuristic, western-influenced anime, with a jazz soundtrack, that also happens to be set in outer space. Upon hearing this description, one might ask why he/she should watch this postmodern film.
What intrigued me about the show is the fact that it is a refreshing retelling of a familiar story. These bounty hunters are loners and outcasts. They are no longer accepted by their society, which has collapsed into chaos. As outcasts they are attempting to find themselves in a new and scary universe. As a first-year college student who was also attempting to find himself in a new and scary universe, I felt a certain bond with these characters. The fact that it was set in space, set to jazz music, and a cartoon just made it that much more entertaining and unique. This is a little-known film that everyone should watch, regardless of whether or not you are first-year.
