Cowboy Bebop: Great Show, Bad IP

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[@ps3wizard45]

Champloo and Dandy being spiritual successors to Bebop is so much better of a way to iterate on a winning formula than endless sequels.

[@magnustherad3597]

its almost like watanabe is a good director or something.

[@ps3wizard45]

@@magnustherad3597 Undoubtedly!

[@cdubsb3831]

Gonna lob out Terror in Resonance as another Watanabe spiritual successor but focusing on the bleaker aspects of the anime.

[@pablocasas5906]

I'm pretty excited to see Shinichiro's new anime series, Lazarus. I jus hope that [adult swim] won't try to maket as a sort of Cowboy Bebop spiritual sequel, I want the show to stand out on its own merits

[@untrustworthybagel]

The only thing they can do for the IP is to release a really big art book that has literally every background ever used in the show printed at a high quality so I can stare at them

[@thunderbolt1213984]

I love art books for famous films and anime. They are s tier coffee table books.

[@haosmagnaingram6992]

Or having original cells, storyboards, models and what not, put in a museum exhibit (for like the academy of motion picture’s museum’s animation room) Not a very commercial use of an ip but I still technically consider that to be using an ip

[@EllenHourai]

Honestly, in today's environment where nothing is allowed to die and even ancient proprieties keep getting revived and squeezed dry, I think it only speaks to Bebop's strengths that it is able to remain as a one and done story with an actual conclusion despite all efforts against it.

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

I think you’ve internalized consumerism so hard that you refer to complete works as “dead” and not “complete”

[@EllenHourai]

@@doctordice2doctordice210 I think you've been mindpoisoned by internet discourse so much that you care way more about semantics than you should.

[@AnonYmous-np6jn]

>It's le heckin' theme songarino; why wouldn't they want to hear it over and over ad infinitum? It's a heckin' classic.

[@nickl6373]

afford to be consumed this pyres my costume

[@FlamezOfGamez]

I honestly enjoy the board game Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade quite a bit. Each player controls a member of the Bebop, traveling between the ship and 3 planets to defeat bounty hunters by either fighting them (which clogs your deck with wounds) or investigating them (which doesn’t come with wounds, but which is more expensive). But because you’re the cast of Cowboy Bebop, it’s still a competitive game with players trying to score the most points, which naturally leads to players replicating the tone of the show, either swooping in for kill steals getting in each others way, or dysfunctional having everyone separate across different planets rather than “working together”. Each character has a special ability that only they can use, as well as a special ability anyone can use as long as they’re on the same planet as that character (even if you’re playing with less than 4 players). And while they certainly don’t completely capture the characters’ personalities (they’re only so many ways you can interact with the mechanics of a card game), there is one interaction that feels completely perfect. Faye’s ability (that anyone can use) is that she can spend 2 fuel (the currency used for movement and character abilities) as 1 Woolong (the currency used to buy cards and add them to your deck). But since everyone else can only use that ability when Faye’s with them, it leads to the exact sort of interaction you see in the show where Faye flies off with all the Woolongs, and you have to either go chase her down or just sit still and remain mad. It’s a brilliant little interaction for expressing character through the limits of the medium. The game isn’t perfect (I feel like the investigation currency in particular isn’t really good enough for you to be able to focus on it over fight), but it takes enough departures from other similar games to accommodate aspects of Cowboy Bebop that makes me enjoy it both as a love letter to the show, and as a board game with a distinct mechanical identity. Also, Kidnapping is an Ed card you can buy. Jet and Faye kidnapping Ed is recognizable enough that they put it in the game and labeled it as one of Ed’s notable actions taken in the show. You gotta smile at that.

[@shotostudios2392]

“Dike fucking spies at the end of the show” Killed Me Way Harder Than It Should’ve. (Didn’t Realize The Humor In My Phrasing Too ‘Til I Typed It Out.) Good Vid so far, also I don’t know you did the Art you’ve been using for these Reviews but it’s Awesome

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Skekpen did the art! Her bluesky is linked above, and thanks!

[@shotostudios2392]

No problem! Also Thanks for letting me know

[@willybadonkatonka8465]

Yeah, you summed it all up really well. The PS1 game has an interesting place in my heart because of how fucking weird it is and the idea of “why does this thing fucking exist?” I played through a chunk of it and it’s like a really shitty Star Fox 64. I guess I like it because it’s an oddity and that’s really the only way I can recommend it. A fascinating, weird little piece of media.

[@haosmagnaingram6992]

A part of me thinks it is possible to have a good bebop game or manga in theory, but that it can never come to be since anyone proficient enough to pull it off would certainly have more worthwhile projects they would want to pursue that would better lend themselves to exploring the artistic ideas that person was looking toward, additionally I feel like anyone who understands the series well enough to be able to produce something in the spirit of the original would also understand why bebop really doesn’t need anything more.

[@Mary97574]

great breakdown tbh

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Glad you liked it!

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

This is just 21 of explaining why making everything into a franchise is bad

[@Voltanaut]

My literal favourite story in any genre or medium is Cowboy Bebop. My heart is so excessively full of love for the show and movie that I cry multiple times when I rewatch them, which is now at about a dozen times. I can't watch CB too often because my overflow of love genuinely hurts my heart. I still remember the feeling I had when I was 20 years old and finished watching the show with a friend. I stared at the tv as the credits rolled, speechless, mouth slightly agape as my friend said nothing, letting me soak in the moment, as I realised I had just had a religious experience. I had at that point written books in my spare time for 6 years, starting at age 14, but at 20, I realised I needed to write that, what I had just watched, this feeling CB gave me, and I had found my calling in life. Some CB episodes are the definition of beauty and some episodes are legit pig shit (Boogie Woogie Feng Shui and Bohemian Rhapsody), but I will forever love CB, and I always struggle with the idea of more of it, even if I am tantalised by more CB material on par with Ballad of Fallen Angels and The Real Folk Blues parts 1 and 2. The original manga is AIDS, the modern comic and novel are okay, and the American remake is just boring, but what if, you know? I am a novelist in my spare time, and I soon I will finish my 11th novel, book 6 in my 7-book scifi action drama adventure series, inspired heavily by Cowboy Bebop, multiple anime movies and shows and manga, and basically everything I love, especially music, and I've learned that CB's greatest strength is its atmosphere, characters, and personality. The whole bounty hunter thing is at best fun, and the storytelling is at times genuinely boring, but the beautiful scifi world, beautiful animation, beautiful music, beautiful voice acting, and the beautiful feel and vibe the show creates are all unparalleled. I'm a little hypocritical for, if I'm being honest, not really wanting more of CB despite writing a half-CB- and half-everything-I-like-inspired 7-book series (and despite me being willing to purchase and support any conceivable CB creation like some loser simp 😂) but realistically speaking, CB is a once-in-a-generation, borderline once-in-an-entire-medium show, that will never be recreated. How can you recreate the literal greatest anime (my opinion)? It's impossible. I am worried that my series is too similar to CB, and people will bash me for it, which is why I'm grateful for having written other novels that are not at all inspired by CB, (like a scifi rock band story set on Mars, a novel about anthropomorphic dogs replacing mankind in a postapocalyptic world, a scifi drama-romance, and an avant-garde psychological drama about a mentally ill kid who could become a serial killer), but I want CB to live on so bad that I had to create something that would give me the same love CB gives me, and I hope other people will love my series as much as I love CB. If I could touch one other person out there with my writing as much as CB touches me, I'd be very happy.

[@theEvangalists]

Trixie been straight COOKING lately

[@VaryuPon]

Loving this stream of essays you're posting. I hope this new year is going well for you so far, and I hope you can show us more of your writing again in these video formats.

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[@jpickens189]

I think the fact that Cowboy Bebop has a central cast with such a large set of obvious flaws means that the show builds its central appeal on our ability to have compassion for these characters. The Overwatch skins are a very clear representation of how it feels wrong to sell them as these perfect archetypes, because we don't understand them that way.

[@Mezzo-k1y]

I am surprised they havent tried making a new series set in Bebop's world Divorced from the original cast, it seems like the one thing you could do to extend the IP. Of course that comes with its own expectations and potential issues

[@stormysoup1083]

The main thing I like about the merchandising of Bebop is that lets me have a nice, relatively cheap statue of Faye Valentine and that's also kinda where my feelings on it end, as long as they don't put out more garbage like that live action series, just let the series stay dead and I will gladly buy more stuff that has Faye Valentine on it

[@p0stboyANIMATION]

oh so thaaaats why the overwatch collab pissed me off. Thanks for putting it into words

[@onepunchmanatee]

Seeing a McDonald's advertisement this past week on KZbin using footage from NGE and the Rebuilds really put it all in perspective. Hopefully Bebop can avoid the fate of complete flanderization and exploitation of its source material, unlike FLCL and Eva, but with the recent uptick it's looking grim. Please God just let it rest in peace.

[@thunderbolt1213984]

It’s so cooked that we live in a culture with any expectation for great anime shows to become IP money pumps. Imagine of old films were like this. Prequel films to Chinatown? Rouge like tie in video game for the third man where Orwell actually escapes with sewers? The seventh seal chess sets? That’s the level of ridiculousness cowboy bebop tie ins or sequels feel

[@feelshowdy]

Cowboy Bebop made me a lifelong fan of low-tech sci-fi, space noir, and cyber noir. I've been doing a bad job at keeping up with newer releases this decade, but one animated title I did watch through to completion recently is Scavengers Reign. Have y'all seen it? It's a very imaginative production, all about visual and environmental storytelling through vibrant alien biology.

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Check out Caravan SandWitch if you like mellow video games with great stories!

[@Never_Know_Best]

Loved Scavengers; it’s quite the journey. It clearly has a lot of DNA in it from classic psychological anime, but blended into a fresh form that challenges both viewers and characters with the setting of an alien ecosystem that simply *is*. Been spreading the good word as much as I can, even as I know s2 is a doomed prospect.

[@TxaiFolly]

I'd always felt the movie lacked an essential part of the show's soul and I'm very pleased with how you put that into a more analytical framework

[@SomethingImpromptu]

Interesting point, & I don’t necessarily disagree about Bebop (I’m just sick of remakes, reboots, everything familiar being needlessly rehashed for profit in general, though occasionally something happens to turn out well despite falling into that pattern- the new Beetlejuice was fun)… But Game of Thrones is definitely not a good example in support of it… 1. Game of Thrones is based on an original story & IP, A Song of Ice & Fire, which isn’t actually finished, so not super comparable. 2. Even though the main ASOIAF story isn’t finished, George RR Martin, the actual original (genius) author has himself spun it out into other stories in the ASOIAF universe, like the Dunk & Egg stories & Fire & Blood… And those books are also widely beloved by fans of the main story- they’re wonderful in their own respective lanes & introduce even more iconic characters with all the same phenomenal writing that we see in the main story (Fire & Blood is more controversial because it’s written like an in-universe history book & some people just aren’t into that, but for big book fans it is broadly well-received; if anything, people just get mad that George keeps taking the time to write other things instead of finishing the main series, but everything he writes in that universe is generally really great). 3. It’s not generally perceived by book fans (or even a lot of show-only fans from what I’ve seen) that the series “fell off” after HBO created a spin-off series (which itself was based on Fire & Blood, a spin-off book the original author wrote at will). The much more commonly held opinion is that the end of Game of Thrones “fell off,” was shit, because Dan & Dave & their writers didn’t have the vision for an ending that George likely has, so they botched the landing once they ran out of finished book material in the main series… But then when the spin-off came out, a lot of people who liked Game of Thrones (especially seasons 1-4) but were unhappy with how it ended were actually VERY happily surprised by how good HOTD has been. I know I was. So the spin-off we have experience with so far has actually been an improvement relative to how the main series was adapted in the end (although people have mixed feelings season by season, as with most shows). It seems like it was much more an issue of (a) getting the right team on the job- a team capable of actually writing setting-appropriate dialogue & character & plot & everything at a high level like George is able to; D&D fell on their faces at the end of GOT when they had no more book to just copy/paste the dialogue from. Whereas, even though Fire & Blood is an entirely finished work (& the first seasons have only covered a very short section of it), because it’s written as a history book, as if written by a Maester of the Citadel in-universe, there’s virtually no dialogue for them to pull directly from the text- which makes it quite an impressive accomplishment that they managed to write such good dialogue for basically all the characters in adapting this lore-dump into a screenplay. The fact that they got people well-versed in Shakespearean-style theatre really shows, because House of the Dragon is largely written in this very Olde English-adjacent dialect which makes everything feel very dramatic & helps give character interactions & big acting moments a lot of gravitas, as well as adding to the immersive establishment of a medieval-style fantasy setting… It has its problems, but I think every season so far has seemed FAR more competent than the last 3 seasons of GOT. Whether the whole ass extended universe worth of spin-offs they’re planning & filming now turn out, or wind up being artistically bankrupt cash-grabs without the same attention to detail is yet to be seen, & I won’t hold my breath for any kind of really consistent output, but it’s certainly not already as straight forward as “It was great & then they made a spin-off outside the scope of the original IP & now it’s trash.”

[@ps3wizard45]

This is a fantastic script Trixie, your writing prime never seems to end. Ganbatte. EDIT: Im glad I'm not the only one that doesnt really click with the bebop movie, ive tried many times to love it but it just never really lands with me aside the amazing action sakuga.

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mackal]

AFAIK Watanabe has only said confirmed that there was no confirmation on him being dead or alive. What's the source of him saying 100% he's dead? (I think the series makes more sense with him being dead)

[@RbDaP]

"In this video", says the Witch, while not linking them anywhere Never change ❤ (I promise to come back ans do something more thought out but personally I adore the fact that there is nothing else - i can just go watch the anime and if the person doesnt lime anime then why tf are they even talking about Cowboy Bebop)

[@Kuudere-Kun]

Netflix Bebop is a Masterpiece that people will be singing the praises of 20 years from now.

[@WeWatchAnime1]

Liked for the gall

[@Kuudere-Kun]

@@WeWatchAnime1 At least in the live action show Vicious has a personality.

[@AnthonyMuncie]

Actually really glad you made this, I was just thinking about Bebop a lot today

[@09philj]

You wouldn't expect any other revisionist or neo western to become an easily marketable multimedia franchise. It's just not really the vibe. You can't imagine it working for, say, Sergio Leone's Man With No Name trilogy.

[@thatonelucariofan503]

I remember when you discussed this one on stream! I got so excited to announce to chat about how Cowboy Bebop has two shojo mangas. It’s funny cause back then no one but you and I knew about that. But now, Colleen’s manga recs has a video called “Cowboy Bebop is shojo” where she discussed the manga

[@MechaFoxs]

I was going to go through some scenarios that is possible for the Cowboy Bebop IP, but ultimately the only thing they can really sell to the fans is the OST and 4k disc.

[@thatonelucariofan503]

Another random thought: the Blood franchise absolutely got treated the same way. What other franchise gets Clamp to make their own anime take on it (Blood C) which I have never met anyone who earnestly likes except hardcore Clamp heads because there’s connections to XXHolic in the show for some reason 😵‍💫

[@cedricwong0]

I was listening to a non-anime podcast and they were talking about how great it was that Inception came out at just about the last possible time you could have a wildly successful hollywood movie before it inevitably became some sort of recurring multimedia franchise empire. Not only do you not have to watch the original be perverted and twisted if you enjoyed it, but if you weren't a fan, you also didn't have to keep seeing it pop up every six months in a new form like a hydra

[@thatoneguy-7387]

I loved the video you made on on the live action cowboy bebop and was hoping we'd get more but if the views don't justify the effort then that's understandable.

[@AnthonyMuncie]

Is Lupin III worth getting into? I saw Goemon’s Blood Spray a long time ago but don’t know where to start. I’m getting older and tired of depressing shows and just want to have fun lol

[@WeWatchAnime1]

I'd start with Part 4 and then go back or forward based on if you want older or newer stuff

[@LimeyLassen]

Even though Bebops theme is jazz I associate it with grungy/alternative stuff like Witch Hunter Robin and Niea, that wave of late 90s aesthetic that's still alive and well in manga but you don't see so much in anime anymore because experimental moody adult stuff isn't profitable (or at least isn't perceived so). That might change when the new generation of anime fans get sick of isekai and otome and crave something more substantial. This cycle has happened before.

[@WeWatchAnime1]

idk if it's just the profitability as much as the difficulty. Sunrise can do what other studios just can't. Risky art is harder as the technological expectations rise. I think modern techniques just maybe haven't come far enough to surpass the mastery of the very end of the cel era.

[@LimeyLassen]

@@WeWatchAnime1 You're right of course. I remember you made a whole video about that.

[@Draqua]

It's interesting how the quality of a story has an inverse relationship to the desire to see something franchised. While no piece of art is truly flawless or perfect, I do think there are some works that come shockingly close to a crystalized ideal. Digimon Tamers, for example, is the pinnacle of Digimon in terms of concept and storytelling to *me*. My own bias on full display, of course, but it has forever coloured my feelings that no other installment of Digimon was all that necessary. Contrast with something like Transformers, where nearly every franchised installment has something I can at least find intriguing; but there's probably never going to be a perfect, all-encompassing version of a Transformers story that forever renders all other entries unappealing. And I recognized that, for some, the MTMTE run WAS that version, to illustrate my point.

[@ohw5306]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@SkySumisu]

What about Cowboy Bebop being in 2019's Super Robot Taisen T?

[@youtubesurfin]

epi-sew-dic

[@haosmagnaingram6992]

Glad breadsword got a shout out.

[@NisaWild]

I don’t know if I’m just a bitter old bitch but remember when things were just allowed to die and we lived in the memories of how great they were (even if they weren’t). Like Cowboy Bebop is so incredibly to me because of when I experienced it in my life aside from storytelling (which btw if you haven’t seen Trixies ‘carry that weight’ video what are you doing reading this comment go watch that shit now). Cowboy Bebop left me with an emotional epiphany that only very few pieces of media can do. I get people have to eat and companies have to make profits but it’s like when they fucking bring out these older IPs it’s akin to them dragging out my dead grandmother to make my favorite apple pie. She’s ded, let the woman rest and let me live in the memories. Jesus….

[@nickl6373]

did i miss the overwatch event? i still dabble in it now and again lol

[@SteveVi0lence]

That's Haram

[@nickl6373]

i honestly feel like the current (and only playable) version of overwatch is inspiring a lame kind of complacency in me it's such a down grade but even the ugly undead version we have now kind of still scratches the itch it really sucks that's my mostly unrelated overwatch rant

[@nickl6373]

now i need a grown up ed show

[@RayOfTruth]

This is how I feel about Scott Pilgrim. Peak comics.

[@badsmilesorrisocattivo]

Since when do you have Ads on your videos?!

[@WeWatchAnime1]

the whole time!