Details Title:
Release Date:
Pros:
Cons:Cowboy Bebop: Volume 1
April 4 2000 (US)
Great animation and soundtrack, superb dub.
Weak extra features.
Review It's the year 2071, and humanity has now moved on beyond the stars to other planets. However with this movement, the law cannot keep up with the rapid change and this results in uncontrollable levels of crime. It's not suprising that the law has now turned to the old-fashioned cowboy for help in catching criminals.
Enter Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, ex-criminal and ex-cop respectively. They search the galaxy for criminals with considerably large bounties on their heads. Even though they've both had experience in the criminal element, they always end up short in cash and continue struggling to find a decent meal.Some people consider the plot of the series the weakest aspect for Bebop. Each episode is independent of each other so the series is very easy to follow. Generally in each episode, the Bebop crew find a bounty and they try to capture them. While it may be simple, the crew have to encounter many (sometimes amusing) obstacles to get to their bounty, only to find out in the end that they go through all that effort for nothing.
However, once in every few episodes, the mood changes to a rather serious one, especially with episode 5 in this volume, which gives an insight to Spike's past life with a powerful criminal syndicate.In the first DVD, we're introduced to the stylish Spike Spiegel, his partner Jet Black, the unusally intelligent dog Ein and the troublesome, yet sexy Faye Valentine. There's just something about these characters that I like: the fact they have a combination of style and realism to them. An example of the realism is how they've each got their own hidden past and in this volume, we get a hint of Spike's past life with the Red Dragon syndicate...
The music is what many people like about the series. Cowboy Bebop uses a combination of classic and modern Blues, which really suits the moment. I felt that the opening (Tank!) and closing (The Real Folk Blues) really suited the series.
The japanese voice actors sound good, and for those fans of Megumi Hayashibara, she does the voice of sexy Faye Valentine. The English voice actors are pretty good also, and they've made a good attempt to stick with the original dialogue. Both of the subtitled and dubbed versions are good, so it's possible to get enjoyment from the series in both languages.There aren't really any good extras in this first volume. There's biography of Spike, a quick introduction of the Bebop crew (in japanese only), and a video clip of the full version of Tank!. Then there's your standard previews of other anime titles. I'm not really in to the features, but for those are in to that kind of thing, may be disappointed by the lack of extra features.
The first volume of Cowboy Bebop is great. If you like the combination of action, gunfights and the occassional humor, you're going to love this.