FERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (4)

By: Charlie Mitchell
January 11, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite animated TV series.

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COWBOY BEBOP | HAJIME YATATE | 1998–2000

One of the greatest appeals of sci-fi is the speculative timeline. We can endlessly wonder how the world (or galaxy) might look in our lifetimes and long after we’re gone. Such visions can range from the comically absurd — e.g. the opening scene of Blade Runner (1982) of smog-belching hive L.A. in 2019, to which you might respond, ‘huh, not that different’ — to Cowboy Bebop.

It’s as if the creators of this Japanese anime TV series — including director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, and composer Yoko Kanno — took our current globalization a step further and in concordance with VHS aesthetics. Urban sprawl on other worlds with corporate ads, Kanji signs, smokey saloons, diversity and mix of culture, even wealth stratification made visible by grandiose ships with chandelier halls and rustbuckets better served as fishing skiffs on water.

What’s most beautiful about Bebop is that almost all of its world-building is visual, never drowning out the characters who navigate this galaxy — not to mention that late-’90s virtue of hand-drawn frames. Everything you see has tacit explanation, or else just enough to sell a gritty life among the stars. The atmosphere almost starts breathing with vernacular like ‘ballad,’ ‘strut,’ and ‘blues,’ the jazz score, and the grit of the cast’s voices.

This show has plucked at my heart through its characters. Almost perpetually in bachelor mode (and broke), they suffer hangovers and worse. More than once, we see Spike hauling a bag of groceries — in fact, it seems like hunger motivates a decent swathe of these bounty hunters’ actions. Hunger alone doesn’t do the plots and characters justice. It’s like we know Spike, Faye, and Jet just enough to predict how they will behave, but relish their vulnerabilities and understand their resignations.

This galaxy is neither dystopian nor utopian: It feels grounded and human, as if it were really a natural extension of humankind’s progress.

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FERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: SERIES INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Miranda Mellis on STEVEN UNIVERSE | Luc Sante on TOP CAT | Peggy Nelson on PINK PANTHER | Charlie Mitchell on COWBOY BEBOP | Mimi Lipson on THE FLINTSTONES | Sam Glenn on BIG MOUTH | Mandy Keifetz on ROAD RUNNER | Ramona Lyons on SHE-RA | Holly Interlandi on DRAGON BALL Z | Max Glenn on ADVENTURE TIME | Joe Alterio on REN & STIMPY | Josh Glenn on SPEED RACER | Adam McGovern on KIMBA THE WHITE LION | Jonathan Pinchera on SAMURAI JACK | Lynn Peril on JONNY QUEST | Stephanie Burt on X-MEN THE ANIMATED SERIES and X-MEN: EVOLUTION | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on THE JETSONS | Adam Netburn on NARUTO | Madeline Ashby on AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER | Tom Nealon on TRANSFORMERS | Sara Ryan on BOJACK HORSEMAN | Michael Grasso on COSMIC CLOCK | Erin M. Routson on BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD | Deborah Wassertzug on DARIA | Lydia Millet on BOB’S BURGERS.

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

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Categories

Cartoons, Enthusiasms