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Cowboy Bebop - The Perfect Sessions (Limited Edition Complete Series Boxed Set) Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 53 Reviews)

My favorite anime series! One of the best!
First of all, let me start by saying that Cowboy BeBop is my favorite anime, and loved by many others! I'm sorry, I just felt like I had to say that. ;) On with the review!
Summary
Aboard the old fishing ship, The BeBop, live bounty hunters Spike Spiegal and Jet Black. Money doesn't come very easily to them, and they usually don't get the bounty that they're after. They make a good team, but both are very stubborn which leads to problems sometimes. If that's not bad enough, how about adding an illegal "data dog" named Ein, a woman with massive debts and always seems to attract trouble named Faye Valentine, and a genius teenage hacker named Edward Wong Hau Pepilu Tivursky 4th to the team? Things just got rougher for the crew of the BeBop...
Characters
Spike Spiegal
He was a former member of the Red Dragon syndicate, who's past is clouded. He doesn't share his feelings with anyone. The only thing Jet and the others know is that he he has a strange relationship with a man named Vicious, and a woman named Julia...
Jet Black
Former ISSP (police) officer, Jet Black is the owner of the BeBop. While it is a mystery on how Jet and Spike met, he seems to be the only person that Spike truly trusts. Jet doesn't always like to talk about his past either, but he doesnt' keep it in as much as Spike does. He doesn't like to talk about his mysterious injury regarding his arm, though.
Faye Valentine
Little about her is known, but she claims to be a gypsie when she and Spike meet. There are only 3 things that they are sure of. She loves to gamble, she has a huge debt to pay off, and she's nothing but trouble.
Edward Wong Hau Pepilu Tivurksy 4th
Edward Wo...Let's just call her (yes, HER!) Ed. Ed's a teenage hacker from Earth that the BeBop crew happen to come across. Despite her age (13), she's a very skilled hacker. Everyone on Earth knows her name! This is all that is known about her.
Ein
A Welsh Corgi "data dog" that that Spike and Jet run into while chasing their bounty. So what is a "data dog"? Well, it's a-
Animation
The animation is very high-quality! You can tell that the producers spent a lot of money making it. It's very fluid, and breathe a bit of life into the characters. The first episode is done better than the second and third one. From the fourth one on is done like the first one. In other words, episodes 1, and 4-26 are done better than episodes 2 and 3. This may seem strange that the first episode is done better than the second and third, but the first episode was made AFTER the 13th episode. It wasn't created untill the 13th (I think) was made. Cowboy BeBop was intended as a 13-episode series. When it got a spot on a new network however, they decided to make it longer with a new first episode. Did you get all that?
Music
WOW! Yoko Kanno, Cowboy BeBop's composer, has outdone herself! The music is breathtaking and memorable! When you're watching the series and one of her songs come up, you can't help but realize that it's much more than just mere backround music. This isn't typical anime music. There's a lot of jazz, some ska, a heavy metal song, and, well... You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it! There are currently 8 CD soundtracks to it right now, and I highly recomend getting them if you've seen the series.
All in all, Cowboy BeBop is one of the best anime's around. If you missed out on the box set, this is perfect for you. I'm highly anticipating the release of the movie, which comes out soon! Cowboy BeBop will become, if it already isn't, an instant classic that people will be talking about for a long time! Are you still reading my review? Hurry up and buy this set!

Almost The Best Series Ever
If Neon Genesis Evangelion ranks as the No. 1 anime series ever, Cowboy Bebop would be an easy No. 1.1, wrapped up beautifully in 26 masterful episodes.

Bebop takes place some time in the assumed future: all money is electronically transfered on plastic in the denomination of "woolongs." Space travel to different planets is the norm, VHS players and joystick-video games are antiques, and the Internet is navigated by goggles. Bebop focuses on one group of people: bounty hunters or "cowboys" as they are called. There is even a regular television show that updates cowboys on the best and biggest bounties out there. The best, but unluckiest, of the bunch and Jet, an ex-cop with an artificial iron arm, and Spike, an extremely laid-back, confident ex-gangster, proficient in weapons and judo. Along the way, they pick up Faye, a gambling-addicted babe from the past, freed from her cryogenic sleep; Ed, a tomboyish-girl generally accepted as one of the planet's best hackers; and Ein, a super-intelligent Welsh Corgi (he barks and doesn't talk).

The animation is so spectacular and uninhibited that the feeling of watching anime versus live action is blurred. The camera can go shaking erratically during a crash or hand-to-hand fight sequence; it can go red-tinted and distorted when it switches to the view of a rampaging drug addict; it can flip 360 from the ground to the sky, back to the ground as someone gets thrown; or it can merely show birds flying off into the sky as the report of a gunshot fades. The anime is extremely detailed and the CG moments chosen very wisely. The colors are also well-chosen; blacks and blues for the more brutal flashbacks, or a golden hue for more choice memories. Nothing is accidental; you know they paid great attention when they have Spike's fake eye just a shade lighter of brown than his real eye.

The stories are very-well thought out and choreographed, with each bounty having a significant back story, not just a nameless bad guy or girl. It's fun to see the creative ways the cowboys corner and capture their bounties, or just the mad scramble to recover when their plans go awry. But it's not all just bounty hunting. Spike, the closest thing to a main character, his constantly haunted by a past he has long tried to leave behind, most frequently in the form of Julia, a long-lost love whose story isn't explored in-depth until close to the end; and Vicious, once Spike's right hand man in the gang, equally adept at fighting and coming out of impossible situations alive.

The masterpiece of the series comes in the fifth episode, the first confrontation between Spike and Vicious, that epitomizes all that is cool about Cowboy Bebop. Spike takes on Vicious' entire team of thugs, then battles him one-on-one in scenes very reminiscent of a John Woo flick (i.e. a quick battle, ending abruptly with Spike's gun pointed at Vicious' heart, just as Vicious' saber points digs menacingly into Spike). The action goes into slow motion as Spike falls through a stained-glass window, the haunting "Ballad Of Fallen Angels" (choir singing unaccompanied by music) playing, as the camera zooms into his eye and into a flashback.

There are also the lighter, comedic episodes where Ed and Ein watch as Spike, Jet and Faye go through mushroom-induced hallucinations; or when another cowboy, completely oblivious to the fact that he is a horrible bounty hunter, keeps screwing up Spike's captures.

The English dub is passable and the Japanese vocals are superb as usual, so you can't go wrong either way.

Where Neon Genesis may have been too serious, or Rurouni Kenshin wasn't serious enough, Bebop is just the right mix. It truly is like its live action counterparts: major characters, women and children die, people are superstitious, use drugs, have strange mannerisms, and stake their lives on their loyalties.

The series is also great in that...it ends. There are little or no loose ends; in fact the series ends on a moment low on effects, but high in drama and tragedy. Viewers are left to ponder only what they have seen from the past, not to speculate on the future. Those just getting on the Bebop bandwagon are real lucky--you didn't have to wait so many Bebop-less years until the movie came out.

This series is highly, highly recommended, for any viewer, regardless of your enthusiasm or lack thereof for anime. You get attached to characters, marvel at the action and fight scenes, with eye-candy animation to top it off. No anime collection is legitimate without it, and no film collection is complete with Bebop missing.

A very cool anime that is no doubt one of the masterpiece series' of modern anime. Ten stars if I could.

look up "unique" in the dictionary.
my friend colin said to me, "hey, have you seen cowboy bebop on cartoon network?". i said "oh my god, it sounds like crappy western 'toon comedy...". he then popped in the first episode of cowboy bebop and showed it to me.

the next day, we each went home for thanksgiving break, and as i walked in the door i removed my credit card from my wallet and ordered this box set dvd from amazon.com. i don't care where you get it...just get it.

never, in my entire life, did i or will i again see anything like cowboy bebop. a realistically-animated, light sci-fi, japanese anime about bounty hunters and internal conflict, laid over a soundtrack of original cool jazz, modern jazz, blues, and of course bebop. 26 fantastic episodes of wit, humor, drama, action, and SO MUCH character development: pasts catching up, futures escaping, revenge, love, and self-understanding.

not for the dragonballz crowd. :) closer to the akira or lain fans, but less science fiction involved. it just happens to take place in the future. *grin*

please don't listen to ANY negative reviews on this show. i've been studying film for 6 years and the directing on this show is just...incredible. rumors of a second season are abound. *crossing fingers*

enjoy. i know you will!

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