Intro credits to Cowboy Bebop(s)
Let’s jam!
Cowboy Bebop is rightfully a hallmark series in anime as well as other areas like sci-fi, pop culture, and more. Probably since there have been stories of people exploring outer space, there has been the conflation with the American Frontier and the Western genre. Gene Roddenberry famously pitched Star Trek as “Wagon Train in space” (an anecdote that had more punch when people knew what the hell Wagon Train was outside of this story and that one line in STAND BY ME). John Carter used a lot of white American stabilizing an unruly savage people trope that permeated the “Cowboys & Indians” myths. Firefly, OBLIVION, OUTLAND, and on and on as sci-fi tends to take on ideas about lawlessness at the edge of civilization and some sort of understanding being reached (or not) between multiple cultures.
But Cowboy Bebop wasn’t just Westerns. There’s a lot of jazz in it, French New Wave, Film Noir, cyberpunk, space opera, heist stories, and even that one drugged out episode. This positioned Cowboy Bebop as an easy on-ramp for people who may not be especially interested in sci-fi or anime to check it out and find something new. Maybe they dig the GAME OF DEATH references? How about some sweet nods to ALPHAVILLE? There’s that episode where the dope score by Yoko Kanno (with his band, The Seatbelts) blends African drumming with maudlin saxophone and choral harmonies. Heck, that previously mentioned druggy episode (“Mushroom Samba”) references DJANGO, COFFY, Led Zeppelin, Wim Wenders, SHAFT—but always feeling like a fun gumbo of flavors exploding together and never like an endless winking fest.
Despite not being the creator (that would be Hajime Yatate) of the series, director Shinichirō Watanabe is arguably the most associated with the show. (Also, if you dig Cowboy Bebop—I urge you to also watch his Samurai Champloo series as it’s a similar cross-pollination of ideas with a strong focus on character but this time using feudal Japan samurai tableau). Watanabe—with writer Keiko Nobumoto, designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, and aforementioned Yoko Kanno—instilled a distinct style through synthesis and love of what came before in its 26 episodes and one film.
It’s unknown if the new Cowboy Bebop live-action series coming to Netflix on November 19 will be as good, but it has great talent behind and in front of the screen. The newly released recreation of the opening credits (set to “Tank!” by The Seatbelts) shows a lot of fidelity to the anime, but hopefully offers enough changes to be is own thing with its own slew of homages and passions. Here’s the live action version with John Cho, Daniela Pineda, Alex Hassell, and what I’m hoping is one of the same actors that played Cheddar The Dog filling in as Ein:
Compared with the original anime opening titles (again, set to “Tank!” by The Seatbelts):
And the obligatory side-by-side comparison (where it seems that most of what’s different is a lack of shots pf spaceships in action, suggesting that’s the final CG hurdle the series is working on):
See you, Space Cowboy.