Review of Cowboy Bebop Remix: Complete Collection

Introduction

Since I began watching anime DVDs, Cowboy Bebop has remained my Holy Grail, my must own anime, the show that I wanted to see more than any other. The combination of Shinichiro Watanabe`s direction (Samurai Champloo, The Animatrix), and Yoko Kanno`s music (Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf`s Rain) has tantalised me like the mirage of an oasis in the desert. It`s a show that has been loudly proclaimed as an instant classic for as long as I can remember, but it is one that has eluded me thus far, with just the movie to make my cravings even more intense. Beez have released it in the UK, in single disc and half-season boxset forms, but they are notoriously slow to discount. More significantly, Cowboy Bebop has had a more lengthy release history in the US. While in the UK we get the barebones stereo discs, the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack just demands a surround sound treatment. In the US, the Best Sessions compilation tested the waters for a 5.1 release, before the Remix volumes were released, with added commentaries, interviews and extras for avid fans. I waited for the Remix discs to come to the UK, but nothing. This winter, Bandai finally put Cowboy Bebop on its budget US Anime Legends label and released the Complete Collection. I could wait no longer. I`m a strong advocate of the UK market, and would like to see it grow and succeed, hence the scarcity of non-Region 2 discs in my collection. Yet to get Cowboy Bebop in the UK, barebones discs in stereo would still set you back at least £60. I got the Remix Collection on the day of release for £16…

It`s the year 2071, and mankind has colonised the solar system, terraforming worlds and moons, and establishing space stations, spreading out across the heavens. Travel is made easy by means of warp gates connecting the various worlds, but a catastrophe means that Earth has been left marginalized, a dumping ground for people that can`t get offworld, and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It also means that policing the solar system is a tough prospect. Which is where the bounty hunters come in, 300,000 of them, trying to make a living by bringing fugitives to justice. One such group of Cowboys are the crew of the spaceship Bebop. Faye Valentine, hacker Ed, and datadog Ein soon join Spike Spiegel and Jet Black in their never ending quest to earn enough money to keep their stomachs from growling. 26 episodes are presented across six discs, a mouth-watering prospect if ever there was one.

Disc 1

Session 1. Asteroid Blues
Asimov Solenson was a member of the Syndicate, before he wiped out his compatriots and ran off with his girl to lie low in Tijuana. He`s worth 2.5 million to Spike and Jet, and they`re soon off to the Asteroid belt where Tijuana colony is located. Spike is in trouble though, as Asimov is peddling Bloody Eye, a drug that speeds up human reflexes to the point where a person can dodge bullets, and Asimov is partaking of his own product.

Session 2. Stray Dog Strut
Abdul Hakim pet thief extraordinaire is the next big bounty to come up on the Big Shot TV show, which advertises lucrative fugitives to the bounty hunter community. A lead from a plastic surgeon sends the Bebop to Mars, where Abdul is trying to fence a rather special Welsh Corgi. When the dog takes a liking to Spike, it looks like the Bebop will have a new crewmember.

Session 3. Honky Tonk Women
Following a shootout at a `Herbal Medicine` shop, card cheat Faye Valentine is put to work paying off her debt at an orbiting casino. She`s to wait for a high stakes player who will lose all his money, and give his last chip, a rather special chip, to her. In walk Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, following a prophetic dream. Spike is a high stakes gambler, but he`s unwilling to yield his final chip. Meanwhile a shady looking chap is looking for a blackjack table to play at.

Session 4. Gateway Shuffle
Following their previous encounter, Faye is still a fugitive, albeit one stranded in Jupiter`s orbit without any fuel. Spike and Jet are pursuing their next target Morgan to a Ganymede restaurant, when eco-terrorists protesting the exploitation of the sea rat interrupt them. Faye comes across some floating wreckage, and a dying courier desperate to get a vial to Ganymede`s ISSP. By the time Spike, Jet and Faye bump into each other again, the terrorists are holding Ganymede to ransom…

Session 5. Ballad Of Fallen Angels
There is turmoil at the top of the syndicates, as certain people aren`t too accepting of a reconciliation between two mafia groups. When mafia boss Mao Shinrai comes up with a 28 million woolong price tag, Spike sees some easy money. But collecting it means confronting his own dark past.

Disc 2

Session 6. Sympathy For The Devil
Money is tight, and belts have to be tightened aboard the Bebop. It`s easy to see why when simple targets like Giraffe are slipping through their fingers. With his dying words, he pleads for Spike to help a young blues musician, a boy who is a virtuoso with the mouth organ, but is bound in service to a cryptic figure in a wheelchair. But all isn`t as it seems.

Session 7. Heavy Metal Queen
VT is a freighter pilot, a space trucker who hates bounty hunters. It isn`t her day when the town pays host to what looks like a bounty hunter conference. They are all in town looking for an explosives nut named Decker, and their attitude in her local bar is just asking for a brawl. But her antipathy to bounty hunters will have to be put aside, when she runs into Decker on her next trip out.

Session 8. Waltz For Venus
Hijackers on a Venus bound liner prove some easy money for Spike and Faye, who are aboard as passengers. Another passenger sees Spike effortlessly defeat his foes and has an idea. When the ship lands, Roco Bonnaro accosts Spike and demands that he teaches him self-defence. He`ll need it too as he`s running with a bad crowd, smuggling a rare plant that offers the only, and very expensive cure for Venus Sickness, which his sister suffers from. Then Roco`s name comes up on a bounty list.

Session 9. Jamming With Edward
Following the explosion of the warp gate on the moon, the Earth has been turned into a junkyard planet, where the population live underground to avoid the constant downpours of meteorites. It`s no surprise that Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV would like to get offworld. She sees her chance when an orbiting satellite with an AI decides to paint graffiti on the Earth with a laser weapon. The authorities blame hacker Radical Edward, and the Bebop comes looking for the bounty.

Session 10. Ganymede Elegy
Before Jet was a bounty hunter, he was a cop in the Ganymede ISSP. Paying his homeworld a visit, he`s getting melancholic, with a watch reminding him of a lost love. When calling to drop off a bounty, an old colleague tells him that Alisa is falling on hard times. Jet pays a visit to her bar to see her, only to find that she is shutting up shop, relocating with her boyfriend Rhint to another city. The reasons become clear on the next episode of the Big Shot, and Jet has to make a choice between his past and his duty.

Disc 3

Session 11. Toys In The Attic
There is an odd sounding critter wandering the ducts and vents of the Bebop, and one by one it`s hunting down the crew. Jet is first in its sights, and when a strange purple rash fells the big man, it becomes clear that no one is safe. Is it a mutant? Is it an alien? Is it something else completely? The only answer is to tool up, hunt it down and blow it away.

Session 12: Jupiter Jazz (Part I)
The man who replaced mafia boss Mao Shinrai, coincidentally Spike`s nemesis, Vicious is heading for depression hit Callisto to close a deal for the drug Bloody Eye. On the Bebop, Faye gets antsy, sabotages the ship, steals all the money, and heads for Callisto. She winds up in Blue Crow, a town without any women in, where she meets a saxophone player named Gren. When Ed intercepts a transmission from someone called Julia, Spike gets irrational, gets into a shouting match with Jet, leaves the ship and heads for the source of the message, on Callisto. Then Jet learns of a bounty on an escaped criminal named Gren. He winds up on, you guessed it, Callisto…

Session 13: Jupiter Jazz (Part II)
Gren and Vicious have a past, they served in the military together on Titan, and Vicious saved his life. Then he turned around and betrayed him, leaving him to rot in prison. Gren wants answers or retribution. Spike and Vicious have a past, they worked for the same syndicate, and were both involved with a woman named Julia. Now Spike wants to know where Julia is, or rather where she went to after the trail petered out on Callisto. Expect an explosive confrontation.

Session 14. Bohemian Rhapsody
Attacks on the Gates are increasing, with someone hacking into the toll system, and cleaning the credit cards of anyone paying a toll. Faye insists that she, Spike and Jet go their separate ways to track down the culprits, but all they get are the little guys hardly worth their time. The only clues they find are a handful of chess pieces. The mastermind must be someone who is intimately familiar with Gate technology, but the Gate Corporation is being strangely reticent on that score. The chess pieces are actually net keys, which when activated open a link that sets up a game with mysterious figure called Chessmaster Hex. While Ed has fun with a new chess opponent, the others track down the reclusive player.

Disc 4

Session 15. My Funny Valentine
Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was left in cryosleep for 60 years, while the world around her changed. When she was revived, the Doctor told her that he had healed her mortal wounds. She had no memory of her past life, except what the Doctor told her, and all he knew was her name, Faye Valentine. He also told her that the revival and healing service cost 300 million woolongs. She could never pay that in her wildest dreams, and it was fortunate that she had a handsome lawyer named Whitney to argue her case and get her acquainted with the future world. Naturally the two began to get close, until the day the insurance company showed up demanding its money. Faye and the lawyer went on the run, and he boldly sacrificed his life to save her. Then one day, aboard the Bebop, Jet captures a two-bit criminal, a fat man with a familiar face…

Session 16. Black Dog Serenade
There`s trouble on the Jupiter Pluto route, when prisoners take control of a prison ship, and slaughter the crew. First among killers is former mafia assassin Udai, who is taking particular pleasure in despatching anyone who gets in his way. Not long after, Jet gets a call from his old partner from the ISSP, Fad. Udai was the man who cost Jet his arm, and that missing arm must be calling for retribution about now.

Session 17. Mushroom Samba
Food is scarce again aboard the Bebop, as is fuel, so they are taking their time to coast to Europa. That`s until they are victims of a hit and run, and wind up crashing in the middle of nowhere on Io. Faye`s dealing with food poisoning after stealing the emergency rations (which had expired a year ago), Jet and Spike are working on the ship, and so Ed gets sent out to find food. Shame they crashed in the middle of a desert. But there`s a fugitive on the run on Io, selling hallucinogenic mushrooms. If Ed can earn her spurs as a bounty hunter, maybe the crew of the Bebop will stop their stomachs from rumbling.

Session 18. Speak Like A Child
Faye has a hard day at the races, and comes back to the Bebop to find that someone has delivered a package to her, C.O.D. Seeing as she now owes Jet for the package, on top of her already substantial debts, she decides to opt for discretion and hops it. That leaves Jet and Spike out of pocket, and in possession of what looks like a Betamax tape. Thinking that they can at least get the delivery costs back, they take it to an antique electronics fiend to see what`s recorded on it. They catch a glimpse of a young girl before the player eats the tape, and Spike kicks the player to death. Now intrigued by the image, they need another player, but the only such device now exists in the ruins of Tokyo on Earth.

Disc 5

Session 19. Wild Horses
The crew of the Bebop are hunting Space Pirates. These particular miscreants attack their targets by infecting their computers with a virus, rendering them prone to capture. It also means that the valiant crew of the Bebop are defenceless when their own ships are compromised. They could really use Spike`s help; only he`s planetside getting his plane overhauled by the engineer that built it. Doohan is an engineer of the old school, a perfectionist who loves old machinery, and quickly runs through assistants by demanding the same standards. Then he gets a suspiciously cheap spare part from the same pirates that Jet and Faye are hunting.

Session 20. Pierrot Le Fou
A menacing fat clown in a top hat, carrying a walking stick is raging through the city, assassinating public figures. When Spike is a witness to the latest murder, the clown turns on him, and Spike winds up swathed in bandages, recovering on the Bebop. It`s a mixed fortune, as while he survived the attack, the assassin known as Mad Pierrot has a reputation of never leaving anyone alive. It`s become personal, and he invites Spike to a showdown in an abandoned theme park. Only this assassin has a sinister origin.

Session 21. Boogie Woogie Feng Shui
It`s a hot day on Mars when Jet gets an e-mail from an old friend. He`s a little late in looking Pao up though, as he`s been dead three days. Paying his last respects, he runs into Pao`s daughter Meifa, just before some gangsters show up and open fire on them both. Pao was a Feng Shui Master, and the e-mail holds a clue to the location of the Sun Stone, a mystical artefact that Meifa is looking for.

Session 22. Cowboy Funk
Hot on the trail of the Teddy Bear Bomber, Spike learns that there are only two bounty hunters to strike fear into the hearts of miscreants the solar system over, Spike and Andy. Andy? Just when Spike has the Teddy Bear Bomber cornered in an office building, the window shatters, and a cowboy atop of his horse makes an entrance. Andy has arrived, and he`s here for the bounty on the bomber and he has his target in his sights. It`s just a shame that he`s aiming at Spike.

Disc 6

Session 23. Brain Scratch
There is a new cult in town, offering technological nirvana and an escape from worldly desires, by uploading its adherents` souls onto the Net. Cult leader Dr Londes weaves his magic through his evangelical broadcasts, but remains an elusive figure in real life. No wonder really, as he`s wanted for murder, and has a massive bounty on his head. When Faye goes missing, it`s a toss up as to whether she is after the bounty, or sees a chance to escape her debts by shedding her mortal shell.

Session 24. Hard Luck Woman
Faye has finally built up the nerve to rediscover her past. The trouble is that her past is on Earth, and Earth is a wreck, unrecognisable from the world that she left all those years ago. When she is looking for clues from the Betamax tape, Ed wanders in and happens to recognise a landmark. Ed has her own reasons to go back to Earth though, as her past is looking for her as well.

Session 25. The Real Folk Blues (Part I)
Session 26. The Real Folk Blues (Part II)
When Vicious attempts a takeover of the Red Dragon mafia group, and fails, it sets into motion a series of events that impacts on the crew of the Bebop. Vicious is imprisoned, sentenced to death, and in their paranoia, the heads of Red Dragon turn against all those who once worked for them, and left. That includes Spike Spiegel, and Jet pays the price when he and Spike wind up ducking bullets during an assassination attempt. Meanwhile, Faye runs into a blonde woman running from a bunch of gunmen. Her name is Julia, and she has a message for Spike.

Video

The 4:3 transfer is great, but not perfect. It`s NTSC of course, meaning a slightly lower resolution, and interlacing does become apparent during the title sequences on the first four discs. The only flaw in the episodes themselves is some slight rainbowing around fine detail. But by all accounts, this is an improvement over the vanilla discs.

The animation itself is sublime. We`re on the verge of the CG revolution here, as Bebop was made in 1998, and age is apparent in the way that the artwork is shaded, as well as a couple of print artefacts that are alien to modern computer animated shows. But still, this is as good as anime gets. It`s like watching a theatrical feature with each episode, the level of detail and thought gone into the show`s design is simply breathtaking. Every aspect, from the character designs, their movements, the worlds, the technology, to the action sequences and dogfights, speak of the immense effort put in by the animators, and hint at a significant budget. The only thing that really dates the show is some ropey CGI, with some space stations that would look more at home in an episode of Babylon 5.

Audio

You can choose between DD 5.1, and DD 2.0 Surround English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. With shows of this vintage, any 5.1 remix more often than not is a simple upmix of the original stereo. Not so with Cowboy Bebop, which gets the full 5.1 treatment, offering an excellent, explosive soundtrack that does full justice to the scope of the animation. Placement of sound effects and dialogue reflect the heavy action element of the show, and Yoko Kanno`s sublime soundtrack sounds absolutely divine. Most shows can just about squeeze one soundtrack CD from the material, with a couple of remixes to bump up the CD`s runtime. Cowboy Bebop has three soundtrack CDs out there to buy, along with several bonus discs too.

Another striking thing for a show made in 1998 is the English dub. It`s excellent, with the roles perfectly cast, and actor performances at the top of their game. It sets the standard that other anime aspire to, and I can watch Cowboy Bebop in either language, which is a rare thing to hear from a sub fiend.

Features

Six discs come packaged in an m-lock case that provides easy access to all of them. All discs come with animated menus, and all except volumes 3 and 4 come with jacket pictures.

Disc 1

You`ll find 4½ minutes of the Cowboy Bebop trailer collection, 4 minutes of the Cartoon Network promos, and a 9-minute interview with Wendee Lee (English voice of Faye Valentine) in which she talks about her career, the industry, the character and the show. You`ll also find a trailer for the Cowboy Bebop movie, the textless ending, and trailers for Planetes, Mars Daybreak and Gundam Seed.

There are two commentaries on this disc. The first is for episode 1, and sees Koichi Yamadera (Spike) and Unshou Ishizaka (Jet), chatting about the show. It`s a light-hearted track, subtitled of course, which looks a little at the creative process and how the show came together. The second for episode five features English voice of Faye, Wendee Lee and ADR Producer, Yutaka Maseba. It`s a more serious, technical commentary that looks broadly at the issues of bringing the show to English territories, as well as the approach taken to voice a character.

Disc 2

You`ll find trailers for Mars Daybreak, Planetes and Scrapped Princess.

Wendee Lee and Yutaka Maseba again supply the commentary on episode 10. With a similar tone to the previous track, they talk about the characters and the influences, the look of the show, and the visual impact of the animation, as well as differing approaches to ADR in Japan and the US. It isn`t necessarily scene specific, and the episode only gets an occasional mention, but it`s still interesting to listen to.

Disc 3

Trailers once again for Mars Daybreak, Planetes and Scrapped Princess.

You`ll find a brief (4-minute) interview with Cartoon Network Producer Sean Akins. He talks about the impact of Cowboy Bebop on subsequent animation, how `cool` the show is, and its enduring popularity with audiences.

Disc 4

There are trailers for Mars Daybreak, Planetes and Gundam Seed

Episode 17 gets a commentary from director Shinichiro Watanabe, and composer Yoko Kanno. It`s heavily weighted to the light and frivolous, but manages to be informative and a joy to listen to (well, read) as well.

Disc 5

There are trailers for Mars Daybreak, Eureka Seven, and Gundam Seed

The big featurette here is Session 0, which lasts 28 minutes and serves as an intro to the show`s characters, and is filled with interviews with the cast and crew. Originally in Japan, only half of the show was broadcast, with many of the arc based episodes left for DVD consumption only, and this featurette was put together to sell those episodes to fans, and there is a short preview of them here. The segment ends with the full rendition of the opening theme Tank, followed by a remix version of the same.

Disc 6

The trailers on this final disc are for Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eureka Seven, and Gundam Seed Destiny.

Megumi Hayashibara (Faye) and Aoi Tada (Ed) meet on the commentary track for episode 24. It`s a general conversation about their experiences on the show, and there are some pleasant anecdotes to listen to.

Conclusion

On the back of the case, in prominent yellow lettering, it has written, "Voted Greatest Anime of all Time!" The impeccable wisdom of hordes of anime fans aside, I`d call that an understatement. Every entertainment medium and every genre quickly establishes a form, a set of rules that rapidly become clichés. People become comfortable with the familiar, they like their entertainment neatly categorised, their hip-hop and R&B, their horror movies and rom-coms, and detective and fantasy novels. People who try to shake up the conventions are considered mavericks, visionaries at best, dilettantes at worst, but even they usually just try and redefine the boundaries of their chosen art form. But, once in a while, something comes along that shatters preconceptions of a genre, blazes a new trail, and gives you that, which you have never seen before. Those are landmark moments, like when Jaws first hit cinemas, or the Sex Pistols shook up the establishment.

Cowboy Bebop doesn`t reinvent a genre; it reinvents the whole bloody anime medium. Forget what you know about anime, put those preconceptions you have about artwork, character and clichés to one side, as there was nothing like Cowboy Bebop before it was released in 1998, and I doubt there has been anything like it since. The most radical such anime that I can compare it to is Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but that`s a cyberpunk show that by definition appeals to a comparatively limited audience. Cowboy Bebop preaches to a broad church. What it does with character, with story and with the level of detail in its creation, offers an appealing world that has something in it for everyone.

On the face of it, Cowboy Bebop is another sci-fi show, and it certainly goes the extra mile to fulfil its obligations to the genre. The year is 2071, and mankind has colonised the solar system. What has made such colonisation easy is the technology of the warp gate. Journeys which with Newtonian physics would take days, weeks or even months, are drastically shortened by a network of gates into warp space, which provide a short cut for impatient space travellers. A major accident on the moon devastated the Earth, leaving it a ruin hammered by meteorites, and the rest of humanity spread across the system, converting asteroids and terraforming worlds and moons. Cowboy Bebop presents this world of the future with half an eye on realism, space ships travel from world to world, and other than the warp gates, the technology isn`t too unrecognisable compared to our own. It`s refreshing to see the crew of the Bebop living and working in zero-g, as animation has an advantage over live action in at least that respect. But people don`t change that drastically over 80 years, and when they move out to live in the solar system, they take a piece of Earth with them. The worlds they terraform, and the cities that they build are just like the places that people live in now, and it`s only when the view expands to take in a larger scale that you may see something alien, like the other half of a city above your head in an asteroid habitat, the walls of a city keeping the atmosphere in, or the sight of Jupiter taking up most of a desert horizon on Io.

Once Cowboy Bebop establishes its sci-fi credentials, it then leaves them safely in a back pocket, as the stories are much more humanist and general in scope. They may live in the future, but the work that the crew of the Bebop does is a little more mundane. They aren`t the sort to boldly split their infinitives at the final frontier, they`re simply bounty hunters, looking to earn enough to keep their stomachs filled. (In fact, that`s one anime cliché that Bebop establishes, and is often seen in subsequent anime, that of a band of down-on-their-luck antiheroes fighting poverty and hunger). They travel from world to world, tracking down fugitives and that allows for a wide variety of stories, as well as a multitude of tones in the telling. In this series, the writers dabble in sci-fi, noir, thriller, comedy, romance and more, and the variety adds much to the appeal. Also every fugitive has his or her own story, making it much more than a simple cops and robbers dynamic. There are episodes that will have you wiping away tears of laughter, and episodes that will leave a lump in the throat as you rail against the inequity of it all.

The real strength of Bebop is in its characters. Episodic television it may be, but each of its characters gets a discrete arc that you can follow through the run, and they are rounded, well-written creations that are simply mesmerising to watch. The crew of the Bebop are all damaged in someway, running from a past they`d just as soon forget, but unable to escape it nevertheless. It`s most obvious in Spike, where the tension between who he was, and who he now is leads him down a tragic path. He started out on the wrong side of the law, a member of the Red Dragon mafia group, and it was a doomed love affair that provoked the change in his circumstances. He escaped from that life, and given his obvious skills and talents, it would seem that bounty hunting is an ideal vocation. But he remains haunted by that past, and reacts irrationally whenever it is invoked. We see a strong self-destructive streak in him, whenever he runs into his old nemesis Vicious, or hears tell of old flame Julia. Yet on the other hand he`s cool and likeable, and a dab hand with the old Jeet Kune Do, channelling Bruce Lee into any hand to hand combat situation. Faye Valentine would seem on the surface to have the opposite problem. She literally doesn`t have a past, having developed amnesia after a protracted stay in suspended animation. But she is driven by that absence in her life, she`s reckless, moody and prone to gambling her money away, and she`s also afraid of genuine human contact, fearing that it will prove to be just as ephemeral as her own past. Her outward brash confidence masks an inner vulnerability, and her tragedy is that even if she can recover who she once was, it will ultimately prove to be a fruitless exercise after 60 years asleep.

In comparison, Ed and Jet seem to be comparatively grounded characters, even if Ed spends most of her time in her own little world. She`s just as much of a drifter as the others, an orphan who grew up in the ruins of Earth, and one who reinvented herself to find a way off the planet. She`s an impish child with a catlike personality, one who can be endlessly spellbound with a tiny thing for hours, and then drop it like a dead mouse when something more fascinating comes along. Yet she too is running in her own way, although whether she is running from or towards something only becomes clear near the end of the series. Jet is a disillusioned ex-cop whose previous job cost him his arm. He`s the nominal owner of the Bebop, and ostensibly the leader of the group, although most of the time it just seems as if four people are temporarily heading in the same direction. Communication is no one`s strong suit. While he seems to have the sanest head on two shoulders, he also has issues in his past to resolve. In fact, the only sensible one aboard the Bebop would be the dog Ein.

At this point, I would be pointing out those episodes that appealed to me, and those that were less than outstanding… only I couldn`t. With Cowboy Bebop, you get 26 perfectly formed episodes, little mini-movies really given the top-notch quality of the animation, and all of them are of such high quality that picking even just 25 favourites feels like sacrificing your firstborn. I love the characters in this show, the writing is simply inspired, the animation is breathtaking, and Yoko Kanno`s music is heavenly. What`s more, when you place the Cowboy Bebop movie into its correct context within the series, that already outstanding film just gains levels of complexity and appeal that aren`t apparent when viewed in isolation.

That Cowboy Bebop is great anime goes without saying. It goes straight to the top of my favourites list, even outshining the great Ghost In The Shell. The thing about Cowboy Bebop though, is that it is much more than just simply anime. If you hate anime, if you simply loathe the medium, and can`t see what all the fuss is about with all these foreign cartoons, you should still buy Cowboy Bebop. Forget anime, forget cartoons, Cowboy Bebop ranks among the best television ever made. The inequities of pricing, extras, and the exchange rate make this Region 1 boxset the obvious choice.