What Makes Anime Classic?

There are boundless imaginative ideas that exhibit art, visualized physically and emotionally. For instance, films, books, and sculptures all contain art, created from the human mind. This review will focus on a type of TV show known as anime, Japanese styled animation. Cowboy Bebop is popular, maybe the best anime there is, as critics consider it a classic. What makes this anime unique compared to many others is due to artistic aspects in character development through loneliness and to escape their past.

In the early stages of Cowboy Bebop, Spike, the main protagonist, was the center of it all. During the creation of Cowboy Bebop, Shinichirō Watanabe, the director, ordered Spike to be the starting point. Watanabe says, “the first image that occurred to me was one of Spike, and from there I tried to build a story around him, trying to make him cool” (Sevakis). He pushed heavy empathy on Spike, to give life to him as much real as possible. Not to forget that the opening of the show is the famous intro in James Bond being seen through a barrel of a gun, instead swaps the main characters. In return for using such a method, watching this anime reveals that the setting is built specifically towards the main character. For example, he is a bounty hunter, waiting for work to appear, yet he spends most of his time lazing off home in his spaceship, of course, the viewers don’t know what he is thinking of, as it frequently pans the camera of him lying on a couch looking up into the ceiling. One of the primary themes is loneliness, which also brings boredom. Spike has a surplus of time off work, yet it is shown how trapped he is in his own world. The whole bounty hunter job fits him as he utilizes his honed skills to make a living. But to go more in-depth, I would say he chose this job in hopes of never confronting his past. Flying planet to planet, it is endless to where he’d venture off to, unless it was the other way around, in hopes of finding that something from journeying across space. Plus, this anime is hand-drawn, which is traditional as that is how all animes used to be drawn. But technology allowed animators to use computers and turn hand drawings into CGI. But that isn’t the main reason why Cowboy Bebop is a classic, although the gritty style does fit with the setting. The development on Spike fascinated many viewers to quickly reel them into the show.

Human nature can be painted through different styles, as Cowboy Bebop illustrates it regardless of gender. One quote that stood out for me Watanabe said was, “If you’re a guy, you understand how guys think, and if you’re a girl you understand how girls think, but either way that’s only half of humanity. So guys, pick up as many girls as you can, and girls, get picked up by as many guys as you can” (Sevakis). It sounds as if gender separates human nature, but is actually the opposite. Spike, along with another main character, Jet, are both bounty hunters who met each other before the start of the anime. They both agree that the past is just something to forget about and worked as a team. Fayne, a female main character, gets introduced a few episodes later. Fayne has amnesia from an accident, placing her in cryostasis for decades. She believes there is no one in the universe that knows her. She is a troublemaker type of person, often stealing money, freeloading, until a VHS tape was delivered that plays a time when she was a child. Ultimately, she decides to find that place, her home, and starts to change her personality, becoming possibly how she was back then. Jet worked as a special officer, like an FBI, but he left due to trust issues in society. He is designed with a prosthetic arm from a failed mission, which ultimately got him to quit. He had his suspicions about his former partner for betraying him, but couldn’t confront him about it. Out of the blue, he receives a call from his old partner, to go on one last mission. Spike as well was abandoned by society. As a top gun working for the mafia, he met his rival, even a friend at a certain point, Vicious. Vicious aimed to become head of the organization, ruthless and wicked, the complete opposite of Spike. Spike fell in love with Julia, who also works for the organization, however, this is when everything starts to go downhill, as Vicious seems to be plotting to assassinate Spike. Vicious even tries to get Julia to kill Spike, or he’d end both of them himself. Spike suggests that Julia and him should escape, as he even plans to fake his death. After waiting by the meet up point, Julia never came, having Spike to feel betrayed and losing everything. Even though Spike was betrayed, he’s always ready to go on lone missions if he hears of Julia, given if it means breaking the promise with Jet to never chase back the past as it could lead to death. That promise existed to keep them out of danger, but they both knew it wasn’t going to hold neither of them back. All three of these characters wanted to deal with their past, and knowing how both male and female think revealed how they both wanted to accomplish the same thing. The issues these characters faced paints their nature to be tenacious of never letting go of their past regardless of gender.

Cowboy Bebop developed unique characters that understood each other as they all suffered from their past. Having to deal with loneliness even though they were together looked as if they were needed someplace else. This called for the characters to arrive at their appropriate destinations, their past. Cowboy Bebop displayed intense character growth through loneliness and dealing with their past.

Sources

Sevakis, Justin. “Otakon 2013 – Shinichiro Watanabe Focus Panel.” Anime News Network, 14 Aug. 2013, https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2013/otakon/7.