Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

The biggest bopper.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 12, 2014

Should Steve Miller have sued for copyright infringement? After all, on Miller’s iconic 1969 album Brave New World, the guitarist and vocalist introduced the world to the idea of a “Space Cowboy,” at least with that particular verbiage, even if the general concept of a rootin’ tootin’ good guy astronaut had been around from the glory days of Flash Gordon. Of course, Miller himself purloined a certain well known Beatles riff for “Space Cowboy,” so maybe he didn’t want to tempt fate by putting the creative staff behind the legendary anime Cowboy Bebop on notice. Spike Spiegel may not be a joker and/or a midnight toker, but otherwise falls squarely into space cowboy territory, in the anime’s future semi-dystopian world where bounty hunters corral the vast reaches of the universe to bring various criminals to justice. The basic setup of Cowboy Bebop is as fundamentally simple as the rest of this intriguing series is satisfyingly complex, from both a character standpoint and (perhaps especially) a design aesthetic perspective. Cowboy Bebop is regularly cited as one of “those” anime—the kind of rare show that cuts through the pop culture clutter to not just take hold of the public’s imagination, but to help define its art form for that public. The show is a riot of influences and ideas, but remains uniquely organic, offering both bristling action and actual character development in about equal doses. Perhaps surprisingly given its overall integrated nature, Cowboy Bebop was the result of creation by committee, in this case the vaunted Sunrise production house creative staff who banded together under the collective pseudonym Hajime Yatate. The fact that so many chefs were involved may help to explain the vast array of influences and concepts that waft through the series virtually from the first moment, but how these anime cooks managed to make such a coherent recipe out of such disparate ingredients might be more the stuff of magic, or at least Art, than something that sprang from some intentionally rational impetus. A lot has been said and written about Cowboy Bebop in the years since it first started airing, but in essence the entire commentary stream about this series can be boiled down to a simple “Cowboy Bebop is cool.”

There’s a definite retro feel to much of Cowboy Bebop, with the show (perhaps oddly) evoking the 1970s while at the same time reaching even further into the past to offer a kind of Wild West in space setting. The fact that Spike Spiegel tends to be a bit laconic may also remind some of Sergio Leone outings, though to be fair, Spike can give as good as he gets, especially in some of his bantering with his main buddy and compadre, Jet Black. Both Spike and Jet have rather colorful pasts, as is slowly doled out in a series of flashbacks (one of the recurring motifs of the series), but they work together now as a kind of bounty hunter team. In fact all policing in this future world has been turned over to several thousand bounty hunters, with television broadcasts like Big Shot featuring “episodes” detailing the latest fugitive and what kind of ransom he or she will bring if brought in alive.

Ultimately joining the interstellar fray with Spike and Jet are Faye Valentine and the somewhat confusingly named Edward, who is in fact a female. Faye, like Spike and Jet, has an interesting backstory and fulfills what might almost be thought of as a quasi-tsundere role in the series. She is in fact not quite as vicious as that term might imply, but she’s no wilting wallflower, either. Edward (who “invented” her name) is (rather presciently, given the show’s 1990s’ genesis) a hacker. Interestingly, Ed is the one character seemingly swathed in a bit of mystery as to her past, but the character tends to be the show's comedy relief element quite a bit of the time, perhaps obviating the need for an overly dramatic past.

It’s actually a little difficult to properly describe Cowboy Bebop’s impact, as any mere précis is going to miss the series’ ebullient spirit and whack-a-mole storytelling style, where elements are often jumbled together in a rapid fire way. Each episode works fairly well (and sometimes flawlessly) as a standalone entry, but it’s notable that there are longer story arc at play in the series, notably with regard to the four focal characters and their various histories. (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a fifth character, the lovable and genetically enhanced Welsh Corgi named Ein whom the guys adopt in the second episode and who at times appears to be most intelligent member of the core group.)

The anime opts for a nice, richly dense, animation style that may remind some of iconic works like Akira. The show employs then nascent computer imagery for several key effects like the “stargates” that open and close to let space travellers traverse large distances in the blink of an eye. Probably chief among the series’ technical achievements is its fantastically cool score by Yoko Kanno. There’s nothing here that I would term “true” bebop, but there’s a lot of nicely jazz inflected cues, as well as a number of other styles that keep the show as aurally infectious as it is from a visual standpoint.

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. There's both good news and perhaps a little bad news with regard to this new high definition presentation, with the good news category starting with the fact of that very aspect ratio. FUNimation has rightly decided not to "Dragon Ball Z - ize" this release by cropping it to 1.78:1. (On an admitted tangent, for all the furor and fan ire that the "revised" DBZ engendered, it's important to remember that FUNimation did start to release the series in its original version, and I simply can't imagine that if the market had been there for the show in that form, the label wouldn't have continued with it.) Interestingly, because of what were apparently SD video compositing issues from those aforementioned effects (dealing with NTSC standards), the British Blu-ray of Cowboy Bebop was presented in an interlaced format, but this is progressive. That said, there are occasional line stability anomalies in evidence, including very minor shimmer at times. The palette is really lustrous, beautifully saturated and one of the high definition presentation's best elements. There is one similarity to FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z fiasco, and that's what appears to be some high frequency filtering. It's nowhere near as severe as seen in Dragon Ball Z, but grain is not quite at the levels some might expect (or hope for). It's especially notable that grain never really spikes in opticals when it should, perhaps an indication that some sort of algorithm has been applied. That said, there is a visible layer of fine grain in evidence, but it's very fine. It's also worth mentioning that there is still considerable depth to the image, and no issues with smearing line detail and the like. There are some minor banding issues on display from time to time. Some reports surrounding the British release mentioned pixellation issues on that release, but I noticed none in preparing for this review.

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series is one of those rare anime where both language versions offer considerable allure, and the good news is that both the original Japanese language version and the excellent English dub are presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The mixes are virtually identical other than the voicework, with some awesome LFE and very nice separation and surround embedding of Yoko Kanno's absolutely incredible score. The show can get very noisy and/or sonically busy at times, but prioritization is first rate, with dialogue presented very cleanly and clearly. Dynamic range is extremely wide, fidelity is excellent, and there are no issues to report.

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Session #1 Audio Commentary with Koichi Yamadera (Spike) and Unshou Ishizuka (Jet)


• Session #5 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba

Disc Two:

• Session #10 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba


• Session #17 Audio Commentary with Director Shinichiro Watanabe and Composer Yoko Kanno

Disc Three:

• Session #24 Audio Commentary with Megumi Hayashibara (Faye) and Aoi Tada (Ed)


• Cowboy Bebop Session #0 (480i; 22:31)


• Interview with Wendee Lee (English Voice of Faye Valentine) (480i; 8:48)


• Interview with Cartoon Network Producer Sean Akins (480i; 4:07)


• Original Opening Song (1080p; 1:31)


• Original Closing Song (1080p; 1:37)


• Original Closing Song Ep. 13 (1080p; 2:36)


• Original Closing Song Ep. 26 (1080p; 4:58)


• Textless Opening Song (1080p; 1:31)


• Textless Closing Song (1080p; 1:31)


• Textless Closing Song Ep. 13 (1080p; 2:36)


• Textless Closing Song Ep. 26 (1080p; 4:58)


• U.S> Trailer (1080p; 1:38)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Disc Four:

• Memo from Bebop: The Dub Sessions Remembered (1080p; 1:34:48) is a great feature length supplement that presents wonderful interviews with the original English language voice cast of the series for a ton of great reminiscences.


• Ein's Summer Vacation (1080p; 1:01) is an amusing short featuring the show's lovable doggie, done in still comic strip style.


• "Tank!" Full-Size Music Clip (1080i; 3:36)


• "Tank!" Club Remix Music Clip (UK Version) (1080i; 4:42)


• Dinner Aboard the Bebop (1080p; 1:07:39) reunites the original English language voice cast for a get together over food and wine that has a few surprises.

Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Anime fans are getting an early Christmas present this year with one of the most eagerly sought after anime releases in recent memory. My descriptive powers are probably woefully inadequate in being able to detail how manically enjoyable this series typically is, with a whiplash style that never feels like an assault, but more like a just slightly out of control roller coaster ride. While this release isn't absolutely perfect, it's generally excellent from both a technical standpoint as well as its supplementary package, which is exceptional. Highly recommended.