Cowboy Bebop
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ) |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Shinichirō Watanabe |
| Date(s): | 3 April 1998 – 23 April 1999 |
| Medium: | Anime, Manga, OVA |
| Country of Origin: | Japan |
| External Links: | Offical site/JP+EN |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Cowboy Bebop is a successful and influential anime that follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters in space. There are 26 episodes.
Canon Overview
Cowboy Bebop revolves around a crew of bounty hunters living in the spaceship named Bebop. They are a team that travels the Solar System trying to apprehend fugitives for bounties. Jet Black, the ship's captain and owner, partnered with Spike Spiegel for his diverse combat skills. During their travels, the Bebop gains new crew members: Faye Valentine, a woman with a mysterious past; Edward, an eccentric girl who also happens to be a cyber hacking genius; and Ein, a genetically altered dog with human level intelligence.
Throughout the series, Bebop crew members' pasts catch up with them, and the show regularly uses flashbacks to illustrate the history of the main characters. Spike's past as a syndicate enforcer is a major element of the series, while other episodes deal with Jet's previous occupation as an ISSP officer on Ganymede, and Faye's mysterious origins and significant debt problems. The day-to-day life of the crew is also explored throughout the series.[1]
Live-Action Adaptation
In 2021, Netflix released a live-action adaptation of the series. It was not well-received by fans of the anime due to the drastic changes made to the storyline. [2][3]
Fandom
This article or section needs expansion. |
In 2011, Cowboy Bebop was deemed ineligible for Yuletide.[4]
Fansites
- Emily's Cowboy Bebop Page! (1998-present) - One of the very first Cowboy Bebop sites on the web
- Somewhere Down The Crazy River (2000-present) - Run by E.K. Weaver
Shipping
Spike/Faye was and still is the most popular pairing, due to the characters' UST. Spike/Jet and Spike/Julia are close seconds.
Spike/Faye shippers often bashed Julia in the past, decrying her as a "slut" due to the complicated love triangle between her, Spike, and Vicious.
Yuri was somewhat rare in the fandom, but Ed/Faye and Julia/Faye were the most commonly written.
Notable Fanworks
Fanfiction
- The Cowboy's Unofficial Guide to the Open Road by Agent Orange. Faye drags a very unwilling Spike on the road trip from hell as she searches for another piece of her past,(2002).
AMVs
Fan Art
Fanmix
- Are you living in the real world? by carrionkiid, gen/ensemble, mostly classic rock, tracklist (spotify)
- kinda out of luck by juricon, "no, i'm no one's wife, but oh, i love my life." tracklist
American Release
It is through established grassroots practices that anime fans in America first watched Cowboy Bebop as it had been officially remediated in Japan on VHS and DVD. There were existing fans of the series in America who would be aware of any changes that Cartoon Network made.
To examine the official remediation and localisation of Cowboy Bebop, I explore the dubbing of the show into English, and then the show being aired on Cartoon Network. Localisation is a process that covers the translation of both dialogue and written signs. However, in some cases, localisation moves beyond translation, changing elements of the original story to align it with North American sensibilities. The anime community which had gained access to original shows and translated them amongst themselves were highly aware of these changes.[5]
Cowboy Bebop launched the programming block Adult Swim on Cartoon Network in 2001 as “the first anime offering in Cartoon Network’s effort to reach the adult male market”.[6] An interview with Anime News Network before Cowboy Bebop aired raised questions about the editing process,
Having Cowboy Bebop on Cartoon Network is almost like a dream come true for a lot of it's fans. I say almost because there are a lot of fans who are worried that extensive edits will ruin the adult-nature of the show, and make it into a pale shadow of what it truly is. Do the fans have to worry much?[7]
All edits made were recorded by Kyle Pope on the Anime News Network as The Edit List . Three episodes were deleted from the run, as the content was seen to be potentially upsetting after 9/11. Pope provided summaries of the unaired episodes for fans who had not seen the show before it aired on Adult Swim.
While Cowboy Bebop being aired in North America rewarded the fans who had worked to bring anime to their local communities, the series was protected by these fans. The dubbing team’s fidelity to the original series gained the approval of the existing highly critical and vocal anime fans in North America. The Adult Swim localisation team was further subject to highly vigilant fans who tracked all changes made, giving the fans a mastery over the text. Through creating an online encyclopaedia, the fan community held official remediations to a high standard and imparted knowledge gained through grassroots distribution of the Japanese remediation. It is fair to say that these remediations strengthened fan communities through a better knowledge of the text and enabled the protection of Cowboy Bebop against changes.[5]
Resources
- Cowboy Bebop at Wikipedia (canon resource)
- Fandom primer on crack_van by bebopgirl
- Idol Reflection character essays on Gren, Julia, and Spike Siegel
- Fanfiction
References
- ^ Cowboy Bebop Wikipedia page
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KMlm0TVJKA
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMw3UIE6AuY
- ^ Yuletide Rarity and an Incomplete List of Ineligible Fandoms
- ^ a b Polly White 'Cult Afterlife'
- ^ Laurie Cubbison, “Anime Fans, DVDs, and the Authentic Text,” The Velvet Light Trap 56 (2005): 54.
- ^ “Interview: CN Re: Cowboy Bebob and Adult Swim,” Anime News Network