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Review : Cowboy Bebop The Move DVD
On Tuesday the 24th. Cowboy Bebop : The Movie came out on DVD in the US. I picked it up at Suncoast for twenty bucks but they also had it at Wal-Mart for the same price.
The video and audio quality on the DVD is superb and there is quite a collection of production art and creator interviews on the disc. The DVD is enhanced for wide screen presentation and looks great on my notebook. Now this is a great companion to anyone who has the Animatrix DVD and in fact the director of Cowboy Bebop directed two of the Animatrix films.
Other reviewers of this movie are going to fall into the same traps that they have with other Japanese animated films. They always focus on it being animation and not focus on it being a good movie. There is an idiotic notion that just because a film is animated that it can't be an important moving piece of film art.
The digital effects really takes advantage to the film effects that digital paint and color can bring to a 2d animated film but they do to not abuse filters
The intro looks like it was rotoscoped from footage shot in New York but I can't back that up. It has the best damn music score ever. It is not a sound track but really good music created just for this movie. The cast of the English version of cowboy bebop is so well dubbed that it is one of the few Japanese animation that I prefer to hear in English.
Now to self plagerize my review of the film presentation.
Cowboy Bebop is a story of space bounty hunters who are very slick but a bit dysfunctional and anti social. They work together but they don't exactly all get along. There is Faye the femme fatal, Spike the mod kung fu expert who just does not care, Jet the retired cop with a cybernetic arm and Ed the eccentric teenage female hacker. They get around on their space ship the Cowboy Bebop.
The movie takes place in 2071 A.D in Alba City on Mars. While it is Mars after being teraformed the design is un-mistakenly based on New York.
The plot is about the crew of the Bebop trying to stop a psychotic terrorist from killing all of Mars with a man made virus.
The Cowboy Bebop shows usually follow one film genre. This one has a classic detective story with action sequences. Nice. You can tell that this is made by film history buffs rather than just following what is the latest anime trend.
All the good re-occurring elements of the TV show are there : Jet cooking, Spike complaining about lack of beef, Faye blowing money at the horse races, and the old timers who sit around bitching about the world. Ed is a bit weird in this movie and might not be understood by people who have not followed the show. Usually Cowboy Bebop stories are around one particular character but this one branched and has stories about all of them.
Cowboy Bebop is accessible to non animation fans and is an very cool foreign film. Not only is this the best animated film made this decade it is the best movie I have seen this year. Until I see Return of the King later on this year this will probably be the best film of 2003 in my book.
It is too bad that it was made in 2001 in Japan but we are just getting it on DVD here. There is no way you would ever see this on Oscar night. Not unless you had good taste in anime DVDs.
Jake at June 29, 2003 
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Comments
I think the best thing about the Bebop series is the suave way that it presents its story and actions. Score one for Bebop!
Posted by: Jack at July 4, 2003 10:05 PM
