In the previous post I discussed the landscape that was present for anime fans back before Bebop. How anime was still for the most part an obscure medium and an underground hobby save for the children series that were so easy for certain dubbing companies to bowdlerize (*cough-cough 4 Kids cough-cough*) to hell and back. If anything was going to break our hobby out of the mold It'd have to be something that would not only appeal to a wider demographic, but one that would appeal to one in a different nation. For today's post I'll examine the setting and theme in Bebop and how it was a success here in the US.
Before I begin, I'd like to state one important caveat. Just because I say "western" does not mean it's dumbed-down or of a lesser quality than its eastern counterpart. Yeah, unlike some of the more...ahem...vocal fans of anime, I'm not a weaboo. You won't see me arguing that subs are better than dubs because as an English major I'd rather watch the dub if it's good. I have no disillusions or biases based on cultural conventions. As long as the story's good I don't care where it's from or how it's made.
Anywho, let's take a look at the setting of Bebop. The science-fiction setting is exceptional in that it's less fiction an more speculation. Science fiction falls under the umbrella term of "speculative fiction" in which a different reality is predicted. Science-fiction speculates upon the future, and generally the more realistic, natural, and organic the future is, the better the story. As I've mentioned before, one of the clear influences of Bebop was Alfred Bester's magnum opus The Stars My Destination. Both settings feature technological advancements and settling on distant planets. The idea of expansion beyond the planet earth is one very appealing to an American audience since space exploration is a program we take pride in...or at least did when we actually had competition. Much like Stars, however, despite the technological advancements humanity has become worse off. Bester described it as an "...age of freaks..." and that pretty much sums up the state of humanity as crime has gotten so out of hand that the Inter-Solar System Police (at least I think that's what the nonsensical acronym means) is stretched to the limit. To cope, the ISSP has authorized bounty hunting and extradition laws to not apply on a inter solar system scale. Ah, bounty hunting: what's more American than trusting the extraction of dangerous criminals with the vigilante-suspect public? Seriously, we're the only nation that allows criminal extraction as a private enterprise on a large scale. Since the days of the old west the common man has done his best to take in criminals for pay, and the series expresses this ethos especially well, as they're even called "cowboys" in-universe. For Bebop, the outer space is the new Wild West and its 300K cowboys are living out The Man With No Name's legacy on a wide scale.
Now for the themes. Probably the most apparent theme in the show is redemption. Each member of the crew has some deep and dark past that despite their best efforts to try to evade it still catches up with them. Spike's past as a syndicate enforcer is actively out to kill him; Jet's skeletons as a former ISSP officer are marching out the closet: Faye's trying to figure out her own; Ed's just trying to find her Dad. During the series each character is forced to come to terms with his or her own past. Spike's past is the active myth arc in the series and produces the best episodes as it involves a jilted love, a psychotic rival, and a criminal syndicate, effectively establishing a very noir theme in a decidedly space western series. To add to these themes is a decidedly counter-culture undercurrent from the music which encompasses all counterculture music from jazz to heavy metal to blues to everything in between. The characters themselves are misfits from a former mafia enforcer to an ex-cop to a con woman to a mischievous androgynous hacker kid. This is a very heavy cocktail and if taken straight all at once it might give people headaches. Fortunately series writer Keiko Nobumoto opted to pen the series episodically: each episode standing on its own so that realtive newcomers to the series and/or genre can dive right in and not have to worry about continuity. The series therefore plays more like an old-school detective show like Magnum PI or Hawaii 5-0 as opposed to a continutiy based series such as Lost. Much like their profession each episode is just another bounty job and we're just along for the ride. This series is one very much tailor-made for western audiences as its themes and settings are more fitting to an American audiences than to a Japanese one: Bebop is arguably more popular here in America than its native Japan because of how it defies the established anime conventions into a coherent and refreshing take on the genre.
The problem, however, with an episodic story is that the characters have to make up for a light story. So are the characters strong enough to hold the series? That's for next time in Part 3 where I'll examine the characters and the technical aspects of the series such as the animation and the exceptionally good soundtrack.
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