Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is a classic anime series that was required watching back when I started with the hobby.

[PTETY8Db07k] The famously jazzy OP.

I have watched Cowboy Bebop, yes, but I did not find it quite as remarkable as many others seem to. I much prefer Samurai Champloo, which shares the same director and presumably other creators. The way Bebop is Jazz + space, Champloo is Hiphop + samurais.

>Fu
Girl whose mother died and father left out of fear of Christian persecution. Didn’t have a clue that was why, but wanted to find her father out of strange mix of curiosity and anger towards him
>Faye
Human who got frozen in time and is now lonely/amnesiac. Copes by being a gambler

>Mugen
Former pirate born into a penal colony who never knew his parents and later escaped. Originally didn’t even know how to write, but humbly decides to try to learn in one of the episodes. Becomes calmer and more caring through the series.
>Spike
Former gangster who decides to steal a girl from his partner and leave the gang. Has a hard time leaving the gang and trying to forget everything.

>Gin
Swordfighting prodigy whose talent cause his own master to try to assassinate him, since the shogunate was trying to take control of all dojos and his master knew he wouldn’t stand for it. He ironically becomes the inheritor of that school of swordsmanship, and an outcast by his former classmates as well. He’s treated as a murderer when he was the victim
>Jet
Good cop in a bad organization who went too far and was betrayed by his coworkers. Survived and left to work in criminal justice on his own.

If you pay attention, you notice that most of the archetypes in Bebop and Champloo are similar, but the ones in Champloo seem to be built off those in Bebop, with more thorough, coherent backstories that weave into the historical narrative and themes. It’s almost as if they had the same director, but that director became more experienced and sought to improve upon his prior work.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureImperfect

Inverted in Cowboy Bebop. Jet and Spike consult an antique electronics dealer to identify a strange item called a “Betamax videocassette”. This Fan of the Past is overcome with excitement, and proceeds to bore the two hardened bounty hunters to distraction with every arcane detail of the 1980s video format wars.