Review of 'Cowboy Bebop: The Movie'

cowboy_bebop.jpg Travelling around in the spaceship “Bebop” a group of bounty hunters headed by Spike Spiegel (voiced by Kôichi Yamadera), heavy Jet Black (voiced by Unshô Ishizuka), beautifully deadly Faye Valentine (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) and the extremely quirky kid-genius Ed Wong (voiced by Aoi Tada) chase a reward in the world of 2071 to track down a mysterious terrorist who has released a bio-weapon attack on Mars. The bio-weapon leaves little trace of it's existence after killing it's victim making the job of tracing it extremely difficult but the team all pursue different avenues that point them to Vincent (voiced by Tsutomu Isobe)…but a mysterious agency is willing to kill anyone to keep the secret of the bio-weapon.

A heavily stylised anime with a fantastic soundtrack. Indeed, the animation is ok but it is the soundtrack that really delivers here. The story is convoluted and the characters entertaining but ultimately it seems like it is only part of a much larger picture which, indeed, it is as this is based on the long running anime series (taking place roughly between episodes 22 and 23) which may leave many viewers either confused or frustrated. The quirky characters are either brooding or acting extremely silly but are quite entertaining.

Never boring, great tunes, intriguing characters and interesting story but only average animation quality

Rating: “A bit better than average”

Review Date: 2019-06-22


Directed by: Shin'ichirô Watanabe

Studio: Bandai Visual Company

Year: 2001

Length: 115 minutes

Genre: Japanese Animation

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275277/