The Pigeon

the thing that stood out to me about the show the most is that it has one of the best narratives of any piece of media i’ve ever seen. as much as i miss the characters and wish i could see more of their adventures, i think it was the exact perfect length to tell the story. every episode managed to be fresh, unique, poignant, and interesting, even if it doesn’t push forward the main plot. i think this and the concept itself are the show’s biggest strength.

i cried three times during the show, during speak like a child, hard luck woman, and of course the real folk blues. my personal favorite episodes were waltz for venus and mushroom samba (two opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, lol). my favorite main character is ed (and ein, of course), and my favorite one-off characters are VT, Rocco, and Gren.

one thing that surprised me the most was faye’s backstory and how tragic of a character she is. i never heard anything about her, since usually when people talk about cowboy bebop they only mention spike, but i think her story is just as compelling and sad. i like how the two of them are foils, spike’s tragicness coming completely from his own pride and inability to let go of the past, while faye’s tragicness comes from circumstances outside of her control and the fact that she has zero connection to her past yet is forcibly tied to it through her debts. i went into the show thinking she would just be another oversexualized, underwritten female anime character but she honestly might be one of the most well-written female characters in anime.

spike on the other hand is obviously worth the hype, a classic 90s protagonist whose strong-headedness is his own downfall. he’s a lot more complex than most generic protagonists however because of how obviously self-destructive and passively suicidal he is. he’s knows he is going to die, and he knows that his death is going to be his own fault, his inability to leave the past alone. he’s a good person who connects with others easily, yet doesn’t want to let anyone get close to him because he knows that his time here is ephemeral. he is a tragic character, simply because he made himself to be. even in the last episode, when he has the chance to leave and run away with julia, the very thing he has been longing for for years, he stays to fight the syndicate and ends up getting her killed almost immediately. all because he just could not let the past lie.

and as much as he wished his story to be an entirely self-contained one, he inevitably affected those around him. people cared about him, a match that was actively burning out, and now he’s gone.

you’re gonna carry that weight.

speaking of, oh my jet. like faye, i had no clue about him either, and was so pleasantly surprised. i was expecting him to be the burly stoic one (which is definitely how he wants to be seen), but instead got the ship’s father figure with a deceptively big heart who cares more than he wants to. i think in another life he would have been a family man. his interactions with ed were so so so sweet, it really felt like he respected her as a fellow crew member and he always spoke to her like an equal. it pains me to think of all the loss he’s gone through over the years, and i hope he and faye were able to find their way after everything that happened.