TL;DR: must watch. Great action and atmosphere but struggles in consistency.
Synopsis: a team of four bounty hunters travel in space and come to terms with their pasts.
Cowboy Bebop is considered a classic in the anime community, and for good reason. The fusion of cowboys and space travel is unique, and it manages to pull this off very well without seeming fake or gay. The production value is unbelievable, especially for a series in its time. It also features one of the greatest and most iconic endings in anime history.
Despite this, I think Cowboy Bebop is somewhat overrated, as the episodic structure simply detracts too much from the series. Episodic TV series do not work well for two reasons — it’s impossible to maintain a high level of standards due to natural variance in episode quality and the fact that it reduces the stakes, as you always expect the protagonists to get away with no consequences. There are a few lone wolves that manage to pull it off like Rick and Morty or House, but those are the exceptions and not the rule.
Besides the atmosphere, the main draw of the series is that it has a lot of peak moments: the ending, the fight at the cathedral, the fight with the mad hatter, and the call me sequence. I suspect that these individual moments contribute to a person’s enjoyment of a series far more than the overall work — an 8/10 with no 10/10 moments is actually more like a 7/10; a 6/10 with mutliple 10/10 moments is an 8/10.
Not much needs to be said - it’s a work of art and I highly recommend watching it, despite its flaws.
(yes, the picture in the thumbnail is a regression to the mean joke)
Design (15/15):
Distinguishment: (5/5) - iconic
Animation: (2/2)
Sound: (2/2)
OST: (2/2) - outstanding music
Character designs: (2/2)
Backgrounds: (2/2)
Script (37/50):
Character Investment: (10/10)
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (3/3)
Plot solidness: (5/5)
Plot complexity: (6/10) - episodic structure
Ending: (5/5)
Pacing: (3/5)
Stakes: (3/10)
Value (14/15):
Thematic elements: (4/5) - overarching theme seems to be that you can’t really abandon your past (tempted to make a body count joke here)
Skill: (5/5)
Originality: (5/5) - monster invasion of the earth is overdone now, but not as much back then. Suffers from “eva clone” syndrome as well.
Enjoyment (15/20):
Did I like it: (15/20): lots of throwaway episodes, but ends well.