You're Gonna Carry That Weight, The Point of Cowboy Bebop

hello everybody I just want to say this video is very special to me because Cowboy Bebop is very special to me so I hope you enjoy the video as always if you want to check out the video in the original format in the original way that I intended it then you can check it out over on patreon for all patreon supporters as always linked down below it's not mandatory it's just a way I can give back to people that want to support me in the channel as always I hope you enjoy the video Cowboy Bebop has been every hipsters and pretentious Arts knobs choice for favorite anime since it was released so is it any wonder that it's my personal favorite anime created by shinchiro Watanabe who also went on to create Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy Cowboy Bebop stance as a Melting Pot of different genres that comes together to tell the incoherent stories of Spike jet Fey Ed and Ein as they drift through the stars in search of their next bounty part western part sci-fi part Noir part jazz concert part mobster film part murder mystery part tragedy Cowboy Bebop mixes a lot of ideas together and somehow it mixes all of them with proportions that just work it truly is fascinating to watch as you never really know what to expect from The Next Episode a lot of people myself included at one point don't really get the point of Cowboy Bebop or why it's so special so they see it as an okay show that gets a lot of undo hype and praise and you are free to interpret the show that way but how I interpreted this show was a story of people unable to move on with their lives drifting from day to day without meeting until their pasts catch up to them each in turn look what I hope to do with this video is to help you guys appreciate the show in a way that you might have not before convince people that are still on the fence about watching it or not to go and watch it and to convey just how damn much I love this show also I should say there are spoilers ahead because it is impossible to talk about the point of the show without talking about the plot told us a collection of short self-contained Stories the show generally follows a set structure the crew of the Bebop receives a bounty they go on a mission Force head Bounty complications happen something goes horribly wrong target usually either dies or the crew has a change of heart they don't get the reward and they end up back on their ship right where they started and it all gets tied up with a nice little bow and a title card saying CU Space Cowboy and that end title card is so important now when you boil it down to its base elements like that it can be a little bit dangerous because you might miss the point of the show and some spooky can happen like misinterpreting what the show is about and that's when you get things like the Netflix rebooty [Music] but what is the point unlike most shows the stories of our main cast have for the most part already happened jet was double-crossed and lost faith in the issp leaving the police force to become a bounty hunter Bay was put into cryosleep until a cure could be found for her and after she awoke she had no memories and a massive debt to pay Ed was abandoned at a young age and had to learn how to fend for herself and Spike was a grizzled hitman inside of the red dragon syndicate then he fell in love made a daring Escape From The Syndicate faked his own death and then was betrayed by the one he loved any of these plot lines would be the main focus of any respectable normal show but here that's all in the past these events have already happened by the time we catch up to our crew on the Bebop now we see our crew going on quote unquote meaningless one-off stories but the thing is the more that you watch the more you realize that simply put these stories aren't meaningless and at some point you're gonna have to carry the weight of your experiences all of our characters are drifting through space both physically and mentally and while they don't like to admit it these Adventures leave their mark on the crew and it has impacts on how they deal with their own pasts and speaking of the past the Bebop just so happens to be the place where all of them will have to face the sweet sweet jazz music filled past one way or another Cowboy Bebop has two different types of episodes one-off episodes such as leaving a lobster in the fridge for so long it becomes sentient and then picks off the crew one by one alien Style and big episodes where every character must face their past each and turn or be consumed by it for Jed it's a Ganymede elegy where he must face the lover that scorned him a has a vital moment and speak like a child realizing that she's lost who she was during the song call me call me we see the experiences of all the crew being concluded including edinine and a penultimate climax for everyone everyone except for Spike who well you know what we'll just come back to him later considering that these key episodes are vital for understanding the whole point of Cowboy Bebop let's dissect them and find out why they work so well starting with [Music] jet is the dad of the group calm level-headed and really the glue that keeps Spike and Faith from killing one another jet has a couple of different aliases that encapsulate him as a character running Rock and the black dog while jet seems to be standing in one place he's actually actively running from his past hence the name running Rock as for the other the black dog who once he bites doesn't let go well we have to go a little bit more into it Jen likes to play it off as though nothing from his past bothers him however this facade is exposed when they bring a bounty back to the satellite where he's from and he goes off to me with his old love Alyssa we find out that Alyssa left jet with seemingly no reason just walked out one day before he came home from work leaving only a stopwatch and a note saying farewell jet kept that stopwatch until it broke and for him that stopwatch literally represents that time for him has frozen he's reliving that day again and again and again unable to get closure he doesn't let go but for everyone else they've moved on Alyssa is seeing someone new and has plans to leave the planet with him and as it turns out there's a bounty on Alyssa's new love rent you see Alyssa borrowed money from a loan shark and rent well he accidentally kills him Spike starts the chase but jet wants to do things his way spike is skeptical at first but then is reminded by jet of his old nickname from back when he was on the issp ersonal Chase for jet in a way he's chasing down his past and ending that part of his life it's a sobering moment in the show and it's shown through the music equal parts comforting sad nostalgic and remorseful it perfectly showcases the conflicting emotions in the scene as we cut between the people at play Jet cold emotionless a black dog that doesn't let go rinse panicked and desperate to escape and Alyssa defeated almost like she's accepting her fate jet personally handles bringing rent in and in a final confrontation Alyssa tells jet why she left she felt suffocated like she couldn't have her own life because jet wouldn't let go the episode ends on a lighter note with rinse most likely getting off on a self-defense charge and jet finally letting go he nonchalantly walks away and when he finds the stopwatch in his pocket he laughs to himself he throws it in the river signifying that he's ready for time to start again is it a bit on the nose sure but sometimes it's nice to have stories that have obvious metaphors and resolutions Jed has another run-in with his past later on in the show but now because he's allowed time to flow through him he's better equipped to deal with the situation overall Jed has a healthy acceptance of his past and deals with it in a mature and responsible way on the complete opposite side of that coin we have our lovely Faye Valentine [Music] today is a little bit of an enigma she plays it cool as a Fen fatal for most of the show at least but we quickly find out that she's desperate to know anything about the person that she was before she was cryogenically frozen she comes close a couple of times but nobody seems to know who she truly is until a mysterious package shows up for her Jet and Spike go on a fun little adventure to find a beta deck to play the tape but the episode ends in one of the most haunting moments of the show huh good morning me did you sleep well knowing me I'm sure you're causing all kinds of trouble for lots of different people don't mean to remember I'll always be cheering you on and now a fish here from my heart let's go me don't you lose don't you lose me don't lose me a message from a young Fae to her future self a message that Fae has no memory of I can't remember no memory of the girl in the video what was intended to be a light-hearted cheer has taken on a completely different meaning she's lost her memory [Music] she's lost her past she's lost her she's lost Faye is haunted by what she sees and takes actions to find her past but sometimes it's best not to find what you're looking for FaZe tracks down one of the locations seen in the video footage and as fate would have it actually runs into somebody that was in her High School graduating class only to find that time has flowed she's a grandmother and well beyond Fae and physical age but she has a home a family a place to belong [Music] they panics and runs back to the comfort of the ship but while there she finally remembers she remembers what she lost as her memories flood back to her the accident the freeze her family her home where she belongs she frantically races back to where she belongs her old home and Faye finds her home only to find out that it there's nothing there her old home has been raised to the ground with only a fountain still standing Bay's story culminates with the song call me call me alongside Ed and Ein so let's take a quick detour and catch up with those two and then Circle back [Music] Edward joins the crew as a bit of a misfit a kid with a massive intelligence but also half feral she has no past we know nothing about her and nothing seems to bother her she is a complete Whiplash in tone from the rest of the crew now outside of Ein that is the data dog that is hyper intelligent but is also still a dog and can't speak the duo is so drastically different from the rest of the crew zany carefree and completely off the wall I initially hated them I was so annoyed by their Antics and thought they were the worst part of the show foreign but then something happened they became a constant in the show since the two weren't tied down by their pasts they offered something different to the rest of the crew that I think they needed things all change when Edward runs into her father as it turns out her father is a complete Airhead that abandoned her at an orphanage at a young age when he pops back up again and offers for her to come back to him he immediately gets distracted and leaves again and that's when we finally come back around to call me call me as the music begins we see Ed give spike a pinwheel and Ein senses what's going on Ein gets torn between staying with the crew and chasing after Edward but he chooses to chase down Ed looks around the ship after making food for everyone to find no one eventually find Spike on the bridge overlooking the deck of the ship or Ed's adorable goodbye message has been scrawled onto we see Faye despondent as she realizes that holding out hope for her past was futile her past is gone the moment that crushes me is when she draws out where her bed once was and lays down looking at the fading Sunset while call me call me bills in the background highlighting her Despair and longing for a place to belong in the universe and meanwhile we see Ed and I reunite and run off to live their new lives as two shooting stars fall overhead as a subtle call back to Jupiter Jazz and then we see Jet and Spike wordlessly eat all of the eggs that jet had made for everyone now gone eating slowly at first and not even looking at each other or saying anything only to eat more and more frantically as if to stop the pain that they are both feeling as the rest of their crew has left them as the chorus of the song kicks in and the emotional weight of everything just hits you as the last image that you see of the episode ends is the pinwheel that Ed had given to spike haphazardly attached to the front of the Bebop and you realize how much Ed and Ein meant to the show me meant to the crew and meant to you but you never know what you love until it leaves I guess [Music] now we come to the main character of our story the guy with the fuzzy hair can't you just say you're looking for Spike Spike's beagle likes to keep to himself and he carries himself as a suicidal stoic a prime example of what I mean by this is the scene of Spike calmly sitting in his ship while plummeting uncontrollably to the ground nonchalantly lighting a cigarette and uttering the now Infamous [Music] whatever happens happens spike is constantly shown as only having interest in something if there is an element of risk involved a simple hacker bounty couldn't care less a suicidal mission to disarm a satellite in an asteroid field dodging Rock laser fire and automated defensive systems to get close enough to disable it now this is the kind of stuff I like let's do it spike is drifting claiming he's already died once we see him constantly moving towards life endangering situations just to feel something to see if he's alive much like his colleagues Spike's Story Only moves forward when his past catches up to him and gets involved or rather I should be more specific and say when vicious gets involved once his partner in The Syndicate we see the two collide with each other on a number of different occasions and each time Spike faces him with the intention of dying his final death what I find fascinating is that Spike never pushes his own plot forward he has truly given up on living he's resigned himself to this stasis of drifting through time and space forever until Julia when Spike learns that he's being targeted by the red dragon Syndicate now that vicious has taken control he doesn't care less that is until he hears that Julia is also being targeted until this point in the show Julia has been a phantom from Spike's past that not much has been revealed Beyond a few sparse scenes but now spike is finally ready to face that part of his past we get the full story of what happened between Spike vicious Julia and The Syndicate how Spike left after one final job algiulia was ordered to kill him and why Spike has been drifting for so long in the midst of these Revelations jet confronts Spike with a story have you heard this story huh Jen has already faced his past and looking back he realizes he was so fixated on holding on to how things were he was unable to live and unable to move on he pleads with Spike to let go to move on but Spike can and Jet recognizes this and instead of continuing to plead and fight with him he encourages him to go and find his other half in a way I feel like jet knew Spike better than anyone he knew how much his Blessing meant to spike and he knew that Spike would never let go just like him it all comes to a climax with Julia and Spike being reunited and for the briefest of moments we hold out hope that everything will end happily that some things are just meant to be no matter what and that in the end ah we don't hear Julia's last words and the sudden Whiplash of the moment pulls us out of the action sequence that precedes it what was once an episode filled with a hopeful crescendo shatters the episode becomes still Spike ends up back on the Bebop just like every other time after a routine bounty but this time Spike tells Jed a story instead ever heard this story the two share one final joke and laugh and then Jet rips out all of our hearts with a question his bike yeah I just want to ask you one thing what's that is it for the girl he knows spike is going to die his final death he knows that this is Spike saying goodbye and he doesn't stop him unexpectedly Faye is the one that tries to stop him instead Faye realizes that her place of belonging was with the ragtag family she found on the Bebop with Ed iron Jet and yes even Spike but when she comes back to the Bebop she finds jet shot adenine gone and Spike leaving on an assisted suicidal mission it's the second time that she's had her home ripped away from her and this scene chills me every time why are you going she already knows why he's leaving she knows where he's going but she begs him to stay all the same we finally see Spike's depression rear his head for the first time as he tells her I felt like I was watching a dream I'd never wake up from Spike knew that he was drifting he knew that he was floating without volition through space unable to let go of his past and that line had a final line I'm not going there to die I'm going to find out if I'm really alive I have to do it Faye he feels like an order for his life to have purpose he has to find out if the choices that he made were worth it looking out over the desert and seeing the mountain that he was traveling to he just wants to know it was worth it in the end him leaving the others behind hurts this scene devastates me every time the cold realization of losing her new family slowly creeping over Fey as she collapses in the hallway jet pointlessly cleaning the ship another time as it's now the only thing that he has left to cling to Spike tells vicious of Julia's death and says that he intends to end things and things do come to an end they come to an end for Julia vicious for Spike and for us we find out what Julia's last words were it's all a dream and the last thing that we hear is Spike's final word ending the dream remember how I mentioned the title card and the end of the episode being important I didn't understand the point of Cowboy Bebop when I first watched it and I didn't particularly like it I had heard all of these people hyping it up for so long and when I finished it I thought well that was okay I guess and went about my day-to-day life that is until about a month later when I found myself with a deep longing to return to the Bebop to spend more time with jet Spike Fae and yes even at an EIN who at first I thought they were just annoying I missed them [Music] so I watched the show again and it hit a little bit harder that second watch through a few months passed and the longing returned I watched it again if only just to spend a few more minutes with the crew and that's when I realized the point of the show you see throughout the show we see all of these short stories that have life or death or at the very least life-altering situations for all the people involved all of the people minused our main cast the whole point of all of these stories is that the crew of the Bebop is merely watching them unfold before them these stories don't affect them to any great significance most the time we see these life-altering stories of people dying sickness is being cured killing people trapped outside of the plain reality yes that really happens in the show but at the end of the day the crew remains unaffected back on the ship no money for food just another day drifting or so we think while the show doesn't have a traditional overarching story that we constantly get updated on each episode we see our crew go through these one-off adventures and little by little we watch them grow and we watch them change until a big episode hits them and in those big hitting episodes their stories unfold as we the audience take on the place that the crew has so often had watching when the crew deals with their own pasts the episodes have a very different feel and tone to them and to hammer them home even more they have a different end card than the standard CU Space Cowboy well except for jet when Spike faces his past during Jupiter Jazz we get do you have a comrade a double meaning for both grin in the episode and Spike moving forward when Faye finds out where she belongs is different than what she thought as well as Ed and Ein leaving the crew to start their new lives we see you cowgirl someday somewhere pertaining to both of them and finally as the roles are changed around one final time we see the end of Spike chat Bay the story of the Bebop we are left with one final message you're gonna carry that weight the point of Cowboy Bebop isn't that it's a show that has a bunch of smart setups and payoffs that all culminate in a climactic final scene that blows your mind it doesn't have incredible character growth arcs that send us on a roller coaster of emotions with our cast it really doesn't follow many if any conventional writing rules and in theory this should be a mediocre show that just coasts off Nostalgia and it's being a good show for the time a Cowboy Bebop doesn't do that those insignificant one-off stories are some of my favorite stories of all time asteroid Blues sets up expectations for the show perfectly with a wonderful mix of fun action great storytelling heart-wrenching moments and that damn ending ending right where they started in Waltz for Venus watching a brother do bad things to save his dying sister asking for mentorship from Spike and ultimately showing how good his heart really is by trying to save a complete stranger culminating in Spike using the rewards from the adventure for medicine for the sister so she can heal ending in a final cut punch of a line as we then watch Spike walk outside and look up at the snow or rather the pollen that caused the illness for the sister in the first place and in Jupiter Jazz we see a good man who held on to his ideals for so long only to watch them slowly crumble and now as we catch up to him in the episode he's resigned and accepted his fate he helps Fey with profound insight and advice and ending the big episode in an incredibly moving scene where we see past the stoic apathetic facades of Gren Spike Fey and jet as we see them all for who they truly are and we see the unspoken bonds that tie the crew together Cowboy Bebop is a show that gives you a story and a Feeling unlike anything else I have ever experienced it gives you a story of friends lost love bonds laughter living life to the fullest grief sorrow facing your past and not being afraid of welcoming death it shies away from typical stories and instead shows us what would have been the footnotes of most Tales and because of that when it ends it leaves you with this Pang in your soul a yearning just to spend another day with the crew the show leaves you with this feeling and way as it expects you to carry the stories of Spike jet Fey Ed Ein the Bebop with you until your story ends and you pass it on to another or as the show says you're gonna carry that weight [Music] [Music] foreign 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Channel: Flying Walrus

Views: 436,441

Keywords: The point of Cowboy Bebop, cowboy bebop, you're gonna carry that weight, cowboy, bebop, anime, best anime

Id: tQGaAmcENsc

Length: 31min 53sec (1913 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 02 2022