JeffJeff's Bizarre Adventure S03E01: Oh, those aren't bullets

I feel like the real Jeff Jeff's Bizarre adventure is in the room with them. Split between dubs and subs. Now it's truly an anime education.

This is touched on this episode but the thing that's great about discovering that you love an anime by Shinichiro Watanabe is that you can (through your own small research) discover your own system of self-recommendations. And you can totally daisy-chain these recommendations from one creative person that left their mark on one show to another show. Then it's just a self-perpetual machine of finding potentially new things to watch based on your own opinions instead of relying on others.

Like you probably wouldn't normally watch a highschool romance slice of life anime, but what if it took place in the 1960's in an American naval base town where western religious/music/culture aspects collided and heavily influences the backdrop and feel of the story. And it's directed by Shinichiro Watanabe? (the anime is Kids on the Slope btw)

The group suggests many good examples this episode but I too think that Space Dandy is an excellent example if you like the Space Bounty Hunter setting but miss the off-kilter bizarreness of Jojo's.

But I would like to dispel the misconception that creative decisions usually come down to a single person.

Cowboy Bebop didn't just air on Adult Swim. It was THE Adult Swim anime for a while. The first and only anime they had on the original block.

I've genuinely never heard anyone before now talk about watching Cowboy Bebop subbed. Spike is Steve Blum and Faye is Wendee Lee. Tam isn't completely wrong in his description of downsides to dubs (lip syncs etc) but Cowboy Bebop is iconic. I dunno if it's just a difference in nostalgia for people from different parts of the world but if you were a kid in the US in 2001 or whatever watching Cartoon Network past your bedtime and having only really been exposed to anime on Toonami up till then, you know these voices.

Looking forward to the mushroom samba.

@garwalk: For real, the Cowboy Bebop dub is an all-timer. Truly great.

However, I do appreciate Tam bringing this up if for no other reason than to introduce Bakalar to the ever present subs vs. dubs debate.

Hearing Tam and Lucy telling Jeff to switch to sub is blowing my mind. Sub vs Dub is a important to the anime culture but also some dubs are just iconic and Cowboy Bebop is one of those and I think it is also important to your anime education to watch at least one dub.

Dubs are an absolutely essential part of anime for a variety of creative and accessibility reasons and I would never look down on anyone who prefers them, but the fact that it is an ADR performance written for a language that the animation on-screen was not originally animated for, will always be at the back of my lizard brain whenever I watch dubbed anime.

Cowboy Bebop's dub is one of the greatest examples of dubbed anime done well, along with a bunch of other highlights in that era like Stand Alone Complex, but to me it feels really obvious when a translator (bless their souls, some of the most creative writers in the business) has to contort the English language to fit the cadence of Japanese-language mouth movement. You get run-on sentences and pauses and what-have-you that just don't feel quite as natural because they're trying to match the meaning and intent of a performance with the strictest of timing. It's not something I always immediately thought about back in the day, and it's not really a problem most of the time, but it is there.

Truth be told, I envy the people who can comfortably ignore that kind of thing, and it's still leaps and bounds better than the ADR of Asian television and cinema I put up with in my childhood a decade prior to that. (But I still did watch most of those beloved shows in their original Japanese language so I guess I'll always have a bias)

Apropros of nothing, the Netflix adaptation of Cowboy Bebop did bring in the original seiyuu to dub their characters for the Japanese dub (and they did an incredible job with it), lol

Gotta say, while I'm a sub over dub guy I really think Cowboy Beebop is best in dub. It's a massive reason why Adult Swim and anime in the west in general became what it is today. Also Steve Blum absolutely kills it as Spike

This is probably the only anime where I say dub over sub. The original Japanese cast is wonderful and I've enjoyed the show many times subbed, but the english VAs ARE these characters, the same way David Hayter IS Solid Snake. If you're only going to watch this show once I'd definitely recommend dubbed.

To provide an alternate opinion on the subs vs. dubs debate for Bebop:
I think the Bebop dub is fantastic, or at least what I've heard of it. The voices match the character appearances and personalities, and you don't really get the screechy or snotty insufferable "anime child" voices too much (think Silver Wolf from Honkai Star Rail for a recent example of what I mean). That being said, which audio track you gravitate towards ultimately depends on which language you're more comfortable with in an anime setting. This itself is already an achievement to some degree, with the quality of anime dubs from this era in general (i.e. it's usually not even a question).

As for me, you'll never find me saying the English dub is better than the subs. You'll find many people, including multiple comments above, saying Spike's voice as Steve Blum is iconic and Spike basically belongs to said actor. But as a Japanese native, this take strikes as peculiar, mere inches from the realm of absurdity. Yamadera Koichi, who is one of the all time greats of voice acting as a profession as a whole, voices Spike in the JP dub. This is a man that can voice an easygoing cowboy like in this show, or goddam Mew in pokemon, or a hippo-child and a fucking dog in the same children's show. A particularly interesting anecdote I've heard about him is that when being cast as Donald Duck in Japan, the casting director claimed that the only negative thing he can say about Yamadera is that nobody knows his "true" voice. The fact that this man brings out basically his coolest sexy man voice for his role as Spike is reason enough for me to never consider anything other than the original JP audio. Mind you, it's not the monotone "a man should be nothing but gruff" boringness like Geralt or something. The Yamadera Spike is chill, smooth, humorous, energetic, and charming, all at once and when the situation calls for it. Besides that, I didn't even get to how this show is pretty much chock-full of legendary voice actors literally all over the cast. Megumi Hayashibara, Unshou Ishizuka (RIP), Norio Wakamoto... people that you'll find in main roles in countless shows before and after. I can just never get over how good this show sounds to me.

Now Jeff gets to experience what its like to be a real anime fan - getting saucy about subs and dubs!

Jeff, please dont deprive yourself of Spikes voice in the english sub. It's of the greatest performances in anime. Lines from Cowboy Bebop still rattle in my head so many years after

And just to throw my hat in the ring, the sub is the way to go :p

Obviously the solution is to watch it twice, once with each! Bebop is good (and relatively short) enough to make that a good use of anyone’s time.

The pilot episode of this show was my first real moment of “oh shit, anime can be goddamn amazing”. Quite possibly the best first episode of any show ever, up there with BSG’s “33”.

I guess it's good that Tam and John bring up the subs/dubs thing, and to educate Jerf on the differences. But personally i fucking hate the arguments. This isn't the late 1900's when all we had was VHS's that were mostly subs. It's 2023, watch anime however you want that lets you enjoy it the most.

Anyways, i'm glad to see Jerf likes Bebop so much, it's quite a departure from what they've watched so far.

Also, it would be cool to see if Jerf starts exploring anime on his own time, and see what he discovers. Limiting himself to only seeing anime for this show seems silly. There's such a vast wealth of stuff for his to discover, i want to see where he drifts without the gang's help

I've never watched Bebop with subs before. I might watch alongside them with Japanese audio this time, I'm sure it's just as amazing

Watching Bebop subbed is one thing, but insisting someone only watch it subbed is psychopath behavior

Had to pause the episode, reset my password, resurrect my long dead account, verify my email- all so I could throw my hat in the ring over this sub VS dub chicanery.

Tam, i love you brother but you gotta let this one go. Jeff came out of those first two episodes with a glowing enthusiasm for the series- he sounds fired up and ready to watch more. He didn't know, nor was his enjoyment in any way impacted by what you feel he may or may not be missing from the source material.

The English dub of Bebop is outstanding- I've watched the series subbed and dubbed and they're both equal in my heart. The dub cast bring so much life and character to their performances that I can't say one truly surpasses the other. If Jeff is enjoying his time with the dubbed version, just let him continue to engage with it in the format he has thus far- no need to be switching back and forth :)

This is my only comment ever on this site and I can wholly recommend the Cowboy Bebop dub over the sub for a first time watcher. And I'm speaking as someone who watches anime with subs 99% of the time. That's because the dub is one of the greatest in anime. The English voice actors give it their all and they suit the characters so well. As many have said, the dub is core to this series and its history. You can also always watch it again with subs if you want to compare and contrast.

Hope Jeff keeps going with dub, definitely the best experience for a first time watch!

I don't know if it's a matter of what you watched first, but I just can't get with the sub. I tried it once out of curiosity after having seen the dub multiple times, and it felt so weird that I couldn't finish the first episode. The dub voices and deliveries just fit so much better, especially given the show's heavy Western themes and references.

People can have their preferences, but honestly both versions are fantastic. It's a great idea for Jeff to watch the first episode again with subs, and then let him decide which one he'd like to proceed with.

If they continue with the dub, I hope that Tam doesn't make a habit of saying the subs are more authentic or better produced all the time. Pointing out interesting differences once a while for context is fine. But I don't want complaining about how they make a "mistake" to go with it, even if it's just a bit to dunk on Jeff. Each ones has their merits and I'll recommend anyone to watch Cowboy Bebop both subbed and dubbed if they have the time.

I didn't have cable growing up, but I remember watching the first episode at my grandparent's home late at night. It might actually have been the first airing on Adult Swim. I didn't get to finish the full series until college, but I sure remembered it. Such a high quality show that stands the test of time.

There's bit of text that flashes in the opening and some of the eye-catches, "The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called... COWBOY BEBOP." It sounds really pretentious, but the anime truly earns it.

Ahh... the old subbed v dubbed debate.....

Jerf, we comment because we care...

In this instance, because of its place in history, because it was intrinsic to Anime's broad debut in America, because the cast is f*%k'n fantastic..... dubbed.

I think Japanese actors tend to sound gruff all the time, and the characters sound more alike than English actors. I watch movies in Japanese, but shows with characters that you deal with over a long time are more interesting dubbed, for me.

All right, all right, all right, time to pull that FUNimation blu-ray off my shelf.

I usually gravitate towards watching anime subbed for the exact reason Tam mentioned. The way that dialogue lines are stretched/compressed to fit the mouth movements prevents my brain from getting fully immersed in the story, regardless of how good the performance might be.
[There are exceptions. I had to watch Evangelion dubbed simply because there was way too much background chatter and in-world text for my eyes to keep up with the subs. And, after seeing some clips on YouTube, I watched Trigun dubbed because I enjoyed the nostalgic 90s-ness of the performances (Milly + Meryl 4 Life).]
Conversely, one of my friends is the exact opposite. Having to read subtitles breaks his immersion in the story.

I guess my point is that the answer to the sub/dubs debate is always whatever helps you to better enjoy the show in question. My experience with Bebop spans three decades at this point (not a brag), but I've never seen the dubbed version. The comments here have convinced me to give it a shot! And if it's not for me? I can switch back!

@zeeman155: Ahh, Kids on the Slope. I remember first reading about that in a Kirk Hamilton article on Kotaku of all things (he did a deep dive on all of the jazz compositions the show referenced and how they connected with the story), and ended up watching the entire series over the course of a weekend. Good stuff!

my freshman year of high school our band show had the intro song in it and I got to play the bongos and it ripped

yeah, Cowboy Bebop and FLCL defined Adult Swim. two fantastic shows with some of the best English voice casts ever.

Hopefully you guys can get new banner art for all of the Bebop episodes.

ive watched bebop with the dub many times in my youth and hold a lot of nostalgia for it, rewatching the series for the first time in a long time because of this show and holy crap i had to switch to subs after the first episode, the dub is just as bad as any other its pure nostalgia holding it up.

I feel like that's often how it goes, you grow up with a certain way of watching something, whether it's the dub on toonami, your local language dub, or baked in fansubs on a crusty VHS, the rose tinted glasses effect is real (and valid, it's a defining version in your mind).

If Jeff can deal with Bebop, then he's not that far away from trying out the best anime ever :

Telling a newbie to watch Bebop with subs is a hot take. I'm almost exclusively a dub watcher and have seen the series in both formats many times, but the dubbed version is pretty much what the fandom prefers and I would say it's very appropriate for this anime that is such a love letter to the West.

@gyratyne: Agreed. This show was a smash hit in the US and probably wouldn't be quite as insanely popular were it not for its international success. The dub in this case is the way it was consumed. It's by no means invalid to enjoy the subs, of course, but trying to depict the dub as inferior in this case is definitely not an opinion the fandom holds. It's a niche take that is perhaps interesting for a deep dive with a bunch of hardcore fans, not a podcast devoted to letting someone experience something HUGE as it was experienced by the original NA/UK fans.

Just so this doesn't confuse people later on, the Tijuana (TJ) that they visited is not the original on Earth, it is an asteroid named after the city. The Earth itself is in a bad way...

I'm pretty sure that the touchstone for the Space Warriors is supposed to be the Sea Shepherds, a group that tries to disrupt Japanese whaling ships.