JeffJeff's Bizarre Adventure S03E03: Monkey Business

Jeff certainly has an interesting take on Ballad of Fallen Angels. Preference for light-hearted hijinks is one thing, but the serious episodes are still exceedingly high quality. Even if you don't care for the drama and continuity, it's exceptional from a style and mood standpoint. The church sequence is iconic for a reason.

There is an underlining melancholy in the show. Despite all the fun times, the past has a way of catching up.

All this wolf talk at the start. Yall should do a detour to look at a episode or two of Wolfs Rain. Lots of the same staff worked on it, and its got lotsa good boys on the cast.

oo Jeff's initial take on Ballad of Fallen Angels is precisely one of my issues with the "western interpretation" via subs and dubs of this show. I think one of the core developments of this show is the relationship that builds between the crew, and the JP script and acting definitely makes it clear that, while Jet and Spike are indeed comfortable with each other, they aren't super close friends yet. That tension that they introduce at the beginning of the episode definitely feels earned; there's a lot that they aren't showing each other, and more so from Spike's side. This gets emphasized later when Jet offers to talk about his arm, and Spike deflects.

Every watch of Bebop slightly changes my opinion of how well the Vicious stuff is integrated into the rest of the show. I don’t know if the show spends enough time on this part of the story for him to be a truly effective antagonist for Spike. I remember feeling a little underwhelmed by the finale because of this the first time I saw it, although I haven’t felt that way on repeat viewings.
I understand where Jeff is coming from as well: as good as the episodes are, there is a clear difference in tone and the times where the show shifts gears between light and heavy can be a bit jarring, especially on first watch.
Hell of an action scene though!

A lot of that shift in tone from episode to episode is partly due to how Cowboy Bebop was originally aired / presented on Japanese tv. Some of the episodes were exclusive to satellite tv, and a lot of those episodes are the ones that had darker and more violent themes. It’s interesting!

First watched Cowboy Bebop with imported raw VHS with my high school anime club in 1999, so this show is obviously huge for me personally, and always love hearing other people’s takes on it. Thanks!

Yeah, the *CRASH* of their pasts into their presents is one thing that really sold me on this show, and keeps me sold on it decades out.

Be ready for this once yall are back on that JoJo kick, JERF; Diamond is this x10.

Yeah the thing about cowboy bebop is that just about every end to an episode is dystopian and/or depressing, but the show is so good you don't really notice it at first.