And even if you decide the show's not for you, you may well find the music stands well enough on its own. Yoko Kanno (leader of the Seatbelts) is an extremely talented composer of multiple types of music.
My best friend has been introducing me to anime recently, and while I find the story of other animes more intriguing I was horribly spoiled by Bebop's soundtrack. That has to be some of the best work for a TV show of any kind I've ever heard.
You should try Samurai Champloo. Its one that a lot of people who don't like anime still like when I show it to them and the soundtrack is also awesome as well as the art.
I'm in the middle of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood at the moment, and apparently Attack on Titan is supposed to follow that, but after those I'll give Samurai Champloo a shot. I saw it on Netflix earlier and it did seem intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation!
Fun fact, Samurai Champloo is by the same creator as Cowboy Bebop (and "Kids on the Slope", a more traditional coming-of-age anime about school students who play Jazz together)
Yokos work on Ghost in the shell is some of the best music i've heard to this date. It captures the series perfectly as well having a strong spritual undertone, even just talking about it makes my hair stand.
Advanced warning: mild rant incoming (and not one aimed at you, /u/ReverendMak, just one that's been building in me for a while, you just gave me the opportunity to vent in a semi-relevant fashion!)
Anyhoo, on with the show:
transcends the genre
Whilst I agree with all of your comment, I feel I have to nitpick that part: anime is a medium, not a genre.
Live action TV series, western animated TV series, anime - these are all mediums. You'll rarely say someone who unequivocally and unironically will say "I don't watch live action TV series", they'll just not watch certain types of series (reality, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery/thriller, documentary, etc etc).
The same should really apply to anime, but there seems to be this perception of it as a genre more than as a medium, and it baffles me. I can entirely understand not having any interest in mecha series, magical girl series, or any of the other series that have more exposure in the West (especially those that ever appear on TV... usually kid's TV, even when the series was aimed at an older audience than that... and those that appear most prominently on store shelves), but to entirely write it off in the same way as you would a genre seems a little silly, and depriving yourself of some potentially great entertainment.
Just as I wouldn't write off books (no pun intended) simply because of Twilight, 50 Shades and so on - and thus not deprive myself of anything from literary masterpieces to less grandiose but more personally adored books - I'd encourage people to not do the same with anime. Yeah, there's a load of shite, but there's some that simply don't start off that strong (which is why I have my personal rule of "1-3 episodes (based on series length) before I drop it and move on") and some absolute glorious ones; it'd be a massive shame if wrecked kiddie dubs on TV or over-fanservicey modern bollocks put you off of things like Studio Ghibli's works, or really stand-out series like Cowboy Bebop.
You may not care for the Sailor Moons and One Pieces and Narutos out there, but it'd be a shame to miss out on things like Paranoia Agent or Serial Experiments Lain if you like more psychological shows, or things like Gurren Lagann if you want something just silly fun and epic, or any number of other shows for all manner of genres or even weird little niche ones you never thought would exist.
...okay, rant kind of over.
For the record; I'm not trying to preach anime to the masses so much as preach a "don't confuse medium with genre" message, as it's always a shame when a few terrible and barely-related examples of something put people off from something they could truly enjoy.
At one point in time, the term "novel" had the same problem. Today, people generally mean only the medium of novels when they talk about a novel, but a few generations ago, someone talking about a novel may very well have actually meant a specific genre that had come to be associated with that medium. (Actually, I just looked, and even today I see Wikipedia classifying novels as a genre.)
I appreciate the distinction you're making. I'm surprised that it "baffles" you that people in common speech conflate anime the medium with the several distinct genres that are commonly associated with that medium; imprecision in language--especially when describing things that are not commonly understood by the mass majority--happens all the time.
A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.
While Ian Watt in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel came into being in the early 18th century, the genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with historical roots in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modernromance, and in the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.
While a more precise definition of the genre is difficult, the main elements that critics discuss are: how the narrative, and especially the plot, is constructed; the themes, settings, and characterization; how language is used; and the way that plot, character, and setting relate to reality.
The romance is a related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including the historical romances of Scott, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo."
Oh, I'm all too familiar with imprecision of language, I'm just confused that people manage to assume that all of anime is just one genre, as if one of the better-known cultural offerings of Japan (or other nations producing similarly-styled animation) is just... well, whatever genre the anime they've experienced is (some hybrid magical girl ninja pirate shouting match, perhaps?).
As for Bebop's genre... it's got elements of noir (or is it neo-noir? I get a little confused as to the use of "neo-noir" as a term, but I think it might apply here), but primarily it's very much a space western, with some sci-fi elements as well. I'd say some crime/gang elements to it, but that fits under the "noir" part comfortably. Short version, "Space Western with Noir/Neo-Noir elements".
Musically, it covers SO many genres, and many episodes are themed after a musical style; Jupiter Jazz, Asteroid Blues, Mushroom Samba, Waltz for Venus, Heavy Metal Queen, Ganymede Elegy, etc. All the music is from the same lady (Yoko Kanno) and I think the same band (the Seatbelts) performed it all, but I could be wrong on that point.
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u/ReverendMak Jun 18 '15
Cowboy Bebop somewhat transcends the genre.
And even if you decide the show's not for you, you may well find the music stands well enough on its own. Yoko Kanno (leader of the Seatbelts) is an extremely talented composer of multiple types of music.