Space is endless.
We as human beings now know this.
What we also know, unequivocally,
is that we know nothing about it.
It is unknown to us.
What you see here is The Tear of a Warrior.
Someone who knew one thing.
He might not be strong enough to make it where he's going,
but he'd rather die on the way there then not go at all.
We'll come back to him.
He's important, and to one man, so is the everything else.
When you're creating something, if you get all your inspiration
from one medium, from one source,
it's going to lack originality and creativity.
I'd imagine this Shinichiro Watanabe
quote could be applied to 100 things
that you've seen in your lifetime.
And it circles back around that ship floating in endlessness.
And importantly, I know it can apply to many things in mind.
You can pinpoint it.
The moment you know you're watching something you
feel like you've seen before.
That feeling of disinterest that creeps over you
so quickly that it can catch you off guard.
And while I don't know you, yes you,
behind that phone or keyboard, I am
certain that I know one thing about you.
See, what I know is that you--
yes, you-- did not get that disinterested deja vu
the first time you watched this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Shinichiro Watanabe is the biggest inspiration
for literally everything I do artistically.
Without Watanabe, this channel doesn't
exist, that music you hear when I make a Nerdstalgic
video doesn't play, and you aren't hearing my voice here
at all.
And that might be most interesting because Watanabe
is a weird dude.
I believe samurai in the Edo period
and modern hip hop artists have something in common.
Rappers opened the way to their future with one microphone.
Samurai decided their fate with one sword.
That Watanabe quote, referencing his work on Samurai Champloo,
should be everything you need to know about this guy.
To call him an enigma would be to undersell his personality
greatly.
He is indeed weird.
But what's important for this piece
isn't necessarily who Shinichiro Watanabe is,
but why he created this thing that you see on your screen
right now.
See, Bebop wasn't the result of a man wanting
to direct an anime, Bebop was the result of that man,
as he put it himself, wanting to make
an anime that destroyed the norms, to make something
unconventional.
Now to be clear, that particular attitude in art
is typically a one way ticket to catastrophe.
Any time someone creates something unusual
or attempts to be original simply
for the sake of doing so, without purpose, you
get something with as little soul
as a trite retread that they were attempting to avoid.
It just ends up being a little weirder.
But when you create around the box with purpose,
then it starts to matter that you aren't in it.
And that analogy is about structure,
which is where Bebop lays the foundation for everything that
makes it different, and frankly the foundation for so much
of current media.
Bebop's episodes typically, with some exceptions,
adhere to a relatively similar structure.
I point this out not as a negative
but as context for what it does within that structure.
Part one.
The crew of the Bebop, individually or together,
happen upon a bounty or sometimes just
a character of interest worth tracking down.
We've usually never met this new character before.
Part two.
We get the motivation for tracking down
the aforementioned bounty if it isn't simply Woolongs, which
is Bebop-speak for money.
Part three.
We track down the bounty, and this
is where the Bebop structure starts to take shape.
Part four.
We discover that this bounty, which
is nothing more than a MacGuffin--
which is a device used ubiquitously in modern film,
and often horribly-- that can be best described as a gotcha item
meant to move the plot forward.
But here, we realize it's more than we thought.
Bebop is a rare example of understanding
the purpose of MacGuffin beyond the literalism that it is.
Which leads to part five.
The layers of our MacGuffin reveal nuance.
The Bebop crew's bounty isn't the bad guy
we thought they were.
Instead, they become vehicles through which
individual members of the Bebop-- or the collective--
process their own experiences in the motions.
Part six.
In turn, we learn something new about Spike or Faye or Jet,
and suddenly the bounty doesn't matter.
Which is good, because part seven,
our MacGuffin has become much more,
and thus the bounty usually doesn't get turned in at all.
Instead, someone either loses their life,
thus the character disappears, or is
set free on their own path with a few exceptions.
The goal never being much of a goal at all, and usually,
not being fulfilled.
And finally, if we're lucky, in watching session 13,
Space Lion plays the episode out.
Seriously, this track is phenomenal.
But we'll get there.
And that all essentially covers the structure
of a good majority of Bebop's run.
So why does it work, beyond just having a mature understanding
of the MacGuffin concept?
I think that starts here with something quick and simple,
and that's non-serialized serialization.
Which I know sounds a little oxymoronic.
Bebop is technically not a serialized show.
Meaning each episode tells a self-contained story,
and in theory, you could hop in anywhere and enjoy an episode,
hop out, and have had a good time.
But I don't think Bebop is as traditionally non-serialized
as other shows of its kind.
See, what Bebop really is more than anything
is the emotional journey of Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed.
What that in turn means is that jumping in randomly,
treating each episode individually,
you lose a lot of the story that's really being told.
And in some ways, you miss crucial information
that makes pieces of that story matter.
If you skip Ballad of Falling Angels,
Jupiter Jazz might be a little less impactful.
Point is, Watanabe, and in turn, Bebop, understand something
that so few pieces of media even today get right.
Every moment doesn't need to be in service of narrative
momentum, but every moment does need
to service character momentum for as long
as you're telling a story that's character driven.
Bebop manages to be both a piece of
serialized and non-serialized media successfully
and simultaneously as a result. But it's in its consistency
where it separates further from its contemporaries.
In all of Watanabe's work, but particularly Bebop,
one thing stands out amongst the list of superlatives constantly
thrown in its direction.
Mood and tone.
I'm combining them for the purpose of this piece.
Cowboy Bebop, for all its action, its gunfire,
its dogfights is maybe the most quiet and reflective show
you'll ever see.
It's OK in silence.
It's OK being patient, even slow at times.
It is never in any rush.
It can easily be described as relaxed.
Characters are rarely yelling.
Instead they choose their words.
And better yet are careful about when they speak at all.
In turn, words have impact.
It's about the sunstone.
Sunstone?
What's that?
The direction, the day, and the time you arrived
were all the best combination for Feng Shui.
The action takes cues from early samurai films.
It is fast, it's loud, but it's typically brief.
It's over before you know it, and thus it too has impact.
Characters die.
There's weight, gravitas to every moment they're on screen.
As a result, we know this is a universe that understands
meaningful consequence.
Therefore those characters have impact.
In turn, Bebop carries with it an identity
that is so consistent, and so gorgeous,
that it permeates each and every element of its being.
Simply through consistency and in its tone of gravitas.
Bebop is comedy, it's action, it's science fiction.
But most importantly, it's friendly
and wants you to know it's real.
It works tirelessly to keep you comfortable,
to not overwhelm you, and to make
you smile so you eventually have a reason to be sad.
And nothing articulates this mood in tone better than this.
I've spoken a lot here about Jupiter Jazz,
the 12th and 13th episodes of Bebop.
And that's because in my opinion,
even more so than Ballad of Fallen Angels,
it best articulates everything that
makes the show so unbelievably special.
But more pertinently, I think it best thematically encapsulates
what's so special about its creator Shinichiro Watanabe.
His willingness to understand risk.
To not just take it but understand the purpose of it
within art is what really makes his work,
specifically here, so unique.
Space is endless.
And Watanabe and Cowboy Bebop understand that emptiness
and the risk of attempting to cross it.
If you're going to take a risk of any kind,
if you're going to attempt to chart
a new way through your space, whatever it be,
understand what Watanabe did.
What Bebop did, and what Gren did.
That the trip means nothing if you have no idea what you're
trying to find when you arrive.
Have purpose, understand it before you chart your course,
because it's better to die the Tear of a Warrior
than to lose sight of what you're
taking your artistic risks for only to never
be seen in the stars at all.
Well guys, that's it for today's episode of Nerdstalgic.
Something that I truly love.
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hit that like button down below.
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And hopefully, I will see you guys in the next video.