Long before I was roasting rancid anime garbage, Diving too deep into silly VR Worlds, and
exposing Kooky Cults my main hustle was analyzing anime openings. Picking apart their symbolism
and foreshadowing to find themes and messages hidden in plain sight. I covered a lot of
personal faves and all time greats in that time, but one extremely important opening
has eluded my analytical grasp. Until now.
On the surface, Cowboy Bebop’s Tank! seems simple enough. A heavily stylized, catchy
instrumental number meant to set the tone, establish the characters, and ensure they
stick in your mind for the rest of your natural life. But Director Shinichiro Watanabe is
a meticulous, deliberate sort of genius who instills deeper meaning into every facet of
his work using every tool at his disposal. He’d never settle for style without substance.
There had to be more to it than just cool visuals and a cool song.
It offers few visual clues as to what, though, and I’m just not a musically-minded guy.
So after doing enough research to peg it as a more refined spiritual successor to the
early openings of Lupin the 3rd which also clearly inspired the relationship between
Bebop’s crew in the show itself… I… hit a wall and gave up.
But the recent release of Netflix’s disappointing Live Action Opening renewed my interest. Their
take on Tank! is fun, creatively edited, and full of genuinely impressive shots and effects.
And it much more explicitly foreshadows many important plot beats from the series. [spike
fall 0:46] Yet it also feels… hollow, somehow. And not just for its criminal lack of Ed.
They meticulously recreated the look and sound of Anime’s least skippable opening, but
somewhere along the way, they ripped out its soul.
And as I was rewatching the Anime in preparation for netflix’s adaptation, the nature of
that soul FINALLY clicked. Perhaps it was the incongruity of the Live Action OP itching
at the back of my mind, Or it may have been the aid of a certain subtly Watanabe-suggested
substance that I’m gonna call G-Fuel because most of my audience is in less cool countries
than Canada. Also because this video is sponsored by G-Fuel Energy Formula. Use promo code basement
for 30% off an order of any size at G-Fuel.com! Also also it… kinda works as a pun if you
replace the “M-E-R” in the word G is short for with “N-J-A.” But there’s only room
for one galaxy brained take in this essay. Regardless of what brought me here, I now
fully understand what Neflix’s editors failed to see. Bebop’s opening is LITERALLY perfect,
a seamless fusion of music and motion that cannot be changed in ANY way without diminishing
its power. And it doesn’t just set the tone for every episode of Cowboy Bebop. IT IS every
episode of Cowboy Bebop! To explain what that means, I need to provide
even more context. Sorry, but I promise this is going somewhere REALLY cool, and if you
stick with this video all the way, there’s even a crazy plot twist at the end!
When Watanabe set out to create Cowboy Bebop, it was his EXPLICIT GOAL to birth an entirely
new genre of science fiction. It says so right there in the broken English Manifesto scrolling
behind Tank!, and on several eyecatches throughout the series:
“The Work, Which Becomes a New Genre Itself, will be called… COWBOY BEBOP!”
He even picked out a name for the new genre, and explained it in another English manifesto
on another eyecatch! To put a… very long story short, Watanabe found the war-obsessed,
endlessly epic nature of “Space Operas” to be tedious, and sought to create their
antithesis: Space Jazz. Opera is one of our oldest and most venerated
forms of music and theatre. And, like most classic forms, it tends to use big important
events and big, important people, with a touch of the divine, to create a sense of grand,
sweeping drama. Jazz, in stark contrast, is the music of everyday
life. An improvised expression of the beauty found in ordinary, human emotions, ordinary,
human interactions, and ordinary, human struggles. A jazz ensemble doesn’t march to the orders
of a conductor or follow fixed sheet music. Each musician acts independently, playing
the assigned tune their way while trying to stay out of the other performers’ way, and
support their comrades’ creative flourishes wherever they can.
That’s not to say there are no compositions in Jazz, but the same Jazz tune is never played
the same way twice. It might start and end the same, but the players forge a new path
between those points every time. Depending on the emotion of the moment, the same basic
musical framework can become an up-tempo dance number, a goofy little musical joke, or a
somber ballad. The bounty hunting sessions of Cowboy Bebop
all follow this logic, reusing the same basic plot beats, but remixing them, discarding
them when they’re not needed, to create what feels like a whole new song each time.
But it is the same basic tune time and again. And the name of that tune… is Tank!
We open, often in-medias res with the hunt underway, on Spike playin’ it cool. Typically
in some sorta bar, but it could be anywhere. He’s a likeable sort who makes friends wherever
he goes, which is useful when you wanna bum a light… or pick up a lead.
Once he gets the scent, Spike goes running off on a merry chase, information swirling
all around him, yet refusing to coalesce into one coherent picture – that’s what the
jumbled manifesto behind his silhouette is all about.
Eventually he’ll cross paths with his quarry, usually where he wasn’t expecting them,
and turn his cocksure grin their way. After introducing us to our leading player,
the OP takes a second to introduce his instrument, the Swordfish, blending an extreme closeup
on its distinctive headlight with a wider shot of its gun barrel.
Once she joins the crew, Faye does her hunting independent of Spike, usually from a diametrically
opposed angle. And her methods are a bit more measured. She moves at a steady pace, approaches
her target when she’s good and ready, and generally uses her feminine wiles to catch
them off guard. The information she’s working with is no
less jumbled than Spike’s, though. She just has a way of looking good even when she’s
making a huge mistake. And after we see her looking good, cigarette
dangling at a calculatedly casual angle, we get a look at her instrument, too: The six
chamber missile magazine and twin machinegun barrels of the Red Tail.
This stage of the hunt ALWAYS ends poorly for the pair of them. There’s always something
they overlooked, an element they couldn’t see coming. And that oversight almost always
leads to a gunfight. If not a kung fu street brawl. Usually it’s both.
And as the action picks up, the bassline and bongo beat that have kept the composition
feeling steady to this point fall away, leaving the music, and characters effectively in freefall.
It’s in these moments of violence, though, that crew begins to get a clearer picture
of what the case is REALLY about. as symbolized by the more coherently arranged manifesto
text to the side of those guns and behind kung-fu-kicking spike on their respective
album covers. These album shots also serve to highlight
one of the most impressive selling points of Cowboy Bebop as a production – the remarkable
technical specificity in its animation. With the gun, we see the trigger pull, the hammer
snap, the muzzle flash, and the hand recoil, in triplicate, just so we don’t miss how
realistic and detailed those movements are. And when spike throws his flying kick, silhouette
looks like it could have been rotoscoped over a real, professional martial artist. They
even add a little motion blur to make it feel less like anime.
Another flourish of technical specificity – the panel, pedal, and throttle of Spike’s
ship – brings us into the next part of bebop’s standard tune: The SPACE CHASE. For any Otaku
watching who somehow doesn’t know what Bebop’s about already, this flash of OBSCENELY DETAILED
mechanical design porn – courtesy of absolute legend Kimitoshi Yamane - is gonna immediately
grab their attention. I could talk about the control panels in Cowboy
Bebop’s ships ALL DAY. But today is not that day.
We see the swordfish in full view for the first time as it bursts into the sea of seemingly
random words, then blows past them into a realm of pure shape and colour, where it’s
joined by the Red Tail, Jet’s Hammer Head, and the bow of the Bebop herself.
It’s significant that the manifesto text and the structure it symbolizes falls away
here, because Cowboy Bebop’s flight scenes – the chases and space battles – are the
show’s jazz solos. The moments where its virtuoso animators get to flex their skills
and express their sensibilities through sakuga. This textless effect is… slightly tarnished
in the English version of the opening, as the English credits used in place of the original’s
gorgeously geometric kanji have a similar, playbill-esque font to the liner notes plastered
all over the OP’s background. I meant it when I said that changing this OP, EVEN A
LITTLE BIT, can only make it worse. Speaking of things getting worse, in every
typical Bebop Bounty Hunt, there’s a moment that knocks spike flat on his ass. Sometimes
metaphorically, sometimes physically. Sometimes in a funny, embarrassing way, sometimes…
it’s just depressing. The one constant is this moment throws Spike’s,
and our understanding of the case into disarray yet again.
Well, there is another, near-constant: it’s usually down to Jet to help clean up this
mess. But not this time! He just gonna take a long drag, clip his bonsai, and relax while
those idiots sort out their own… ah, damnit Spike!
[Music peels out while Jet desperately runs to save his friends]
That moment of mickey-mousing isn’t the only interesting musical flourish here – the
bassline and beat both return to normal when Jet’s silhouette appears, echoing his stabilizing
influence. Also take note that the manifesto beneath
his feet, while still incomplete, is much more coherently arranged than it was for either
of his shipmates. The black dog didn’t get his reputation by running off half-cocked
with incomplete information. The Netflix OP ruins LITERALLY all of that
by moving the running jet shot to the second bar after the solo, when the bass is already
back, removing the shot of him smoking entirely, and having the Japanese-translated manifesto
shift around incomprehensibly beneath his feet.
Like both previous character introductions, this one ends by showcasing Jet’s instrument,
the Hammer Head, with its deodorant-shaped hull and retractable digging claws.
There is one other constant in these character cards that we should talk about - why are
all the main characters smoking? The obvious answer is that it looks cool… and yeah,
that wispy smoke animation on the flat coloured background sure do be sexy. But more than
that, the cigarette is a thematic symbol that unites the crew. For all their differences,
each adult on the Bebop is a creature of habit and compulsion, driven to follow the same
patterns, repeat the same mistakes, until the inevitable finally catches up with them.
And not just them. Consider Jet’s old partner, and his last smoke in Black Dog Serenade.
Notably, they’re all smokin regular old boring cancer sticks, despite the worldbuilding
allowing for… something else, cause Watanabe is a 40-to-5 friendly, G Fuel cool kinda dude.
Also the death by degrees metaphor wouldn’t work with something nonaddictive. Like a powdered
energy drink that’s available in a wide range of delicious flavours, such as the new
Orange Cran’thony, or Doom Sour Demonade. which is what I’ve been talking about this
whole ti- The OP takes a breather to display a whole
slate of credits alongside two static images of Spike and Faye looking effortlessly sexy
in their own unique way, possibly from before they fell into the bounty hunting life.
Then we get some fun shots – accompanied by increasingly frantic music – encapsulating
what each crew member is all about. Jet’s a tough guy and a straight shooter. Faye makes
being totally lost and confused look hotter than you’ll ever be. Spike Goes through
life with a skip in his step. And Ed…
[The Edward Noise] Ed is the one unpredictable sour note that
ties the whole composition together and takes it to another level. That tittering alto sax
almost sounds like Ed having a laugh after hacking into the music itself.
The formula this OP lays out isn’t fixed – it’s merely a guideline. Some sessions
focus almost exclusively on a single element – by giving Faye or Jet an extended solo
about their past, for instance. A few even break from it entirely [Toys in the Attic],
and whenever they do, Ed always has a hand in it.
The Netflix OP puts some completely random musicians in this spot. Though that may just
be a fakeout that’ll change when Ed joins the crew.
Of course, all that’s just what these shots tell you on initial viewing. By the time you
reach the series’ end, you realize they’re animated impressionist pop art covers of each
crew member’s solo single, with art speaking to their individual journeys throughout – and
before - the series. Jet turning on his old partner in black dog serenade. Faye’s blind
scramble to reclaim any piece of her forgotten identity. Spike’s fatal inability to escape
his past, embodied in his left eye, which can only look back.
And Edward… is still Edward. In its final shots, Tank! shows us the ships
taking off one more time, starting with a closeup on the swordfish’s rolling wheel
just to flex that mech design. Red Tail’s missile mag and hammerhead’s tow-hook are
given similarly detailed technical animations. And when they pull back to silhouette, the
rotation of each ship is so consistent they look like 3D models. That’s a hell of a
statement for one of the last great hand-painted anime of the 90’s to make.
Speaking of statements, these shots also foreshadow the final moments of the series. Jet and Faye
left behind, while Spike flies off into the sunset.
The final shot with any meaning in it, which comes right before the self-explanatorily
greatest title screen ever put on television is… frustratingly difficult to analyze.
It’s clearly an eyeball, of a digital or possibly mechanical nature. And the match
cut at the start of Jamming with Edward might make you think it’s the laser-lens of MPU’s
satellite, but this OP would never make such a specific episode reference, especially not
right at the end! One interpretation that does work is it’s Spike’s artificial eye
– the one that sees only the present. Though I’m inclined to believe it’s more
an abstract representation of eyes in general. Because eyes are key thematic motif throughout
the series, from the first episode’s Red-Eye drug – and the shaman telling spike to “Open
his Third Eye” – to ed’s net-diving goggles, to the series’ most tragic moments.
This is the OP priming you to keep an eye out for that theme in each session. Though
there might also be… some significance in the director’s name appearing above what
looks like an eye of god. Speaking of credits… and gods, there is
one more I’d like to call attention to: Isamu Imakake is the man behind Cowboy Bebop’s
beautifully LIVED-IN background art. It’s thanks to him that the ship and every port
it stops in speak to the personalities of the people living there.
It’s also thanks to him that we have “I’m helen keller”
“What?” “are you uncomfortable seeing a talkative
Helen who can see and hear, yuko?” And every Happy Science anime since then!
He’s been the cult’s go-to director for their last six movies. So he’s responsible
for ALL of the insanity you bore witness to in my last video – which, if you haven’t
seen it, is I think my funniest ever, so definitely watch that next. Perhaps after enjoying some
G Fuel! He was also the set designer for Laws of the
Sun and visual director for The Golden Laws, so Catboy Satan’s harem chamber and interior
of that time machine Albert Einstein built are actually… close cousins to the Bebop.
Sorry to ruin slash improve that for you, but I figure you’ll forgive me since I just
opened your third eye to the staggering brilliance hidden in this deceptively simple opening
– and missing entirely from its live action counterpart.
Which… doesn’t bode super well for the show that’s attached to, but then, the lost
session trailer was kinda cool, so I’m gonna wait to see how it shakes out… and then
make a review… or possibly roast that you guys’ll see sometime next week! So look
forward to that! Til then, though, I’m Geoff Thew, Professional
Bounty Hunter, sayin’ seeya, Space Cowboy!