Shucks, howdy! Today is something I've been salivating over, the long-awaited Blu-ray release of Cowbo Bebop, the great jazz-themed space Western. This is probably one of the best anime ever created, and if you haven't seen it, it is available streaming for free on Hulu. If I can indulge in a bit of nostalgia here, this is one of the first anime I ever watched, and for my generation--fans in their mid twenties to early thirties--this is one of our "gateway" anime. This has aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami and Adult Swim programs for years, constantly drawing in new crowds of fans.
Cowboy Bebop is frankly, a classic. Well-directed, with action, mystery, hints of noir and classic Western elements merging together in a sci-fi setting that explores how humanity lives and changes--or doesn't change--after we ruin our home and expand into the galaxy. The art design is sharp, unique, with color palettes that shift to meet the mood as needed. It is one of the few shows that I urge fans to listen to in both Japanese and English audio, because both are outstandingly performed. And the soundtrack is just phenomenal, from the punchy, brass-heavy now-iconic opener "TANK!!" to the slow, moody closer "The Real Folk Blues."
WATCH THIS SHOW.
Ahem. Now, onto a review of the limited edition.
Okay, so those of you who have read my numerous posts on this subject might remember some of the finer details, but to recap it for everyone else...Okay, okay, I won't yabber about it for too long. Funimation announced last winter that they'd license-rescued Cowboy Bebop, which had been left stranded after Bandai closed their North American distribution. And we didn't hear anything for about six months, until they started dropping information at the 2014 summer conventions, like sweet space Western water in the anime desert.
The Cowboy Bebop release is, very smartly in my opinion, multi-tiered at various price points. There are two bare-bones editions, one in a DVD-only release, the other in a BD-only release. And then there were two special, premium editions. One offered from Amazon.com, and one offered by Funimation on their website. I chose the latter, mainly due to being $30 cheaper than the Amazon version, plus being more exclusive. (The Amazon version had 10,000 copies made, Funimation had 2,500. I'm amazed my pre-order went through!) These editions completely sold out, and pretty quickly, too. There's still lots of demand for people wanting premium editions, and I see threads about it occasionally on various websites I frequent.
This was the first time I'd ever ordered from Funimation's website, so I can share my firsthand impressions as a new customer. Their website is notorious for bad design and being glitchy, and I did experience a lot of lagging and freezing. I had to switch back and forth between browsers and finally found that signing up for an account (free), logging out, and then logging in and then buying it was what did the trick. (I'm guessing all the other customers were spamming the Guest Checkout option? Shipping was free since my order was over $50, and it shipped to me pretty quickly, getting to my house within a week of the street date. Not a bad experience, could have been better, though.
The cover for this Funimation.com edition is designed to look like a vintage vinyl record album. The coloring is on point for this, the faded, dusky cream and orange just give it this solid '70s vibe. My father collects records, and I practically grew up in record stores, so this has a lot of appeal and nostalgia for me. At the very least, it looks different in a creative way, and I give them solid props.
This doohickey is the stand to display it on; it's hidden in the back. That's the show's Japanese logo in the middle. It's a sturdy kind of paperstock, not as thick or sturdy as cardboard though.
This is the back of the cover. Okay, technically, this is a sheet of paper with the product details on it, and it's tacked onto the back with some removable glue. Don't worry, the glue doesn't leave a stain on the cover. I've noticed lately that a lot of releases do this: putting a sheet of paper with details on the back of the art box. Anyway, this sheet gives you a rundown of all of the special features on the discs, plus a nice image of Spike.
And when you remove the product information sheet, you can see the back. I really like this image! The coloring especially gives it a stylish flair. Everybody has green eyes in this for some reason. The coloring for the release seems to be firmly in the dark cream/orange/warm brown camp, and it works. Warm and nostalgic and approachable.
These are some of the art cards that you get with this release. The artwork on these cards was actually used as the cover artwork for the single-volume releases that Bandai published years ago! It's nice to have a callback to that, especially because the character art here is quite good.
This is one of the inside flaps, which gives you a list of not only the episodes, but also the special features. You can see the color theme continued here.
This foil-stamped autograph on this print is from Shinichiro Watanabe, the show's director. I would have loved to have had an actual autograph from him, but I have a feeling there would not be enough Woolongs in the galaxy to entice him to autograph 2500 art cards for a North American home video release.
This is the iffiest thing about this release: the disc storage. All of these discs are held in these little slots, which are a bit too shallow. The red disc fell out as soon as I opened this up. It reminds me of the Universal Monsters Blu-ray set I bought last year, except that those discs were housed in full-in sleeves. I'm not as worried about the Blu-ray discs scratching due to the slots as I am the DVDs. I will probably be loaning these out to friends who didn't order a premium edition (so they can see the special features), and I'd like to ensure that the discs aren't coming to them all scratched up from the package. C'mon Funimation, be more watchful!
I've got my eye on you, ya little bugger. The discs look kind of like '45 vinyl records, which is kind of cool.
The next gripe that I have is that this stand is really not very sturdy. You have to position this exaaaaaactly right in order to get it to stand and not fall flat on the ground. You can buy picture frame holders like this at the local dollar store that would do a better job. Kind of disappointed.
Here is the stand from the back. You can see the logo from behind, but the stand covers Ed's face.
I popped the first disc in to watch the first couple episodes, so I could compare them to my old Bandai DVDs (which will probably get passed on in the near future). All I can say is that it's just as beautiful as I remember. The dark colors of outer space look especially rich and sharp. As for the music...well, I suppose it will depend on what you think about jazz, but I'll just leave this here for y'all to check out...
Out of curiosity, I hopped onto eBay, and was able to find two of these Funimation.com premium sets available for purchase. For $400. OUCH. C'mon scalpers, really? What is that, a 600% markup or something? For the rest of y'all, I'd urge you to pick up one of the bare-bones copies, but keep your eyes peeled. Funimation knows how popular Cowboy Bebop is, and I doubt that they won't make another cash grab by offering another collector-type edition. It would be printing money, basically.
Miss Scarlett suggests: It's a great show, so I'd urge y'all to check out the Hulu streams, and if you love it as much as the rest of us do, stop by Amazon or RightStuf or RACS and snag it! And like I said before, keep Funimation on your radar in the future for possible collector's re-releases.
Miss Scarlett signing off. See you later, space cowboys...
