Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels
For one month, The Dot and Line is publishing essays, interviews, and discussions about each episode of Cowboy Bebop, which turns 20 this April.
I’ve seen “Ballad of Fallen Angels” a cool 25 times since I purchased the first DVD of the Cowboy Bebop set from Suncoast Video at the Lehigh Valley Mall 16 years ago. Back then, I had a private teenage ritual which I performed every time I could convince my mom to drop me off at the mall: I would go to Mr. Bulky’s and get a bag of penny candy, go to Habitat and lust after hemp necklaces I could never actually wear because I hated the smell, and then hop on over to Suncoast Video, where I would buy a copy of Animerica, a box of pocky, and maybe a DVD. I didn’t buy only anime-themed items — I was on an Alfonso Cuarón kick there for a while — but I definitely sat at a lunch table populated exclusively by anime kids.
And yet the first disc of Cowboy Bebop is as far as I’ve ever made it in the series. DVDs were expensive, and I’ve never been a completist. I could, I guess, stream it all now, but I have no plans to do so. I understand that this is a very important anime series to many people, and that some, after reading this, may try to convince me to watch the series. That is fine, but I urge you not to try. Only “Ballad of Fallen Angels” is important to me. I knew there was something big and important going on in it, but it was inscrutable to me without the rest of the series to provide context, and without sufficient cash or the convenience of YouTube, I wasn’t ever going to find out. I just had to watch it again and again, and hope it answered my questions.
My fellow Bebop dilettantes should note that this is the first episode that really pushes forward the overarching plot of the series. We learn some pretty important things: that devil-may-care bad boy Spike is not who we think he is, Jet trains bonsai, and Faye has no patience for the boys and their unwillingness to ever tell her what’s going on.
The episode opens on two rival syndicate bosses signing a peace treaty, a relief to both parties until the aptly-named Sephiroth knockoff Vicious kills everyone. Just murders them to death right there. He’s here, and he’s evil, and he wants to be evil at Spike, whom he intends to lure into his clutches using the body of his recently murdered mentor, Mao Yenrai.
To find information about Vicious’s plan, Spike visits an old friend, Annie, who can’t handle the sight of him without a shot of something strong, having been convinced that he died after an incident three years ago. She gives him the information he needs, and many warnings to not do the thing he’s about to do anyway. She understands he has a lot of personal grievance and very little self-preservation.
The incident she refers to is illuminated in a flashback sequence later in the episode, as Spike falls through a stained-glass window at the top of a church after a beautifully-animated shootout with Vicious and his goons. Apparently, he and Vicious are…brothers? Maybe? And they were in love with the same woman? And the woman liked Spike better? And that turned Vicious evil? I’m not sure. I never saw the rest of the series.
One thing that stands out to me in this episode is that, in spite of the stellar pacing, gorgeous visuals, and strong voice acting, the dialogue itself is excruciatingly bad. I swear, it’s exactly on par with the stories high-school me wrote in her fanfiction diary. Example:
Vicious: You should see yourself. Do you have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Spike?
Spike Spiegel: What?
Vicious: A ravenous beast. The same blood runs through both of us. The blood of a beast who wanders, hunting for the blood of others.
Spike: I’ve bled all that kind of blood away.
Vicious: THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?
“I’ve bled all that kind of blood away!” It’s comically bad! But we are watching anime, so I suppose it’s forgivable.
The episode ends on a comic note, with the plot kind of hanging in the air, unresolved. There’s no indication that Vicious was killed, and no bounty was claimed in the making of this fiasco, either. I assume this is revisited in future episodes. I sure wish I knew! Too bad that’s impossible. At least for me.
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