Easy Come, Easy Go
We’re wrapping up Space Cowboy Serenade with a last look at the legacy of Cowboy Bebop, which turned 20 on April 2. See you, space cowpokes.
In March, news broke that Cowboy Bebop mastermind Shinichirō Watanabe would be debuting a new anime, Carol & Tuesday, in 2019.
‘Cowboy Bebop’ Creator Reveals New Anime
Shortly following this, the GChat shared by me and Eric, we big blasting bop boys who edit this site, inevitably devolved into a rapid-fire conversation about Watanabe’s legacy.
So, obviously Watanabe’s a genius, but Bebop came out 20 years ago, and he’s never topped it. And I don’t think he NEEDS TO TOP IT, but that fact does make me way cooler on literally all his other shit now that I’ve seen enough of it.
Fair, although I love Samurai Champloo, and I do think Kids on the Slope is lovely.
But they’re not Bebop, because, like, what could be? Like, I didn’t even watch a single episode of Space Dandy!
I have watched four. And gave up. It was OK but also silly and tone-deaf and not nearly as captivating.
Watanabe’s a guy who organized some insane talent and executed an insane story at the perfect inflection point of anime with Bebop, but I’m more and more skeptical that he’s actually anywhere close to what we consider a visionary anime director on the like Miyazaki level. Even Hideaki Anno, for all my grumbles with him, has, like, so many other GREAT projects.
I think of Watanabe as the Scorsese of anime. He’s a genius, but he’s interested in covering every possible base in his form. All genres, all subjects, but sticking true to his biggest loves. So that leads to one Perfect series, one Near-Perfect, one Great, one Good, and one Meh. Which doesn’t surprise me. But maybe this one could be the decider on his legacy?
He needs a Yung Return to Form. I’m not asking for another Bebop. I only really have room in my life for one. But I’d be thrilled to get another Champloo. I also wonder if, from a logistical/cultural/industry perspective, whether the idea of an auteur director might be a little different for anime? Like, how driven by Sunrise or Studio Bones would this new project be? Or how driven by the writers, etc., vs. by Watanabe.
I also could be TOTALLY WRONG about it! I know for the Gundam shows, Yoshiyuki Tomino ran/oversaw all that shit for years, and definitely all the main universe episodes in the main continuity, to the point where him driving each show coincided with his ups and downs mental health–wise. In a good year, he directed a comedy. In a year where he was overworked and stressed out and fucked, it was a horrible kill-’em-all tragedy. And IDK if the breadth of Watanabe’s projects are things he exerts that level of control over, because there’s also that detail that he adapted/tweaked a lot of Bebop to suit Kanno’s music and stuff. Man, I wish i just fucking spoke Japanese and could fucking interview this motherfucker for the fucking New Yorker or some shit. That would answer ALL THESE QUESTIONS I HAVE.
Anyway, I’m just over here trying to figure out who the genius Japanese anime boys are. And I want to believe Watanabe’s one of ’em, but his track record actually doesn’t help him all the time given the insane Bebop curve. Bebop is the kid that broke the curve. In fact, that should be the headline of our intro piece: “How Bebop Busted the Anime Curve.”
It was not actually the headline of our intro piece — and neither of us, to our mutual regret, has yet to learn Japanese. Anyway, we’re still just over here trying to figure out who the Anime Genius Boys™ are and, as a result, came to the conclusion that we did, in fact, have to weigh Watanabe’s legacy in the waning moments of our month-long serenade to Cowboy Bebop.
I’ll be honest. For a moment, we considered rounding up the opinions of some experts. Then we decided that this would be too much work and anyway, we are the experts, thank you very much. So Eric waxed grandiloquent for a few before issuing a loving “good luck, dingus,” at which point I got down to distilling our oh-so-expert knowledge into…something. Here is what we’ve got.
Judging the Output
For this, we considered only the TV series that Watanabe directed. This means we omitted his 2017 short film Blade Runner: Black Out 22, the short films Kid’s Story and A Detective Story, both part of The Wachowskis’ The Animatrix, and the Macross Plus: Movie Edition, which he co-directed, among other tidbits and trivial tinkerings.
As it stands, I think the rankings are actually relatively obvious:
- Cowboy Bebop (1998): Perfect
- Samurai Champloo (2004): Near-Perfect
- Kids on the Slope (2012): Great
- Terror in Resonance (2014): Good
- Space Dandy (2014): Fine
- Carol & Tuesday (2019): ????? (UPDATE: It was great!)
That is…not a great curve in terms of quality! Although I should note that the bar was set stupidly high and, also, he has yet to produce a full-on dud. Anyway, suffice it to say that Watanabe, while having directed other excellent animes, has not quite reached the glorious heights of Cowboy Bebop since 1998 — although I think we would argue that much of Samurai Champloo easily reaches Perfect status even while, considered as a whole, the series is merely Near-Perfect. (I’m not even sure that there are any objective reasons why that’s the case! But watch Bebop and Champloo back to back and, while you’ll probably love both, I think you’ll see what we mean.)
All of this leads, frankly, to quite the conundrum. Can someone who has never topped his first major work, even while making other Great and Near-Perfect works, be considered a master of the form? Anime Genius Boy™ Hayao Miyazaki — whose entire output, as we’ve noted before, is essentially perfect — has arguably topped his best film at least four times over in his career. Then again, in any medium, most creators couldn’t hold a candle to Miyazaki, so to use him as a benchmark here might be unfair!
Once we got here, I remembered a bit of our conversation that I conveniently left out of Our Boy’s excitable little GChat Monologue above, which was:
Eric: And I WONDER if Bebop just happened to be a perfect cocktail of Yoko Kanno and Watanabe and Keiko Nobumoto and the other absurdly talented artistic folks on that shit, like Yutaka Nakamura, etc.
It’s a good question! Is Watanabe really a singular genius like Miyazaki? Is that even how TV or anime (a tremendously labor-intensive art form) works? Maybe Bebop was magic not just because of Watanabe, but because of…well, what was in the sauce.
This is where things got interesting, because it’s the point at which I stared straight into the sauce and took a big whiff.
Gauging the Input
How much of this series really was Watanabe’s work? Well, to hear the show’s male English-language singer, Steve Conte, tell it, composer Yoko Kanno told him that in terms of the animation, “what they’re gonna do is they’re gonna do the animation to our music.” And to hear Steve Blum, the English-language voice actor for Spike Spiegel, tell it, the brilliance and ubiquity of the American dub was all thanks to screenwriter Marc Handler, casting director Kevin Seymour, and voice director Mary Elizabeth McGlynn—who also voiced Julia and to whom he is, too perfectly, engaged. Yet to hear Wendee Lee, the English-language voice actor for Faye Valentine, tell it, “I called [Watanabe] Sensei because he’s our great leader and teacher.”
What a mess!
While Watanabe is clearly a massive force behind the brilliance of Bebop, it also seems clear that he is not the only massive force behind the brilliance of Bebop. Who are the others?
Keiko Nobumoto
That’s right, boys. The mastermind behind all the screenplays for this man-heavy show in a man-heavy genre in a man-heavy industry is…a woman! Nobumoto is, to put it mildly, an anime screenwriting superstar. She wrote the screenplay for Macross Plus: Movie Edition which, in case you’ve forgotten, Watanabe co-directed. She created and wrote the screenplay for Wolf’s Rain, which Eric loves and which, for the record, featured a Yoko Kanno soundtrack (just like Bebop) and English-language vocals from Steve Conte (just like Bebop). She wrote the screenplay for Samurai Champloo, too, and for Space Dandy, if that was something you really wanted to know. She co-wrote the script for the brilliant film Tokyo Godfathers with director and bona-fide Anime Genius Boy™ Satoshi Kon (who, alas, we have yet to cover on this site, a crime for which I’m certain I’ll pay in hell). Without her, Bebop would neither be nor bop.
Yoko Kanno
Without her, Bebop would not be, and definitely would not bop. She’s an absolute musical genius. If you won’t take my word for it, take Steve Conte’s word for it, and then listen to all of her work.
Toshihiro Kawamoto
Not only was dude the animation director, but dude designed the damn characters. Can you imagine Cowboy Bebop without Spike’s hair fluff, Jet’s pensive bonsai-trimming face, Faye’s swagger, Ed’s wiggle, or Ein’s…everything? Yeah. Me neither. Oh, and he’s also…the co-founder and director of the anime studio Bones. Which collaborated with Sunrise on the Cowboy Bebop movie, and which also produced Wolf’s Rain, Space Dandy, and both Fullmetal Alchemist adaptations, among many other anime standard-bearers.
Kimitoshi Yamane
Dude was the mecha designer. Yes, obviously that’s a thing. He designed all of the technology in Cowboy Bebop. Can you imagine Bebop without the Swordfish II, the Hammerhead, Redtail, the Gate Corporation’s hyperspace gates, or… the goddamn Bebop? Yeah. Me neither.
Yutaka Nakamura
The key animator behind Cowboy Bebop was also the key animator behind, I kid you not: Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Vision of Escaflowne, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf’s Rain, the original Fullmetal Alchemist series, Space Dandy, One Punch Man, and, like, a million other anime titles. I’m sorry—Shinichi-who What-anabe?
Marc Handler
This is the guy responsible for taking Nobumoto’s Japanese script and turning it into the English-language screenplay that would go on to become what most serious anime fans consider to be among the greatest dubs of all time and the definitive iteration of Cowboy Bebop. Can’t leave him out.
…
Yeah! Exactly! Or, as Eric put it in a later GChat:
Eric: Among all anime, Bebop had one of the most lightning teams basically ever. That’s partly why there’s this tension in how we understand Watanabe’s output after, because it’s totally partly him—and you see that in Champloo, and it carries—but it’s also, like, everyone else.
No bloody kidding. But bud, you’re really not making this any easier for me. Sigh. OK. Down to brass tacks, I guess.
Giving the Verdict
Look, obviously any film or television show is going to be the product of a whole bunch of people who made it amazing: actors or voice actors, directors, producers, casting directors, artists, cinematographers, composers — the works. It’s a collaborative medium! We know he didn’t do it alone. Frankly, for fans, it’s a lot easier to just be all, “Watanabe is the guy! He’s the director! He’s a genius!” And hey, maybe he is! Or maybe, in the inimitable words of T-Pain, he ain’t a genius but he just made some some genius shit.
But now I have to actually tell you which of those two is true.
So, to conclude:
Shinichirō Watanabe is the director of perhaps the most seminal, one of the most popular, and easily one of the greatest anime TV shows of all time—if not the greatest! He has also directed a bunch of other good-to-great shows, most of which he has actually seen to completion and put to bed (unlike Anime Genius Boy™ Hideaki Anno, who is still working on finishing the definitive version of Evangelion because he’s one of those mad scientist types who can’t stop playing with his weird alien robot toys). Watanabe’s scope is broad, and the release of any new anime directed by him—even the lesser ones—is always a real-deal event.
Is he perfect? No. Does he need to be perfect to be an Anime Genius Boy™? No. Do we think it’s fair to say that, at his best, Watanabe ranks among Anime Genius Boys™Anno, Kon, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Isao Takahata, and, IDK, a couple of others we’re definitely missing? (OK, maybe not the same level as Takahata.) Yes. As such, we’re calling it.
Therefore, on this date, the fourth of May 2018, Eric Vilas-Boas and John Maher, editors of the animation site The Dot and Line, do hereby declare Shinichirō Watanabe to be…drumroll, please… a certified, bona-fide, official Anime Genius Boy™. High fives all around!
(Wait, wait, WAIT! Read the fine print.)
Anime Genius Boy™ Shinichirō Watanabe ranks among the best. But he is not perfect. As such, he is not, and almost definitely will never be, on the level of Hayao Miyazaki. Which means Anime Genius Boy™ Miyazaki must be—there are tiers to this shit!—the Anime Genius King™. As if we ever doubted him.
Oh, and Shinichirō? If Carol & Tuesday sucks, we’re revoking this. Be warned. (UPDATE: It didn’t! It was great! Watanabe keeps his Anime Genius Boy™ credentials!)
This concludes The Dot and Line’s idiotically thorough month-long tribute to its co-editors’ most beloved show. Thanks for reading, bounty hunters. Bang.
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