the 3…2…1…Let’s Jam
For one month, The Dot and Line is publishing essays, interviews, and discussions about each episode of Cowboy Bebop, which turns 20 this April.
There are a few things that a good show opening needs to accomplish. First and foremost, it has to grab the viewer’s attention. It also has to intrigue viewers enough to make them want to watch the show. Many good openings will also introduce the show’s themes and characters. And, if the opening is really good, it will be memorable, instead of just providing a minute to run to the bathroom before the show starts.
Cowboy Bebop’s opening does all of that in spades.
The opening theme blasts you in the ears with loud, up-tempo jazz. The bright colors and crawling graphics catch the eye and keep your attention. Cowboy Bebop’s opening is a visual and auditory treat. It’s an opening that you don’t skip.
If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it right now.
Plenty of other writers here at The Dot and Line will regale you with stories about what makes Cowboy Bebop great over the rest of this month. But its opening is easily one of the most special things about the show. The way many ‘90s kids can sing along to the opening of The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, most anime fans will often think of the hard trumpet blasts that accentuate the climax of the opening theme, “Tank!” It was written by the show’s composer, Yoko Kanno, and performed by her band, the Seatbelts, who also performed most of the music on the show’s exquisite soundtrack.
In 2014, Kanno, one of Japan’s prememenant composers of video game and anime music, sat down for a rare interview with the Red Bull Music Academy. In it, she explained where “Tank!” came from:
The seeds for that score were sown in middle school and high school when I was a member of the brass band. I’m not sure how it is nowadays, but back then all the songs kids were taught weren’t at all cool, so I made and performed originals. But a part of me was always frustrated because I couldn’t understand why everybody else was content playing the uncool music. I wanted to play brass music that shook your soul, made your blood boil, and made you lose it. This yearning became ‘Tank!’ which was the opening theme. I wanted to make music which would light a fire in me when I played it.
While she was in college, Kanno took a trip across America on a Greyhound bus, sampling different music styles. She said that, as she went east, she noticed that the “groove of street musicians would swing harder.” She stopped in New Orleans to take in jazz and funk, which later helped her write the music for Cowboy Bebop.
“Tank!” checks off all the boxes of a good TV show opening — you see the main players in the show and get hints of the themes through the spaceships and guns. The opening shot of Spike lighting his cigarette, combined with the jazz itself, hints at the noir-ish nature of the show. It definitely grabs your attention, and boy, is it memorable.
Many of the shots of the opening feature characters moving across scrolling background text. The text is broken into chunks, but put together, it tells you what the show is about, and where the name comes from. Much of the text references Minston’s Playhouse, called the birthplace of bebop jazz, detailing how the musicians there would compete with one another, improvise music, and break the standard rules of jazz in doing so. Then it compares that to the bounty hunters on the main ship of the show, the Bebop, and how the bounty hunters who live there have to improvise and break the rules, too.
The opening scrawl, in a way, also speaks to the creators of the show, as well: “They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called Cowboy Bebop.”
The only thing the opening of Cowboy Bebop doesn’t do is introduce us to Ein, the adorable and often-overlooked cast member. Poor Ein.
Many shows and films since have used jazzy, driving music and silhouettes to terrific effect in their title sequences. The Venture Bros. Archer. The Incredibles. All brilliant—yet none has eclipsed the intro for Cowboy Bebop.
Now that’s how it’s done.
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