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Cowboy Bebop: Session #1

English Dubbed / Subbed Version

Released: 1999

Version: DVD (Bandai)

Approx. Rating: G

Length: Approx. 125 minutes

English Cast: Beau Billingslea (as Jet Black), Steven Blum (as Spike Speigel), George C. Cole (as Vicious), Wendee Lee (as Faye Valentine)

Japanese Cast: Koichi Yamadera (as Spike Speigel), Unsho Ishizuka (as Jet Black), Megumi Hayashibara (as Faye Valentine), Norio Wakamoto (as Vicious)

Synopsis:

Spike and Jet Black are bounty hunters on the spaceship, Bebop. They go about trying to make money through bounty-hunting, but they also do some gambling and other odd jobs. 

The Review:

While the above Synopsis is a little on the sparse side, I think it covers Bebop pretty well. Every episode on this first disc has Spike and Jet going on some bounty hunt or another, even if they don't always start out that way. The first episode is about a drug dealer that becomes unbeatable when high. He's pretty weird and this show is pretty gory. It also has some old fogies in it that use some of the worst language I've heard in anime.

The next episode is about a bounty for a dog-napper. For some  reason that's left unexplained, Jet and Spike end up keeping the dog. It was some kind of experiment that was called a "data dog." This is also left unexplained. The dog doesn't act very intelligent. So I am still trying to figure that out. 

Faye Valentine shows up in the third episode. She's a very curvaceous girl that seems to wear clothes that flaunt her body. When we first meet her, the camera focuses in on her bust and her booty. And you see them enough later on too, so you know what the director liked.

Other than that, her character is pretty cool and she's voiced by none other than the imminent Megumi Hayashibara in the original Japanese. Her English counterpart is also very good. I should probably mention that all the characters seem to be well done voice-wise in this show, at least in the dub. I don't know Japanese, so it's hard to judge it.

Anyway, Faye gets Spike in trouble and ends up leaving the two penniless. It's probably one of my favorite episodes so far. The 4th show has an ugly mama that's a part of an eco-terrorist group. Spike, Jet and Faye join forces in this episode to capture her and it looks like Faye may become a permanent partner from now on. Pretty cool!

The final episode we learn about Spike's mystery past as well as a little of Jet's murky history. This one is also pretty bloody. I really can't say much about this one except that it doesn't have much to do with bounty hunting and more about revenge.

I watched the Faye Valentine episode in both languages to get a feel for the differences. According to my count, the English version had 3 pieces of profanity compared to only one in the Japanese. However, the very naughty stuff in the first episode is also said in the sub (I checked), so I am unsure how much of a difference there really is.

Some of the episodes are light enough fare that I think 9 year olds and up could watch them with parental supervision, but most are not suitable for children. There's just too much bad language and violence.

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

I enjoy this show. It's different and it includes a little humor here and there to keep itself from getting too serious. The storylines seem well thought out and I think we'll get to see the characters fleshed out by the end of the show. Get it if like action.