The Jazz Messengers: A viewers' guide to Cowboy Bebop

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The Jazz Messengers: A television viewers' guide to Cowboy Bebop

8/1/08 -- Party on, dudes? - Sorry I'm a bit late with this update, surely everyone has heard by now that there is a live action Cowboy Bebop on the way. This news has been reported in several places and for now seem legit. To be perfectly honest, this news doesn't really fill me with glee, because I expect it to be miscast, misdirected, and all around screwed with in ways not befitting it's legend. The first sign that perhaps Fox doesn't quite get Cowboy Bebop is that Keanu Reeves is set to star as Spike. Thanks to SXS for the article on the casting. Remember SXS?

3/4/08 -- Are you missing the dearly bereft? - A funny thing, memory. Today I was listening to some MP3s I had around, and one of them was Last Stop: This Town by The Eels. That song always irrevocably reminds me of Cowboy Bebop, thanks to what I still consider one of the best ever Cowboy Bebop music videos, Flash Before Your Eyes by Cosmic Mule. Which led, naturally, to me watching that video again. There are so many lines in that song that fit so perfectly with the series - "Will you take me where you're going if you're never coming back?" "You're dead, but the world keeps spinning." Watching that video reminded me once again what an iconic and beautiful series Cowboy Bebop is. Some say that it "shows it's age", and while I've always known that some parts of the animation are less than smooth (but hey, I've noticed that in Miyazaki films, too), I don't think it's dated at all. While thinking about the series, and how much I still love it after all this time, it suddenly hit me: Cowboy Bebop is 10 years old this year. April 3, 1998 was the date the first episode of Cowboy Bebop was shown on Japanese television, and the episode they played was "Stray Dog Strut." (CB, being sort of "half OAV", didn't get all of the episodes show on the original airing, some appeared only on the DVD, until WOWOW aired all the episodes starting later that year).

Happy 10th birthday, Cowboy Bebop. Anyone have any good ideas for something the site should do in celebration? I don't think my email form works anymore, but you can reach me at jazzmess at gmail dot com if you'd like to suggest something.

Also, I've fixed the download links, to videos and such. Hopefully they all work now.

2/14/06 -- Happy Fun Luck Candy, part 2 - An article and interview with Watanabe about his visit to Houston's Museum of Natural Science may be found here. Apparently, the reason he picked Houston was because it's the home of cowboys. Ha! He's charmingly vague as usual, but he does discuss topics such as Spike's hair color (dark green, just like I've always told you looneys), Spike's relationship with Faye (just that Spike likes her, but pretends not to... this I've always known), the importance of music in his works, his future projects, and whether Spike is truly HUGE SPOILER or not (well, he doesn't answer that one directly, he just more or less says "if I answered that, people would hate me"... which sort of does answer the question). He also mentions that one day there could be more Cowboy Bebop... "maybe." However, I feel compelled to point out that Japanese love saying "maybe" in answer to questions in order to avoid saying "yes" or "no", so that "maybe" could mean just about anything. So don't get your hopes up. More importantly, don't start anymore retarded internet rumors.

2/12/06 -- Happy Fun Luck Candy - Forgot to mention that there's going to be a bonus event in Houston with Shinichiro Watanabe. (Thanks, GrinfilledCelt):

Shinichiro Watanabe will be present for a "Bonus Event" at the Japan Culture Day at Houston's Museum of Natural Science.
The event will take place Sunday, February 12 Noon – 4:00 p.m. in the museum's Grand Hall.
Cultural events will include taiko drumming, face painting, ikebana and more. All of which will be free. Museum guests will also be able to get autographs from Shinichiro Watanabe betweem 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.