Cowboy Bebop Essays
General Pieces
- The Mish Mash of Bebop: References and homages in the anime
- The Philosophy of Doubt, Death, and Awakening
- The Theme of Masculinity and Femininity
- The Theme of Unreliable Reality and Dissociation
- Bebop: The French (New Wave Cinema) Connection
- Reflecting on Nobumoto-san
- Reflecting on Watanabe
- Cowboy Bebop and the people who should have watched another anime by now…
Character Sketches and Musings
- The Black Dog-A Character Sketch on Jet Black
- My Funny Valentine-A Character Sketch on Faye Valentine
- Goodnight Julia
- Spike and Julia…Was it really such a grand romance?
- Bebop Essays: What I am doing
- Why I believe Spike doesn’t die at the end
Reanalysing Bebop
Through writing about the show and analysing it in depth, I reached an eventual hunch that Julia may have been intended as an antagonist. It caused the story and Spike’s character to change quite a bit and answered a lot of my questions, explained the bits that don’t make sense with the overall narrative like the crazy coincidences at the end, his dynamic with Faye etc. So I ended up exploring that further.
These are all analyses from that perspective, done sticking to the series we see on screen. Some of the other pieces occasionally touch upon themes from these as well but I try to keep them neutral as much as possible. The ‘anime guide’ was written by people at the publisher’s end and the creators rarely commented much on the series so I don’t consider what it says as ‘canon.’ If you don’t agree, it’s ok. This isn’t gospel truth-but play nice
- Toys in the Attic: Metaphor for Real Folk Blues
- The Pivot of Jupiter Jazz
- Analyzing the events of the two-part finale
- Charting the relationship of Spike and Faye through the series:
- Strangers in the Night-Part 1: The events leading up to Jupiter Jazz
- Misty Blue-Part 2: The events of Jupiter Jazz
- Pretty with a Pistol-Part3: Spike’s admission during the CB movie
- The White Cat and the Tiger-striped Cat– The events post Jupiter Jazz and the finale
Annoyed by Live Action Ramblings
Soul Kitchen 