The Thematic Differences Between Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo
I think the character arcs and group dynamics of the two shows are diametrically opposed and understanding that opposition is crucial when comparing them.
The following was adapted from a rant triggered from watching “Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are Overrated” that I sent to my weeb friends in a group chat and contains spoilers for both Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.
So I was thinking about the two shows in terms of the bond(s) between the main casts, and ultimately I came to the conclusion that they are diametrically opposed.
Cowboy Bebop is about a group of vagabonds who come together but never share any singular purpose, they never get any closer to each other than “let’s catch some bounty heads.”
They EACH have their own pasts and emotional baggage and they EACH tackle them independently; even when they bleed into someone else’s lane, they do so with trepidation and usually pull back quickly: Spike has Vicious and Julia and the Syndicate, Jet has his Ganymede Elegy stopwatch (romantic identity) and his old police partner betrayal robot arm (personal/professional identity), Faye has her amnesia and debt, and Ed has parental abandonment issues and is fucking insane.
NONE of them ever make a truly concerted, conscious effort to help any of the others with their quests. Such an attempt is never openly verbalized.
They each embark on their journeys alone, and the Bebop is just some floating base of operations, a place reminiscent of purgatory, for them to reconvene every once in a while and share the rare meal and a smoke.
Jet even says so in one of the episodes like “people just come and go as they please on this ship” and it’s true because none of the cast actually commits to anyone else’s quest. They’re all together not because they really care about each other, but because they have nobody else to care about, I think. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other on some level, but I do believe that the bonds they make are the best they can muster up, and even their best is only superficial. I imagine they’d like to connect on a deeper level, but all of their past traumas prevent them from doing so. “You’ve never told me anything about yourself, so don’t start now!” — Faye to Spike in the last episode.
Jet and Spike share the closest bond out of the main cast and even THEY don’t fucking know jack shit about each other; their FINAL CONVERSATION is some cryptic shit about cats with infinite lives because they’re both too distant, perhaps too afraid, to overcome that barrier and really open up to each other (ALEXA PLAY HEDGEHOG’S DILEMMA).
Now, compare that to Samurai Champloo.
Two elite swordsman fight to a standstill in a burning restaurant and get arrested, are saved by a bimbo who says “help me find the samurai who smells of sunflowers” and these two absolute fucking madlads say “yeah alright.”
They are united by a SINGLE PURPOSE by episode fucking 1, and even tho it’s a nonsensical, wild goose chase of a purpose, they ARE bound by it, clearly and spoken out loud, and even when they have moments like “this is dumb I don’t care about your stupid quest also I hate the other guy I’m gonna kill him,” they ALWAYS COME BACK to resume their quest, they all tacitly never give up on this quest for Fuu to find the samurai who smells of sunflowers.
Because of this, at the end, the real history and lore of their central quest IS REVEALED TO ALL: that the samurai who smells of sunflowers is Fuu’s dad, that it’s a deeply personal mission, and both Mugen and Jin are like “yeah okay I’m down, we’ll do this for you, we’ll kill Sara the elite blind assassin and kill the fucking god hand Kagetoki Kariya so you can achieve catharsis, sure.”
There is NEVER a moment where the main cast of Cowboy Bebop unites toward a common purpose like that; they might tag along with another member of the group at the start, but when any of them actually get close to their THING, they disperse: Ed and Ein fucking leave, Faye lies down on the dirt where her bedroom used to be, Spike fucking DIES, and Jet does all his shit alone and ends up alone on the Bebop.
For Cowboy Bebop to be like Samurai Champloo, Spike and Faye would have to fucking fight each other to a standstill in a burning bar, then Jet would have to save them and be like “okay now you guys have to help me find the boogie woogie that smells of feng shui” and they’d just be like “yeah okay let’s do that” and then they’d meet Ed but then they’d fucking kill her because it turns out she’s an elite blind hacker and the government is holding her dog hostage or some shit. Then they both fight Vicious and kill him and then they all walk off into the sunset.
YOU SEE HOW THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE MAIN SQUAD ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT BETWEEN THE TWO SHOWS?
Now BECAUSE those central bonds are so different, EVERYTHING is different: the tone of the show, the trajectory of the narrative, the kind of resolution everyone achieves… TOTAL opposites.
I feel like Cowboy Bebop is a story of how this group of people slowly drift apart, even though they were only loosely connected to begin with, while Samurai Champloo is a story of how this group of people slowly come together, forming tighter and tighter bonds.
I do think their moods and character arcs and dynamics are diametrically opposed, EVEN THOUGH on the surface, they’re both “a broke group of two grumpy dudes and a goofy girl come together through unlikely circumstances and go on wacky adventures,” the WAY in which things happen are so totally different if you look at them closely.
SO where does that leave us in terms of “which is better derp derp which one is overrated I have a bag of marbles for a brain?” Trash Taste really is a pile of hot garbage.
Well it’s ultimately whichever one of those two very different shows you fucking like better, duh. Except instead of repeating the same tired remarks of “nothing happens in [either show], I just didn’t care about the [goofy character],” you can explain your opinion based on the differences identified above.
Do you prefer the melancholic, painful ache of Cowboy Bebop as everyone fucking dies and loses to their pasts and their purpose, or do you prefer the more uplifting, bombastic journey completed with a destination of Samurai Champloo?
Neither are better or worse or overrated or underrated. They’re both masterpieces that share a number of initial similarities, but are distinct as their plots diverge and develop. I think what it comes down to is which of these two shows have arcs that resonate more deeply with you. That’s all.
Now go watch Space Dandy.
