Why I prefer Samurai Champloo over Cowboy Bebop

Welcome everyone to another edition of the Otaku Mind. I’m your host Justin aka Nitsuj. I’m just gonna come all and say it, I like Samurai Champloo more than Cowboy Bebop. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. Now that doesn’t mean I hate Cowboy Bebop both Bebop and Champloo are amazing masterpieces of anime I just prefer Champloo over Bebop and no it’s not because I watched Champloo first. I actually know people who’ve watched Bebop before Champloo and still like Champloo. I’ve also met people who’ve matched Champloo first but still prefer Bebop over Champloo. So why do I like Champloo over Bebop? Well that’s why I’m here today. For this Otaku Corner I’m going to list my reasons why I prefer Champloo over Bebop. Now this list goes in no particular order and are my opinions. They don’t reflect the opinions of anyone else but myself so feel free to agree or disagree with me and if you feel like countering my opinions please go ahead. Just be mature and respectful in your arguments. With that being said here are my reasons why I prefer Samurai Champloo over Cowboy Bebop.

Better use of Characters

Let’s start with the characters. Samurai Champloo in my opinion used their characters better. Mugen, Jin, and Fuu had chemistry between them that you just couldn’t help but find enjoyable. They worked off each other perfectly complimenting the other and at times serving as the yin to that person’s yang. The three were like siblings always bickering with each other but always looking out for each other and caring for one another no matter how many times they argued or fought amongst themselves. In Cowboy Bebop it almost seems like Spike, Jet, and Faye are just putting up with each other at times. Throughout the whole series they never really open up to each other. Spike never really tells Jet about his past and you think he would seeing as how they’re partners and all. Now that I think about it the show never really gives any information on how Spike and Jet met and how they became partners. Actually, there are a lot of things Cowboy Bebop doesn’t explain. For starters what’s with the Native American character? What’s his connection to Spike and Jet? Why did Jet quit being a police officer? In the movie they hint that he quit because of the corruption within the organization but that only just raises more questions. What did he see, what did he here, did he speak out against the corruption or did he just learn to work beside it? Questions like that need an answer and the show never gives it to us. Spike’s fighting style. Who taught him all those moves? Faye, what was her life like before she was frozen? What were her dreams and aspiration? What was she doing before she met Spike and Jet? Finally, Ed and Ein. What was up with them leaving at the end? Where did they go and what propped Ed to leave when she was having so much fun with the Bebop gang? Like I said a lot of questions involving these characters that go unanswered. Now Samurai Champloo also has a few questions unanswered as well. Mostly involving Mugen. The anime really drops the ball by not explaining or going into much detail about Mugen’s past. They do a good job with Jin and Fuu but with Mugen they fail big time. But, I rather have one character not explored all that well than have 3 or 4 characters not explored all that well.

Characters are different from each other and go through character development

The characters of Samurai Champloo are all different from each other giving us a different perspective of their characters and life. Jin represents the honor bound samurai. He doesn’t speak much, is calm, philosophical, has honor, and pretty much represents everything you would associate with a samurai. He has a code and rules that he follows and lives by but at the same time he questions the ways of the samurai and will express his doubts hoping to find answers. Mugen is the exact opposite of Jin. Mugen represents the hip-hop culture. He’s violent, wild, unpredictable, and plays by no one’s rules but his own. He doesn’t have a desire to rule or be ruled by anyone, he just wants to live out his life doing what he wants whenever he wants living only for himself. However, he does have a soft side for his friends. Throughout the series you can tell he cares for Fuu’s safety and will always go to rescue her no matter what and as for Jin you can tell he respects Jin’s skills as a swordsman and vice versa. The two may have started off as not liking each other but you could tell they respected the skills of each other and at the end of the series they do come to see each other as irreplaceable friends. As for Fuu, she’s somehow down the middle between these two. She’s a very kind and giving person who’s very trusting of others. While she’s okay with following the traditions of the time she’s open to new experiences and will break away from tradition by speaking her own mind, not submitting or bending to anyone, and doing things you wouldn’t expect women of her time to do. We unfortunately don’t get that much diversity with the cast of Cowboy Bebop. From my point of view Spike, Jet, and Faye seem to have the same personality. Keep people at a safe enough distance where you can just work with them. One of the things Samurai Champloo gang has is comradery with each other. Like I said before despite the three being different there’s a sense of comradery between them. Time and time again the three are drawn to each other and always looking out for each other. For example in episode 4 as Mugen is leaving the town he remembers Fuu being in the whore house and goes to rescue her. Even though the episode before this he straight up abandons her in the middle of the road. In one of my favorite episodes when Jin is trying to rescue Shino from the whore house and gets surrounded by guards Mugen and Fuu are there to help him despite Fuu in an earlier scene being mad at Jin for leaving and saying that they were through. Finally, in the beach episode where Jin thinks Mugen is dead he goes off to avenge him. Despite the two being the complete opposite each other Jin has some level of respect for Mugen’s skills and deep down saw Mugen as somewhat of a friend. Meanwhile in the Bebop gang it feels like at times they’re just putting up with each other. Their relationship is strictly a business relationship and nothing more. Like in episode 12 when Faye ups and leaves them Spike really didn’t seem to care all that much and only started to care when he found out she stole their money. Truth be told, I don’t think they were all that concerned with finding Faye in the first place and just found her by luck in episode 13. Another thing the Bebop gang fails at is that they never open up to each other. Spike never really tells the others about his past which has repeatedly threaten the life of Jet and Faye. Jet and Faye are also guilty of not sharing their pasts as well the only difference is their pasts don’t endanger the life of the crew. This just shows that the Bebop gang only saw each other as business associates and nothing more. Despite everything they’ve been through they refuse to open up and really trust each other.

No explanation on the planets in Cowboy Bebop

One of the cool things in Cowboy Bebop is the colonization of the different planets and moons throughout the solar system. In this anime everyone seems to have abandoned Earth and moved to different planets with each one modeled after New York. The only problem is they never really give us an explanation into how some of these planets are colonized. They explain the space traveling but they don’t explain the colonization of these planets and keep in mind some of these planets and moons are considered uninhabitable or too hazardous for human life to exist. So this begs the question, how did they colonize these planets and moons? This couldn’t have happened overnight, this had to be a long and drawn out process and they never explain it. Another pet peeve I have with this is that at times it never really feels like we’re on different planets. Because each planet is modeled after New York it honestly feels like we’re on the same planet but we’re at a different part of the planet’s city. When I first heard of Cowboy Bebop I was under the expression it was gonna take place on Mars where they colonized the whole planet to look like New York and the anime was gonna follow the adventures of these three characters in the city. Hmm~, this actually sounds like a good anime idea. Turn them into freelance investigators or guns for hires, give them each a good backstory, and have them solve crimes or go after bounties on this New York like planet. Yeah, I think that be a good anime. I would watch it.

Where are the aliens 

One of the things I was always asking myself the first time I watched Cowboy Bebop was where are the aliens? We have an anime in space and not once do we see an alien. I guess you could say Watanabe was trying to be different since at the time everyone was using aliens or other life forms to pull their audience in and at times those aliens did distract people from the main characters and at times could be used to cover up mistakes the anime made. You could also say Watanabe wanted to keep the attention on his human characters who the audience could relate to and felt that the various aliens would take the attention away from them. So this one I can somewhat understand but I still think it would have been cool to see some aliens in the show.

I’m a fan of the Edo Period

Nothing more. I find the Edo Period fascinating and I like it. Moving on.

Samurai Champloo has a destination

In Samurai Champloo we know where the story is going and we know what their end goal is. It’s the journey they take to reach their destination that makes their goal all the more enjoyable. Cowboy Bebop really has no end goal and we don’t know where the story is going most of the time. Yeah we know the guys are bounty hunters trying to make money but as we see they go through that money like toilet paper and by the next episode they’re poor again. I guess my question is what do they hope to do when they become rich? Buy a big house and live the good life? Use that money for a bigger ship? Pay off a debt? I don’t know and neither does the anime. The anime never gives these guys an end goal and because of that the story is all over the place. In one episode we could be chasing the bounty on some guy and in the next episode we could just be sitting around wondering about someone’s past. Now I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t Samurai Champloo’s story all over the place with its episodes? Yes, but like I said before we know what their end goal is. We know that no matter how ridiculous or off track the anime gets its gonna come back to reach its end goal so we’re okay with it throwing random stories at us. If anything the random stories work more effectively here because they serve as a way to help the gang interact with each other more and develop their characters.

Better Ending

In my opinion Samurai Champloo had the better ending. At the end of their journey all three survived their journey and defeated everyone they came across. And through it all they forged a bond of friendship with each other. Now that their journey is at an end the time has come for them to go their own separate ways and go on their next adventure. Do they meet up again? Maybe, who knows? I hope so, I wouldn’t mind seeing the three travel with each other again. But even if they don’t travel again they still have their memories with each other. Cowboy Bebop’s ending is lacking this. While Cowboy Bebop’s ending isn’t bad it doesn’t fill complete. At the end the fate of our main character is left in the air as we have no idea what happened to him and a lot of unanswered questions. The fate of the other characters are also left up in the air. Does Faye ever find the truth about her past? Does she pay off her debt? What about Ed, what happened to her, where did she go? Or how about Jet, what’s next for him? Cowboy Bebop’s ending may not have been bad but it did leave us with a lot of questions on what happens to these characters next and felt incomplete as far as an ending goes.

Better animation and music

This one might be a little bias but it’s true. Samurai Champloo has better animation than Cowboy Bebop. This is obvious due to the time in which the animes came out. Cowboy Bebop came out in the 90s while Samurai Champloo came out in the early 2000s. Obviously, in that short time animation has improved greatly so it’s obvious that Samurai Champloo would have the better animation. Music wise is where people argue the most. Music is subjective guys. Some people like hip-hop others like country, some like R&B others like jazz, the list goes on but the point is what one person likes another person can dislike. Now, I’m a fan of both jazz and hip-hop music so as you can imagine I had a tough time deciding which soundtrack I liked the most. But in the end I like hip-hop music more than jazz and Samurai Champloo really blows me out of the water with its soundtrack. Like I said in my review, hip-hop music and anime have never worked out before but Samurai Champloo proves that when given the right amount of care, attention, detail, understanding, vision, and freedom these two elements can work well together.

Nobody has been able to replicate Samurai Champloo

The final reason why I prefer Samurai Champloo over Cowboy Bebop is that nobody has been able to replicate or duplicate it. Cowboy Bebop’s story and style were nothing new. They’ve been done before in the past but Watanabe told it in a way that nobody else at the time was able to tell it. He used interesting characters who were very deep and unique, used a stylize animation that nobody else had thought about, and tackled some issues and themes in a philosophical way that didn’t talk down to people and got them to think. That’s one of the reasons why Cowboy Bebop was such a hit. It was an anime that pushed the limits and showed us what an anime could be and should be like. Samurai Champloo did the same thing as Cowboy Bebop except they used an idea that nobody else had dared to try. Take today’s hip-hop culture and combine it that with the Edo period. This idea was so unique and crazy that nobody thought this would work in the end but Watanabe and his crew showed everyone that it can work. Taking two elements that are the exact opposite of each other and combining them into one to make something amazing. Ever since Samurai Champloo came nobody has been able to capture the level of greatness that Samurai Champloo had. Now that doesn’t mean nobody tried because many animation studios did try to take notable periods of time in Japan and combine them with an aspect of today’s culture. The only problem is they’ve either been mediocre or bad. The only anime that’s come close to capturing the same level of greatness as Samurai Champloo has been Samurai 7 an anime that combines samurais with the elements of sci-fi. While still a good anime it still fails to come close to Samurai Champloo. It just combines the elements of sci-fi which a lot of animes involving samurais like to use and it comes off as playing it safe. It doesn’t try to use hip-hop element it just uses sci-fi logic. A lot of people think Samurai 7 was a copy of Champloo but in truth these animes aired around the same time. Samurai Champloo debuted one month before Samurai 7 and Samurai 7 even ended before Samurai Champloo. Another anime people like to compare Samurai Champloo to is Gintama but I honestly see that as a hilarious version of Rurouni Kenshin mixed with a little bit of Bleach and topped off once again with the sci-fi. There’s also Afro Samurai which did use a little hip-hop but it wasn’t focus on all that much and once again the anime relies on the sci-fi element. Samurai Champloo’s idea was risky, big, and original. Ever since this anime aired nobody has tried or even attempted to take the hip-hop culture and combine it with the age of samurais again and chances are I don’t think anybody will be able to copy it’s formula and use it in the way that Watanabe and his crew used it.

Final Thoughts

So those are my reasons why I prefer Samurai Champloo over Cowboy Bebop. While Cowboy Bebop may have had the better philosophical themes and lessons Samurai Champloo had more action, better animation and music, good use of its characters, a story that had a destination, and had an idea that was new and original. It’s for these reasons that I say I like Samurai Champloo more than Cowboy Bebop. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.

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