Round 1 Winner Spike Spiegel!

Overview:

The first thing we see is that this show is a serial. Woot! The show takes off right where the first episode ended.

Yusuke is heading (with death to some god). We get to the gods place and it is almost a comical office. Yusuke (expecting some sort of all powerful giant god) meets the leader of the spirit world who is in the form a Toddler and is the son of the “King” of the underworld (prince of the underworld?).

The prince of the underworld gives Yusuke a spirit egg. He is told that if he has pure thoughts and is good natured and all that stuff a good spirit will be hatched and he will be guided back to his body. If however he is the jerk that everybody thinks that he is a scary evil monster will emerge and devour his soul.

Yusuke needs to find somebody to talk to in order to get his good will going to hatch a good spirit. He and Death check up on his mother and she is still really upset. However Yusuke has no hope for her and points out that this is “just another reason for her to act this way” (I think he means like a child). So instead he heads to Keiko (the girl from the last episode)’s house and starts talking to her while she sleeps.

He sees that she is crying in her sleep and dreaming about him. He tells her to get his mother not to cremate his body and that he will be back. The next day Keiko heads over to Yusuke’s house. Keiko’s mother had a dream about Yusuke and this seems to convince Keiko that the dream was just a dream and not a message from Yusuke.

Death tells Yusuke that there is another way to communicate with people and that is basically through possession. Yusuke’s rival (Kuwabara) is somebody who can be possessed by ghosts. So Yusuke takes over his body, and has 1 hour to track down Keiko and deliver his message. He finds out that Kuwabara has picked a fight with pretty much the whole town and has to basically fight his way through the city to find Keiko.

He finally finds Keiko and delivers his message about taking care of his body. Keiko delivers the message to Yusuke’s mother but we find out that Yusuke’s body has come back to life, and is basically in a deep coma. The episode ends with Yusuke’s egg starting to come to life.

Review:

I am very happy to see that the show is a serial. As I mentioned before it’s the thing that keeps Cowboy Bebop from being higher on my list of favorite shows.

For me it’s interesting to see that Yusuke’s reaction to his mother. He is so willing to just sort of be like screw her, which is pretty awesome. As far as I can tell she was a pretty crappy mother. It’s weird to see it in a Japanese show though, in a culture where the family is so important.

I also really like the relationship between Yusuke and Death. She really likes to make fun of him and it’s very entertaining. The relationship between Yusuke and other characters is already so complex and it really makes the show interesting. This show has a ton of potential and I am really enjoying it so far. 

So I have decided to compare each episode of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun in terms of who was better at their job. Was Spike the better bounty hunter or was Vash the better bounty. So I will grade on different aspects. For Spike how good was his detective work, how was his fighting, did he do anything stupid? For Vash how elusive was he? What obstacles did he overcome? How was his fighting? Let’s talk about episode one for each of them.

Spike

Fighting: We got our first taste of that Bruce Lee Kung Fu and man did it look amazing. We saw his body “flow like water” and we saw him beat the crap out of a guy who was using a chemical to his advantage. Spike gets really high marks for his fighting style here.

Detective Work: It did not take Spike much time to find the target at all. Jet was ready to give up, thinking that it was hopeless, while Spike was already working on catching him.

Mistakes: Spike almost got killed by his bounty. The bounty also died without Spike catching him. He definitely loses some points here.

Vash the Stampede

Fighting: We don’t see Vash do much fighting here. We see him eluding a lot of problems though and that was his real strength here was using his mind to get away from other his hunters.

Elusiveness: Vash was able to escape a mini army of men and two powerful bounty hunters. The first one a huge guy with an auto-mail arm, and the second was a wicket shot.  

Obstacles: Vash didn’t really have many obstacles other than the bounty hunters that I talked about in the previous section. He used cunning to convince the bounty hunters that he wasn’t Vash and that’s how he was able to get away.

Verdict: I think I am going to have to give it Spike here. The fight scene really showed off what he can do. Neither episode was each characters best moment here. Vash was really goofy and Spike blew the bounty. So I have to defer to style here and Spike definitely wins on style points.  The fight scene with the bounty alone is enough to give him round one of this battle.

So there you have it. After 1 round the score is Spike 1, Vash 0. Stay tuned as I go through these two shows one episode at a time. 

Could it be that Lady Luck has smiled herself on me?

Ah Cowboy Bebop, the Anime with the best music by far. Regarding the music I would even go so far as to say it is the best music in any television show period. I remember first trying to get into anime, and watching this first episode and being like wtf? So I stopped. That was probably about 10 years ago. About 6 years ago (after I had acquired a taste for anime) I came back to it, and could not stop watching it. Since then I have watched the show about 3 or 4 times. Tank! the opening credit song is just so amazing. All the music is amazing. In fact I ponied up way more money buying the CD albums than I did buying the DVDs of the show because the music is that good and emotionally moving. It seems like every song is so beautifully placed. This is not my favorite anime but it definitely cracks my top 5 list, and I would say that this Anime is better than any live action show that I have ever seen. So I think also I plan on going through each episode of this and Trigun and comparing who is more skilled, the bounty (Vash the Stampede) or the hunter (Spike).

Anyway onto the episode one summary:

The story starts on the Bebop (the space ship) with a guy (our hero, Spike Spiegel) doing some Kung Fu and his partner (Jet Black) cooking dinner. We find that our two main characters are dead broke. They lost all the money on the 1 million Wulong, bounty already paying for damages. The 2 decided to head to Tijuana for another bounty.

Cut to Tijuana and we find our bounty in the bar with a beautiful woman. While the bounty is trying to sell his product (red eye), the bar is shot up. We then see what Red Eye can do as the bounty just kills everybody who was shooting up the bar with no problem.

Now we go to spike and he’s seeing some sort of witch doctor like man who is prophesizes what is going to happen in Spike’s future. We also find out that Spike was “killed by a woman before”.

Jet ends up at the shot up bar and meets some men who are looking for the bounty and gets information from them.

Spike then ends up in the same bathroom as the bounty, and then runs into the bounty’s girlfriend. They talk for a while and Spike tells her that he is a bounty hunter. The bounty comes to them and starts choking Spike. The girl tells him to let Spike go and the two fly off leaving Spike on the ground.

Jet finds Spike and explains what the bounty stole, the red eye from earlier which makes the user nearly invincible. Spike then shows Jet a vile that he took and explains that he saw him.

We then get our first action scene. Spike and the bounty fight. Everything about this sequence is so beautiful and perfect. Spike is supposed to fight in the style of Bruce Lee (like water) looks like a tall white Bruce in this scene. The music is great and the scene is really well choreographed.

The other two run off in a ship and Spike follows. This is where we get some good anime. We see people trying to make decisions about who they want (i.e. the girlfriend). She has realized that the Red Eye has made her boyfriend (the bounty) insane, and she realizes that they were never going to escape, so she kills the bounty right before her ship is destroyed by some sort of law enforcement group. The episode ends the same way it starts, Spike working out and Jet telling him that they are eating bell peppers in beef (without the beef).

Review:

The first episode is kind of weird. Our main character is really cool but if you know nothing about anime the show is very confusing. Like what is going on here. Why do I care about these people?  I guess spike is cool and the kung fu is great, but why do I want to keep watching?

Well if you know about anime though you know that characters build progressively as the shows go on. I didn’t really know that back when I first starting watching, so I stopped for a couple of years. The show definitely gets better and the first episode is pretty good.

Watching the first episode again I really can’t say enough about the music. It’s so good and so perfect throughout the show. If you want to hear some good music, search Youtube for Yoko Kanno Cowboy Bebop. Also the voice acting (English) is probably the best out of any anime that I have watched. Each voice fits so perfectly with the character.

The thing that in my opinion keeps this show away from my top 2 or 3 spots is that it is not a true serial. In a lot of anime each episode builds directly off the episode before. In Bebop, things build up but you can easily just watch any random episode and have an idea of what’s going on. Also after episode 1 we have no main female character. We just have 2 dudes. 2 cool and very interesting dudes, but that’s it. Is this show really just going to be about these 2 guys and nobody else?

Well no, no it’s not. Stay tuned and learn about our lead female and our lead um…well…our lead Edward. Also I will be posting Round 1 of Spike vs. Vash shortly after this, so keep reading for that. 

lilianatherebel:

yewsunleong:

Proof that i played the les paul google doodle guitar.

This is the opening of neon genesis evangelion, Zankoku Na Tenshi No Thesis.

Hope you enjoy

well this is incredibly fucking awesome

Trigun, a show I have watched before. It wasn’t my favorite series but very good none the less. I haven’t watched it in a couple of years and remember really enjoying it so I am going for round 2.

Episode Overview:

The first episode opens in a saloon with men talking about Vash the Stampede (our hero). Vash is of course in the Bar. And the bar is eventually shot completely up by men looking to kill Vash and claim the $$60 billion (double dollar) reward.

Next we meet two women, heavily armed and looking for Vash. We get information about a man with a huge Mohawk and womanizer (not Vash). The story then moves to the man with Mohawk who is looking for Vash. 

Finally 8 minutes into the first episode finally hear Vash speak. We find out that Vash doesn’t really have anything (inclduing bullets) aside from his gun. We also find out that Vash is kind of a clown and doens’t really like violence. 

The two women who we heard from earlier, (Meryl and Milly) introduce themselves to the Mohawked man. We find out that they are insurance women and they think that the guy with Mohawk is Vash. They eventually tell Vash that they work for an insurance company and need to follow Vash around to try to minimize damage.

Meanwhile the Mohawk and another bounty hunter who confused each other for Vash team up to try and kill Vash. In the process they tie up Millie and Merill. Vash comes back to save the 2 women and eventually fights the two bounty hunters who were coming after him. 

The episode ends with the women unconvinced of that Vash really is Vash. Again we hear the place that Vash left was casualty free. 

Review:

This episode was another good first episode. We get a lot of character development and have a lot of room for a really good story. This is sort of an inversion of Cowboy Bebop and it brings a question to my mind. Would Spike, and the crew of the bebop be able to catch Vash? Well we’ll be able to build our comparison more as the episodes go on. We also have room for a serial (that is a show with one over arching story) which would be great because serials are so much better than not. Anyway, good first episode and I do really remember enjoying the show, so I will keep watching and see if I feel the same way through the end. 

Reviews to come: My Neighbor Totoro, Episode 2 of YuYu Hakusho, and probably episode 1 of Cowboy Bebop so I can do a comparison of Trigun and Cowboy Bebop