Game of Thrones and Homeland do it in 55 minutes, Firefly and Dr Who in 45 minutes, the episodes of Cowboy Bebop tell their stories in little under half an hour: 24 minutes to be precise. Its stories are wonderfully short and sweet, a brief and vivid slice of beautifully drawn life, and a quite delightfully spirited piece of animation.
In twenty-four minutes this television show tells a story packed full of action and adventure, humour, drama, intrigue and some romance. It does what longer films do but in less time, and with a lot less fuss; its brevity is brilliant! It is an astonishingly different and refreshingly irreverent show. It has a unique visual style, exciting theme music and pace.
The show’s titles are bold, and striking to behold, with a lively, energetic bebop-like jazz theme, which always fills me with excitement and anticipation of the episode to come. The ending theme wound down the episode and left me ready for the next one.
The show has quite an orthographic, technical style to its drawing, which suits its science fiction world to no end. The worlds themselves were always well realised, with great clarity, brilliant colour and an attention to detail that betrays a keen eye for observation in its animators. The characters are depicted in highly contrasting darks and lights especially for the titles where they are overlaid on vivid colours. Shown at quite a pace, these titles evoke the pace to come.
The regular cast are well drawn in line as well as in character. They all seem like individuals with nimble wits and sharp tongues and minds. The scenarios are all well conceived, nice and accurate, and precisely plotted to reveal just what was wanted and needed, but no more nor no less.
A thoroughly enjoyable, exciting, engaging and intriguing series of short films (as television is) all told in 24 mins. Superb.