Source
r/cowboybebop•
Tenure

Anyone else not really care about the main story?

SpoilerDISCUSSION

I’ve watched the show and movie multiple times over the last fifteen years now. I have a little Swordfish pin I wear daily. I’m saying, I like the show a lot.

But I was showing it to my wife for the first time, and she enjoyed it, but I had to agree with her that, yeah, the Julia plot basically comes out of nowhere. We hear little things about her, Vicious and the Syndicate, but we only ever get fragments, drip fed to us, and then it all suddenly comes to a head in the last couple episodes.

Julia dies and… I’ve honestly never felt anything about it, because I don’t know her. Spike kills Vicious but I don’t feel any catharsis as if he’s just killed the big bad guy, because he’s basically irrelevant to most of the episodes.

I love the show for its interludes, slow scenes, thoughtful moments where music plays and emotions just hang in the air. I love all the pastiche of western genres and the different stories they tell. But I really couldn’t care less about the “main story”, y’know?

I’m not saying any of this to detract from the show but I’m wondering if anyone else feels the same way. That on a re-watch they’re in tears over the episode that ends with that VHS of Faye playing, or hysterics over Cowboy Andy, but is kind of non-plussed by the stuff that, in a different show, would be the main draw (big romantic interest and big villain).

Posted May 7, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

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Trino15•

Yeah, the overarching plot of Spike's backstory is pretty incidental and doesn't carry that much dramatic weight imo. It seems like a cool story but it's like we're only told it in summary, so we can see the potential of a cool story without actually being swept up in it. I also love the show much more for it's characters, style and crazy, episodic stories than the actual overarching plot. Like you said, it doesn't detract from the show but it's not a big draw either.

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TenureOP•

Yeah, I mean, the show does all these homages to various different genres, and the the overarching plot itself feels like one. Watanabe employs tropes and cliches on purpose throughout the show, and the very nature of Spike’s conflict with Vicious is very trope heavy, to the point that Julia’s death is a homage to John Woo.

I feel like there is some purpose to the way he uses this wraparound story of Spike, Julia and Vicious, but I’m not certain what it is, but I don’t think it is intended to be a typical narrative like might expect in some other mafia/gang story.

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singpretty•

I think trying to take the Spike-Julia-Vicious arc as the "main story" will trip you up: That is, it's Spike's main story; it made him who he is (ditto the backstories of the other crew). But it isn't the ride we're actually on with him, we're on the Bebop instead. :)

So only getting glimpses of Spike's past lets us share his crewmates' position, of caring about him but never totally understanding his past, what it means to him, and if it's really worth holding his own life/present in such seemingly low regard. Which is exquisitely wrenching!

That is, when >!Julia dies!<, we understandably cry more for Spike, than for her?

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edd_malone•

What makes it kinda odd though is that spike's backstory is the only one of the main four that is structured like this. When an episode focuses on the backstory of the other crewmembers, usually that particular story is initiated and completed in one single episode. But with Spike there's this very deliberate withholding of information, and so you never get a clear picture of what exactly happened until the last episode. And even then, the episode is stil pretty criptic and vague on the details.

In my opinion this approach, altough interesting, kinda does a disservice to the show. I feel like the episodes that focused on the pasts of Faye, Jet and Ed are a lot more potent and resonant because the show chose to tell the complete story. When Faye discovers her ruined house, I get choked up. When Julia dies, I feel nothing. It's like u/Trino15 said, it's a cool story that we basically get told in summary.

That being said, the live action series gave me a new respect for the way that the anime dealt with the Spike/Julia/Vicious tale. A misterious vague story is miles better that an overlong horrible one.

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singpretty•

I'd be curious to hear to what extent you all relate to Spike? Which isn't to say we all must! But I sort of step right into his character because I'm "meh" about life on a good day, but did snap out of that once for an amazing relationship . . . which then also didn't last. But enough about me! 🙂 My point is, keeping Julia (and Vicious) murky, I think, also keeps them symbolic/universal. Like anyone with a capital-L "Loss" in their past can "get" how Spike feels about Julia, and can bring their own story to their understanding of his. More detail could get in the way!

Also the signals around Julia are actually quite mixed, as to whether Spike's view of her is accurate. (Detailed theories abound.) So in that light, I find the vagueness really draws me in. But that's me!

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edd_malone•

Honestly Spike is probably my favourite character in all of the show. And one of the things that I love about him is how he kind of goes out of his way to present himself as this very detached uncaring guy, but ocasionally something will get through his skin, mainly when it's related to Julia or Vicious.

I do really like the idea that the Julia we see might just be Spike's idealized version of her. The power of nostalgia and all that. Also sorry about your relationship, that sucks.

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singpretty•

Ha, thank you!

I agree, I really like watching the occasional moments something "gets through" to Spike--it's a strange feeling because I'm rooting for him to "wake up" but he only seems to do that for self-destructive reasons . . . which I'm obviously rooting against! 😅

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TenureOP•

I think that’s a good point: we see Spike’s story the same way everyone else does, in glimpses. And the same way he thinks about his past too, I imagine.

I think the thing I’m getting at is that in a different show, the whole thing with Spike and his past would be a much bigger deal. It would take up so much of the plot and we’d have all these threads weaving together to one big final confrontation. Instead, the facts of Spike’s past are obscure, and we just see developments with the Syndicate here or there, with no real impact on the episode-to-episode plot.

Which I like! But it’s very unique. Not a lot of shows would do that.

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Whatsongwasthat1•

This is why people for a long time were hoping for a prequel showing Spike’s time in the syndicate

I mean you do get the build up from the first Vicious battle, you get the whole puffy coat outing later(or is that before?) and a lot of subtle artistic allusion as well as subtle dialog, usually from people talking to and about spike with an intuitive sense of his past and character etc

The mystique is a big part of the draw for some people; you realize that Spike is basically a shell of a man because of this extremely traumatic event that even HE, the king of never seeming phased or thrown, can’t really bring himself to deal with or even figure out if Julia is in fact alive by this point.

It doesn’t help that the ensemble cast of characters, many of whom are only in a single episode, are really really good and well thought out.

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TenureOP•

Yeah. That’s what I really love. The story of Spike is actually told through other people and events. What we see play out throughout the story is meant to be an analogue for Spike — E.g. Waltz on Ganymede, where Jet has to leave his flame behind.

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datvoiddoe•

One way I’ve heard it that has always resonated with me is that Cowboy Bebop is an epilogue. The crew are entirely focused on the past, rather than the present. By the end each of the characters have made peace with their past and are ready to move on… except for Spike. Spikes’s past being cryptic and not registering emotionally I feel was the intent. He’s fixated on the past, and his death (and the reasons for it) seem hollow, because it is. From our perspective (and the crew’s) it’s obvious the life they could have had all living together if only he was willing to be let go, communicate and be vulnerable with them. But he rejected that for a woman we barely know, for a life that no longer exists. Which just like Faye and Jet, is something we’ll never understand.

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Alas-my-children•

Iv'e been rewatching and when i saw 'Ballad of fallen angels' and 'Jupiter Jazz', i thought they were good but not necessarily better than other episodes.

i'm not sure i liked 'my funny valentine' tbh. Idk perhaps i just prefer the idea of what happened to Faye being a mystery and just accepting that. But i did enjoy 'speak like a child' as it was more ghostly and shows Faye BEFORE whatever "events" occured that she can't remember. I think on re-watch i may actually skip "funny valentine" but idk yet

i may actually do a rewatch just for fun where i skip all the "plot" episodes and see what i think

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Glum_Squirrel_1772•

Way to let the entire show that you ‘love’ go right over your head

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senorglory•

Well chip in and explain things to the rest of us.

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Swimming-Will-2748•

Why not explain to us, oh great, pretentious asshole?

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