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Cowboy Bebop on TV This Fall
da3dAlus writes: "Anime Tourist has a confirmation about the fall programming on Cartoon Network, as mentioned at the San Diego Comic Con. Of greatest note is the mention of Cowboy Bebop: "It was disclosed that Cowboy Bebop will air this fall in the Adult Swim block on sunday nights. The source was unsure as to how much editing would be needed and admitted that it was 'something of a stretch for them.'" The 'Adult Swim' block begins September 2nd, and is geared towards the older Cartoon Network audience." If this is true, this is great news. Cowboy Bebop is one of the best science fiction tales that has been animated ever. I just can't explain it, but I hope they don't have to butcher it to put it on U.S. TV. Also worth noting is that a trailer for the Bebop movie is online if you can watch quicktime.
Is anyone else scared about how much they'll alter the story of the episodes? Especially that episode about that guy with crazy hormone problems? Experience shows that they'll do crazy things to cover up nudity. Remember that horrible episode in Tenchi Muyo that was supposed to show the tattoo on evil washu's butt? Even though it was essential to the storyline, they covered it up, and the episode was one huge mess. Oh what fun.
Am I the only one who would really like to see their respective production companies get together and have Ed meet Lain?
Thankfully, the dubbing on CB is actually passable.
But I'm still afraid of massive cuts that'll leave the show a bleeding gutter carcass. The first episode features drug trade, and a seemingly pregnant woman shooting her own husband (fiancee? boyfriend?) in the head before being killed herself.
Redeye, toxic mushrooms, crossdressers, hermaphrodites, blood, little boys (I know, I know, he's not a little boy dammit) that kill, death, organized crime syndicates, sword+throat and sword+eyes action, cigarettes. And they're gonna fuck up the ending I BET, I mean, how can the hero not live happily ever after?!?!
It's low on the explicit sex factor, so that may tender it some goodwill from Toonami.
But remember people: Cowboy Bebop has violence where people end up getting hurt, and where several people die.
North American media only tolerates violence where no appreciable consequence comes of it. A million bullets are fired, a thousand bombs set off, but everyone comes out alive in the end (and really, isn't that the way Jesus would want it?).
-Laxitive
Honestly, as far as exposure is concerned, what does it matter if a series is censored? It's nice to see more diverse anime series on TV than just the kid-friendly type (ie Pokemon). Yeah, CB may be a more mature series, but if it needs to be formatted to American TV standards, then it's fine with me. For example, Sci-Fi channel aired Fatal Fury and Armitage III a few weeks ago. I had thought about picking up the Armitage DVD on several occasions, but I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not. After seeing it (edited of course), I decided that I liked enough to get the DVD afterall. As for Fatal Fury, I deemed it not worth my money. It too was severely edited for nudity, but Sci-Fi just blurred out those specific body areas on the characters on several scenes, instead of deleting them altogether. However, the Card Captor series has gotten a severe re-edit, which completely changed the story and plot of the series--that's taking things too far.
I think my point is that as long as it's just censored and not re-edited, it's still good to see it on American TV. Pardon my rabling, but that's my $0.02.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Just as a note, I didn't include that link to AnimeFu. I think that's CmdrTaco's own brand of 'smart tags', added pre-posting to the homepage of course...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Something has frozen over because I would have bet real money that although COWBOY BEBOP is probably one of the most influential Anime to have been released in the last 5 years, there was no possible way that it could get released on the ever popular Toonami!!!
The reason is that its just to "adult" for Toonami to handle. The Big 3(sex, drugs, and violence) are all in full force in COWBOY BEBOP which would make any one who censors squirm.
Cartoon Network/Toonami has chopped up shows that have had far less of the Big 3 than Coboy Bebop to make them presentable on their network. There are some episodes that have so much "questionable material" how much is going to be left to air?
I can't recommend COWBOY BEBOP to enough people whether they are Anime fans or not. On the other hand I'm not sure if I can recommend watching a very heavily modified verson that is more concerned with being presentable than persenting what was originally intended.
On a side note, remember all those Warner Brothers cartoons that you don't see anymore because they're not politically correct? You can still find that lot on Cartoon Network UK. For what it's worth.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
With all the talk about censoring Bebop, it's interesting to note that Bebop was censored in Japan, too! At Otakon in 1999, the director of the series was there, and it turns out that the very first episode of the series was considered too bloody to be shown on TV by the network. Apparently, Japanese fans didn't get to see episode #1 until much later, possibly until the home video release.
Of course, only episode #1 was blocked, and as far as I know there weren't any cuts made from the rest of the series. Which is kind of odd, since I didn't really think episode 1 was much bloodier than anything else in the series.
I've watched a lot anime, and I'd have to say Bebop is in the top five of all anime series of all time, IMHO. I also have to say that it has the best animation, hands-down, of any anime television series ever, by a wide margin. I don't even think that's a matter of opinion. The animation is as good as many theatrical and direct-to-video (OVA) anime releases I've seen.
God damn, I hate censorship. I also hate the English dub of Cowboy Bebop. Spike is one of the coolest characters ever, but the English dub actor sounds like he's trying really hard to sound cool. Sorry. If you have to try to be cool, then you're a thousand miles away from cool.
So what American audiences are going to see is one of the greatest series ever, hacked to bits, with a shitty dub that makes the characters sound retarded. And non-anime fans are gonna say, "what the hell is the big deal with anime? This is supposed to be one of the greatest series ever, and it's pretty lame. Anime is so over-rated, guess it must have some hidden appeal for geeks".
So I'd just as soon not see Bebop on TV under those circumstances. Ideally, I'd like to see HBO or something pick it up, then at least it would only have the shitty dub to drag it down, not the censoring. God, I hope I'm wrong, and they don't censor it too badly. I really want to be wrong.
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is the editing that will probably be done, even in the 'adult swim' block.. For those who have not seen it, Bebop is disturbingly violent at points. Especially eps 5(Ballad of Fallen Angels),16(Black Dog Serenade) and 20(Pierrot le Fou). But as long as they can avoid editing them, and keep the voice acting intact(the Bebop dub was surprisingly good), I'll be happy
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
If Cartoon Network decides to run this as a "mature" block, I expect the worst they'd do would be to edit out nudity and foul language. It would be insane to edit a show for content and call it "mature". Not to mention obscenely hypocriti-- oh.
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