Jerry Chu, Producer, Marketing at Bandai Entertainment, confirmed to ICv2 that Bandai will release Cowboy Bebop, The Complete Sessions DVD collection on November 20. The boxed set, which has an SRP of $199.98, will include all 26 episodes of the groundbreaking Cowboy Bebop anime series created by Shin-Ichiro Watanabe in 1998 and produced by anime giant Sunrise. Cowboy Bebop, which has already earned near legendary status with hardcore anime fans, is coming to the Cartoon Network's 'adult swim' block in September (see 'Cowboy Bebop on Cartoon Network'). The Complete Sessions DVD collection provides collectors with the complete, uncut, unedited series as it appeared in Japan with a choice of either English subtitles or a dubbed English version. The collection is packaged in a beautifully decorated DVD Collector's Box and includes an original CD soundtrack, interviews with cast and creators, music videos and promotional trailers.
Cowboy Bebop's appearance on the Cartoon Network will mark a major milestone for anime in America. Even though Cowboy Bebop will be edited for its American TV broadcast, the series still represents a new level of maturity and sophistication in both content and attitude. Set in a quasi-anarchic future and featuring a hero who is a ruthlessly pragmatic bounty hunter, Cowboy Bebop replaces the platitudinous moralizing of Pokemon with a cynical, ironic detachment that is typical feature of modern science fiction films like Total Recall, while still holding on to the stock cartoon sidekick characters of the smart, computer-savvy kid and the hyper-intelligent dog. Sexier and more violent than anything you'd ever see on Saturday morning, Cowboy Bebop retains the familiar trappings of animated adventures. If the series does become a hit for the Cartoon Network it will be because of a teen demographic very similar to the profile of those who shop in pop culture stores -- and Cowboy Bebop, The Complete Sessions, containing as it does the entire original series, will become their 'holy grail.'
The forward to Cowboy Bebop mentions Minton's Playhouse in Harlem where jazz players gathered in late night jam sessions to create bebop, a pure jazz idiom free of the constraints of musical conventions. The jazz musician's freedom to improvise is seen as a parallel to bounty hunter Spike Siegel's free flowing antics. Music does play a key role in the series, which benefits greatly from the scoring of Yoko Kanno, one of anime's best composers, who has worked on Escaflowne and Macross + as well. There are now something on the order of six different Cowboy Bebop CDs available in Japan, where a new Cowboy Bebop animated feature, Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door, is keeping the property white hot. Many anime dealers augment their business quite successfully by selling import anime CDs and Cowboy Bebop titles have been selling well.
Pilot Candidate
Pilot Candidate is another new anime series slated to be shown on the Cartoon Network in the fall of 2001 (see 'Cartoon Network To Add Two New Anime'). Bandai is releasing the first volume of Pilot Candidate on November 7. Pilot Candidate will appear exclusively on DVD, which, for a series that will be broadcast on the Cartoon Network, signals a changing of the guard--as the transition to DVD continues fewer and fewer titles will appear on VHS. The first volume of the Pilot Candidate series is The Academy and it will have an SRP of $29.98.
