On bangumi, a rating site known for its rigor, very few works can score more than 9 points.
"Gate of the Stone of Destiny" has a score of 8.6, "Magical Girl Circle" has a score of 8.4, and "Fate Zero" has a score of 8.1 points, and on this website, a score of more than 8.5 points has crossed the threshold of the divine work.
The protagonist of this article today, "Interstellar Cowboy", got a rating of 9.1 on bangumi and ranked first in the list of animation works.
Supervised by Shinichiro Watanabe and premiered in April 1998, Star Cowboy has captivated countless anime viewers to this day.
What is the charm of Star Cowboy? Why is it that on bangumi's rating list, it has the ability to overwhelm many excellent works and become an eternal monument in the minds of animated Brahmins?
Today, let's follow the track of the bebop spacecraft together, and embark on this adventure of this "cosmic western" with Spike and his party.
01
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > popular culture awards in the context of the universe</h1>
The setting of "Star Cowboy" is very "wild" - the technology of faster-than-light navigation was successfully developed, but during the development process, humans accidentally blew up the moon.
This natural satellite of the earth, turned into countless tiny meteorites, bombarded the earth for a long time, and the surface of the earth became no longer suitable for survival.
Humans had to drive on faster-than-light spaceships and wander the universe in a leafy way.
This setting is essentially the same thing as a space opera like Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Although there are science fiction elements such as "faster-than-light navigation", "spaceship", "interstellar roaming", etc., these elements are not the core of the story narrative.
These elements are just embellishments of the stage background.
Traditional space operas, such as Star Wars and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, bring grand stories about politics, war, and nations to the cosmic stage.
"Interstellar Cowboy" is different, it does not choose to put a grand story on the grand stage of the universe.
Its story, first and foremost, is a road movie.
Bounty hunters sit together on old spaceship bebops, following the footsteps of fugitives one by one, from one planet to another, and enjoying the local customs and customs.
"Star Cowboy" is a typical cosmic road movie, replacing the bebop with an old pickup truck, replacing the route with a highway, replacing the planet with a small town, and immediately "revealing the original form".
However, compared to traditional road movies, "Star Cowboy" has taken a step forward.
The length of the highway is limited, and the geographical distance of different towns strung together on a highway is limited, so it also shows a similar trend.
"Star Cowboy" is different, every time you go to a new planet, it is a new environment.
Shinichiro Watanabe is free to sprinkle his hippest and most imaginative inspiration on the blank canvas of the new planet.
Therefore, in this 26-episode unit drama, we can see a police film with a full Hong Kong flavor.
Bounty hunters and fugitives who play the role of police chase and shoot at each other in the broken blocks, and eventually the bounty hunter subdues his opponents with Bruce Lee-like martial arts.
We can also see Wu Yusen's gangster films, churches, white pigeons, and two men with past hatred.
The white pigeon flew by, the gunshots were loud, the sacred stained glass shattered, and the explosion temporarily separated the two, but failed to cut through the fate that connected the two.
We also go to the suspense film, where the harmonica genius with the appearance of a child is actually an old monster who has lived for 200 years, and looks like a tough bandit, just to give his imprisoned brother a final rest.
The angry cowboy inherited his legacy, with a special bullet, cut off from immortality.
The old monster who had lived for 200 years, when he ushered in his own death, there was no unwillingness, more of a relief.
We can also see "real" denim, a man who loves cowboy culture and, in the age of interstellar voyage, is also keen to cosify the traditional cowboy.
Riding a tall horse, holding a revolver in his hand and a cowboy hat on his head, he dashed into the crowd in a heroic manner.
He also wanted to challenge Spike, but after losing to Spike on Cowboy Force, he was convinced, and then turned to call himself "Space Samurai" and started a new round of cos-wandering.
We can even see cyberpunk elements like The Matrix, vegetative teenagers whose bodies are confined to a hospital bed, who actually create a cult with great influence in cyberspace.
The infinite atrophy of the body, but the infinite expansion of the spirit in the virtual world, which is also the ultimate alienation of cyberpunk to man.
The story of Star Cowboy is like a string of pearl necklaces, the form of road movies is that line, and these fashionable pop cultures are the beads strung on the line.
Shinichiro Watanabe simply exudes his most imaginative imagination in a way that "inspiration does not cost money, ideas do not need money".
Each episode is an elaborate unit drama story, a feast of popular culture.
02
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the melancholy blues that resound through the starry sky</h1>
The success of "Star Cowboy" is not only due to the wild imagination of Shinichiro Watanabe, but also inseparable from Yoko Kanno's soul soundtrack.
The musical level of this 1998 animation, even many animations that specialize in selling music, are hard to match.
First, let's talk about its OP TANK! As an anime OP, it is a pure music without lyrics.
There are not even formed pictures, and the pictures that flash in the OP are monochrome paper-cut silhouettes or prints.
Yoko Sugano completely abandoned the lyrics, partially abandoning the picture and expressing herself only with musical notes.
However, even with only notes, this OP works well.
Yoko Sugano makes extensive use of orchestral music, in which there are many "repetitive" segments, each repetition of which is only the previous up-key or transposition (I am not a music major, forgive me for being able to use such an amateur description).
This presents the viewer with the impression that it's not like a deliberately crafted animated OP, which is the band improvisation that Spike, Jet, and Faye hear as they pass by a bar.
Not deliberate, improvised, these two characteristics almost run through the music in "Star Cowboy" with no lyrics.
It's like one or a few wandering musicians on the side of the road, in bars, under the overpass, tunes blown to you with old black pipes and painted saxophones.
This style of soundtrack allows the audience to enter the play, explore and chase with the characters in the play, which is very important for road movies.
OP and BGM are the same style, and ED The Real Folk Blues is another.
In ED, Yoko Kanno no longer "ties her hands and feet", expressing herself as restrained and implicitly as in op and BGM, but completely liberates the lyrics and pictures, and vents her feelings.
Yamane Ma sings in vicissitudes, Yoko Sugano's blues and folk style music, coupled with a picture of the whole black and white, only the rose bright red.
This ED is actually a true portrayal of the heart of Spike, a man who seems to be uninhibited, but has not been able to walk out of the past.
His past has been a dark line in the early part of the story, and perhaps because of this, Yoko Kanno chose to vent his past and his heart in ED in such a colorful way.
Another song with lyrics that impressed me was, of course, the ED from the final episode of Star Cowboy.
In the ethereal chant, the clear melody, the scaly Spike fell on the stairs, and the white doves and the rising sun seemed to welcome him to heaven.
Although the song is called "Blue", the blues here no longer represent the sadness of the blues ( blues ) , but reminiscent of the blues of the sky.
Spike, the man, was alive in the shape of a wave, and the sad "The Real Folk Blues" echoed in his mind.
When he confronted the past and finally died for the apparitions of the past, the hymn of "Blue" sounded around him.
This may be the meaning of the so-called "confirmation that you are still alive".
03
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > lively Bebop, lonely crew</h1>
Beautiful unit stories and soul-giving music are important reasons why Star Cowboy has received unanimous praise among animated Brahmins.
However, why does a 1998 animation still fascinate so many people to this day?
Many special gods of the old objects, such as "Vampire Hunter D: Blood Desire", "Wang Li Cosmic Army", "Leap to the Peak", we all appreciate them with an attitude of appreciating the museum artifacts.
And "Interstellar Cowboy", we appreciate it with a different look.
It is like a mirror, and we can always gradually see our own shadow from the joys and sorrows of the people in those paintings.
On the old Bebop, two big bosses, a beautiful female thief, a genius girl and a stupid cute corgi are crowded, and they are not simply "free-riding" relationships with each other.
Every time Spike or Faye flew alone to death, Jet said that this time, regardless of the two thousand knives, he would actually wait for them to return to the ship, and Ed silently supported them behind their backs.
However, even this lively Bebop could not relieve the loneliness of these crew members.
Faye is a hibernating man who wakes up to find that humanity is fast-forward to the interstellar age, and has been poked by people with affection and saddled with sky-high debts.
I found the old site of my home, but found that it had been destroyed without any traces.
She is a lone ghost who has traveled from 200 years ago to the present, and finally can only return to Bebop.
Jet was originally a policeman, but he lost his job and wife because of the accident, and he had to work as a bounty hunter.
In one of the bounty hunters' jobs, his target was his wife's lover, who raised a gun at him for the man.
Perhaps it is precisely because this man understands the feeling of being left behind that he is forced to leave Spike and Faye.
Both Ed and dog Ein are talented and incomprehensible beings, and Ed is a computer genius who can even calculate the law of the landing point of small meteorites on Earth.
Ein is an information dog, and the stupid-looking corgi is actually a walking supercalculator.
Watanabe's last kindness was that before Bebop fell apart, they both found their home and left the ship.
Spike has been looking at the past with one eye, but the other eye has not yet had time to look into the future.
He had been wandering in the universe for so long and solving so many events, but he couldn't forget Julia's past shadow in his heart.
As soon as he heard from her, he didn't look like a seasoned bounty hunter at all, but like a hot-blooded teenager who pursued his lover.
Even though Julia was dead, he was reluctant to let go of the past.
Neither Jet's shredded green pepper nor Faye's retention could stop this interstellar cowboy from going to his destined death.
From beginning to end, he didn't allow anyone to touch his past, even if he had such a good relationship with the crew on Bebop.
Spike's past, Jet's ex-wife, Faye's hometown... Everyone has a hidden secret in their hearts, which is firmly guarded by something like an AT force field.
They can eat shredded green pepper meat without shredded meat together, they can squeeze into this tattered spaceship together, and they can even fight for each other's lives.
But they will not share these secrets with each other, and they are tacitly silent about these secrets.
Such interpersonal relationships are actually a true portrayal of modern people, and the development of the Internet has further aggravated the bustle and also aggravated the loneliness.
Across a screen, everyone put on a mask and reveled together, and after the carnival passed, all that was left was emptiness.
Usually there are friends and colleagues who meet, you can talk together, from Trump all the way to Sichuan hot pot, but when it comes to private topics, it will be quickly forked.
No matter how fast the Swordfish is, it can't catch julia's back; no matter how fast the net speed is, it can't bring the distance between people's hearts closer by a minute.
Everyone competes for self-expression, you sing me on the stage, it is not lively, but loneliness is silently fermented under the appearance of hilarity.
Perhaps, when everyone faces the ultimate proposition of their hearts, they can only go to the meeting alone like Spike. Because, some things, without solving them on their own, can never be truly solved.
And this resonance is the timeless charm of "Star Cowboy" across the ages.
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