Ephemerality in Cowboy Bebop

Written by The Curmudgeon

There’s this fantastic video by the YouTube essayist “Channel Criswell” which dissects the episodic nature of Shinichiro Watanabe's 1998 series Cowboy Bebop (check it out here). The piece satisfyingly interrogates the narrative distance that forms between the protagonists and the stories which they inhabit, from which the episodic structure stems. While I think everything in the video is pretty spot-on, it got the gears in my brain turning, and I guess I'd quite like to try my hand at discussing the existential angst of Cowboy Bebop.

In as few words as possible, I would go on to suggest that the most important effect that the episodic structure has on Cowboy Bebop is an everlasting sense of ephemerality. This ephemeral tone (although not exclusively symptomatic of episodism) is what I intend to unpack.

In case anyone reading this is unfamiliar with Cowboy Bebop, it essentially revolves around a group of space bounty hunters in the year 2077, Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed, drifting aimlessly from misadventure to misadventure. As opposed to a standard serial encompassing one extended plot, Cowboy Bebop is instead presented in the form of various individual stories. Each episode introduces and concludes singular plots within the 22-minute running time.

Naturally, this results in a scenario in which our protagonists remain detached from the overarching story. Simply put, the consequence of an absent narrative through-line is that there is a limit to how involved the characters can become before the episode ends and they disappear to pursue another bounty. The essence of their vocation dictates a lifestyle in which their human interactions are short-lived by necessity. Their lives are fleeting; ephemeral.

Their own attitudes perhaps magnify this. As is aptly suggested in episode 7 Heavy Metal Queen, “human beings are just a price tag to them, they live by gambling on other people’s lives.” In episode 1, Asteroid Blues, an introductory dialogue sees Spike and Jet bickering over a bounty and a lacklustre dinner. At this point, it becomes obvious that their approach to their work matters to them only insofar as it’ll pay for their next meal. This trivialisation upholds an emotional distance from their various passing misadventures.

All of this is to say that Cowboy Bebop captures a certain sense of transience in the lives of its central characters. The temporary nature of their interactions and their own detached lifestyle indicates as much. What is especially poignant, however, is how this is contextualised.

To elaborate, I’d first like to draw attention to the final shot of episode 1. Without giving away too much, the crew unsuccessfully pursue a bounty which results in the death of two people. A distinctive point is made that they continue their lives unaffected by this (click here for more detail), and the episode ends with an image of the Bebop ship, alone in space, small and dwarfed by the abyss which surrounds them. As such, their transitory and detached existence becomes fairly understandable. As they float, minuscule by comparison to the vast space which consumes them, their existential fragility couldn’t be more blatant. The distance which they maintain through their ever-fleeting routine could thus be seen as a means of defending themselves from the inherent existential pressure of their own existence.