Still think about that one dude at a con in 2018 who cornered me about Cowboy Bebop

I was waiting in line for a panel at Anime Expo and this older guy just starts going off about how Jet's backstory in episode 17 actually mirrors his own divorce. He pulled out a battered DVD case and showed me the sticky notes he had stuck all over the insert. Has anyone else had a random stranger hit you with a deep analysis that completely changed how you saw a show?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_craig20d ago

Yeah that used to be me, I thought Cowboy Bebop was just a cool action show with good music. But some random guy at a convention broke down the whole "you're gonna carry that weight" thing for me in a way I never considered. Now I can't watch it the same way, it hits way harder knowing how much of it is really about loss and moving on.

skyler_craig20d ago

Oh man, you're totally right to bring that up. I think people sleep on how much Cowboy Bebop is really a show about grief and the weight of the past. That guy with the sticky notes probably had it figured out better than most. The episode with Jet and his old partner, the whole thing with his watch and the dinner he never got to have, that stuff hits so much harder when you see it as a man trying to make peace with his failures. It's not just a cool space noir, it's a show about people who can't let go of things they lost. And yeah, "you're gonna carry that weight" is basically the whole thesis of the series.