Cowboy Bebop - The Complete Series - Blu-ray

Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite Japanese anime. When I first watched Cowboy Bebop on Toonami on Cartoon Network when it was weekly. I fell in love with this show, and ever since then I've wanted the complete series on Blu Ray. When I saw the flash sale of this Amazon exclusive just before Christmas 2016. I jumped at the chance to buy it, and I haven't regretted it. The Show: Cowboy Bebop has some of the coolest lovable characters in an anime. The way the show introduces the characters also shows of the amazing writing that goes into the show. Each character has depth and their character interactions is written really well. The story follows a rag tag group of bounty hunters trying to make a living while traveling between Earth's solar system. They are always never successful in catching their bounty, and they do not agree with each other most of the time. However, they seem to get along very well even with their differences between them. Some of the best part of the story is the places they go to. However, the story is grounded in reality, meaning there is no aliens in this series. Cowboy Bebop is a human tale with believable and human characters. (I won't ruin the story for those who have not see the show.) Cowboy Bebop also showcases some great scientific concepts that follows the traditions of Star Trek. For example, when the Cowboy Bebop crew go to Mars. The way the creators of the show portrayed their Mars colonies makes me want to actually go there, and they do it in a way that is scientifically possible in the near future to have similar Mars colonies. Animation: Cowboy Bebop has some of the best animation that is not soaked in with allot of CG (Computer Graphics). This show is mostly old school animation and is at the very beginning when CG effects takes over. I really enjoyed the art style of this anime from the character design to the design of their ships. Cowboy Bebop is also old school pan and scan 4:3 aspect ratio, and this collection keeps the show in it's original 4:3 ratio. They could have gave it the cinematic 16:9 wide screen treatment, and I am glad they didn't. This collection is also remastered and clears this anime to HD standards. Audio and Soundtrack: The English voice cast of Cowboy Bebop is spot on, and one of the best in the industry. The Japanese dub is also equally amazing, and it is hard to find an anime that has both amazing English and Japanese dub. The music is the best soundtrack in anime in my opinion. From the "Tank" intro of the series. Yoko Kanno does an amazing job at blending jazz, and rock together making this soundtrack unforgettable. This Collection: This is an Amazon exclusive and comes with both Blu Ray and DVD version of Cowboy Bebop. It also comes with 2 collector books that showcase the animation of Cowboy Bebop. I really like that this collection comes with both Blu Ray and DVD version. Most shows only come with either Blu Ray or DVD. The box itself is really well built and the disk is held with in a decent Blu Ray jewel case. Pros: Great Story. Great Characters. Great Voice Acting. Great Music. Cons: No cons in my opinion Final Thoughts: I recommend Cowboy Bebop to fans and new comers. This collection may also be a little pricier then say just the Blu Ray edition. However, this collection does come with Blu Ray and DVD and some really cool art books and a really study collector's box. Also, I received my copy in mint condition. Which I am always happy about. I thought about posting photos but I think there is enough photos from other reviewers.

Yes, yes, yes, Cowboy Bebop is one of the greatest Anime of all time (in my top 3). However, I'm posting to inform you of the following 4 versions of this re-release of the Cowboy Bebop series: - Cowboy Bebop: Complete Series (DVD 5 disc set) - Cowboy Bebop: Complete Series (Blu-ray 4-disc set) - FUNimation.com Exclusive BD/DVD Premium Edition (Blu-ray/DVD Combo 9 disc set) - Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series - Amazon Exclusive Edition (Blu-ray/DVD Combo 9 disc set) What I've found so far is the following (thanks to Nicholas Gold for commenting on my original review) FUNimation Exclusive Premium Edition * Complete TV series on Blu-ray and DVD (combo pack) * Exclusive Limited Edition tri-fold packaging in the style of a vintage record cover * Display easel for packaging * Four exclusive art cards * One additional exclusive art card with foil-stamp autograph from series director Shinichiro Watanabe * As of 9/12/14 Market Price is $89.98 and pre-order price is $64.98 directly from FUNimation [and still $64.98 on 10/5/2014] Amazon Exclusive Premium Edition * Complete TV series on Blu-ray and DVD (combo pack) * Exclusive Limited Edition clamshell art box * 140 page black and white art book featuring concept sketches and designs that highlight Cowboy Bebop's origins * 48 page vibrant, full-color art book * As of 9/12/14 the Market Price is $99.98 and you can see the current Amazon Price above So, as far as I can find so far, the actual content is the same. In my opinion, the difference is that the Amazon exclusive has more interesting physical extras. However, at a $25 premium. So, if you're a collector and don't mind shelling out another $25, then get the Amazon version. If all you care about is watching the videos, then the FUNimation version may be for you or the Blu-Ray standard edition. If you're super hardcore, than you're gonna tear your hair out trying to decide if you should buy both LOL! I cannot confirm yet if the actual video (and on disc extra) content is any different between the standard and premium editions. If you find any other info regarding the differences to these edition, then please post in the comments and I'll update this post with those comments or any info I find as well! ------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding the FUNimation Exclusive, I've copy/pasted their info below: DETAILS Includes: Eps 1-26 Format: Blu-ray & DVD Language: English,Japanese Subtitles: English Closed Captioning: No Rating: TV-14 Aspect Ratio: 4x3 Main Feature Video: 1080p High Definition 4x3 (SD Remaster) Main Feature Audio: Dolby TrueHD: English 5.1,Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 5.1,English 5.1 Surround,Japanese 5.1 Surround Special Feature Audio: Dolby TrueHD: English 2.0,Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 2.0,English 2.0,Japanese 2.0 Main Feature Runtime: 650 Region: A|1 Number of Blu-ray Discs: 4 Number of DVDs: 5 Studio: FUNimation UPC: 704400090578 SPECIAL FEATURES Exclusive tri-fold packaging in the style of a vintage record cover Display easel Four exclusive art cards One additional exclusive art card with foil-stamp autograph from series director Shinichiro Watanabe On-disc extras TBA ------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding the standard edition: someone posts in the comments below that it is $36 elsewhere; as of 10/05/14 this is less than what is listed on Amazon. I'm not posting the site on my review cause I don't know if that's Kosher, but you can see the original comment below. ------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding the DVD and Blu-Ray extras, I want to thank BOOTA-san for finding this first and posting in the comments below. I can confirm that I've now found this list posted elsewhere on the interwebz, so here it is: DVD Extras (160 minutes): - Memo from Bebop: The Dub Sessions Remembered - a brand new 95-minute original extra, featuring the original English-language cast of Cowboy Bebop as they give you the behind-the-scenes stories about recording this seminal series. - Session #1 Audio Commentary with Koichi Yamadera (Spike) and Unshou Ishizuka (Jet) - Session #5 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba - Interview with Wendee Lee (English Voice of Faye Valentine) - Session #10 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba - Interview with Cartoon Network Producer Sean Akins - Session #17 Audio Commentary with Director Shinichiro Watanabe and Composer Yoko Kanno - "Tank!" Full-Size Music Clip - "Tank!" Club Remix Music Clip -UK Version- - Session #24 Audio Commentary with Megumi Hayashibara (Faye) and Aoi Tada (Ed) - Original Opening and Closing Songs - Textless Opening and Closing Songs - Ein's Summer Vacation - Cowboy Bebop Session #0 - U.S. Trailer Blu-ray Extras (227 minutes): - All of the DVD extras, plus - Dinner Aboard the Bebop, a brand new 68-minute original extra, featuring the original English-language cast of Cowboy Bebop reunited for dinner, drinks, and a very special script reading! ------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget, if you haven't already, add the Cowboy Bebop: The Movie [Special Edition ] to your order! Read the first review on that page; I agree to get the DVD version (unless you're a completest)

Coming from someone who isn't really an anime person, saying how great this series is speaks volume. It's a gem. I'm choosy about which TV shows I decide to invest my time in, especially when it comes to anime. I don't like anything too "weird" or "otaku," if you know what I mean. (Nothing against anime, just saying.) Cowboy Bebop has mostly Western influences and I feel anyone will love it--even people who aren't into anime. It has a perfect mix of fight scenes (hand-to-hand combat, gun showdowns, ship dogfights and more), suspense, humor, mystery, suaveness, sci-fi, romance and a great story line to boot. It's mature and cool, deep and resonating. Full of existentialism. The characters are well-developed and one cannot help but feel for all of them. I love shows like that. The protagonist is handsome and talented in about everything he does, and not in an off-putting way. His voice is also incredibly sexy and makes me swoon, which brings me to my next point. This is an anime where the English voice actors did a better job with the characters than the Japanese ones. The characters sound very natural and are seemingly brought to life. IMHO, this show is a needle in a haystack. Another important point: this series has such a memorable score. I love blues/jazz and the music itself is undeniably good. This DVD set is SUCH a great value. Normally one would have to buy all six DVDs for around $150, but this set is only about $30. One DVD in this set averages around $4.50 so you cannot beat the price. Buy this set if you are a Cowboy Bebop fan or want to get into the series. This is a great investment and I do not regret getting this. The CDs are all in perfect condition, and shipping was quick. I had a great experience with the seller. This show is truly an artistic masterpiece in its own right. I first heard about Cowboy Bebop when I watched Adult Swim in middle school, and I'll be honest in saying it has stuck with me since. I advise getting it before it isn't sold in this value bundle anymore!

The best version of Bebop yet! As others have pointed out, it's not 16:9 because it was originally created for 4:3 television. It never existed in 16:9 widescreen, and never will. But who cares about widescreen! The conversion is excellent and well worth it. It sill looks fantastic and is quite an upgrade over what is currently being broadcasted. As is the remixed 5.1 audio. If you don't have a surround sound system, depending on your receiver it may sound worse - that's not the fault of these BlueRay's - other than perhaps lacking a pure stereo track. Since I think audio can be as, if not more, important than the video quality, I have a very nice 5.1 surround sound system with a fairly respectable sub woofer to go along with my very nice plasma display. This set takes full advantage of my sound system. It's pure auditory bliss. The soundtrack and musical score on Bebop was always superb - now it can really be shown off nicely! They didn't just do some post processing to the original mixes, these disks have a completely new 5.1 mix and it is very obvious to anyone who appreciates a good surround sound mix! Overall I'm very pleased with the set and I'm thrilled there are companies like Funimation who put obvious care and passion into re-issues like this. It's greatly appreciated by the fans, as the current rankings in Amazon's sales charts reflect! Hopefully this will encourage more companies to do quality re-issues that take full advantage of the latest technology as much as possible. I may have to pick up the reissue of Ghost in the Shell if it has been done to the same quality level as Bebop!

I double dipped and grabbed the Amazon Exclusive Bebop and sold my older version (ADV? Bandai? Can't recall). The Funimation treatment has been great. One lovely note for those fans of the excellent English cast - it is the SAME! So gladly, Funimation did not re-dub with new talent! But in the dozen plus times watching the series - I do actually prefer the Japanese cast. True, the English cast is very well matched - but Faye especially excels in the Japanese (that mix of silly, quirky, serious). For those who have been living in anime purgatory for the last 15 years: Cowboy Bebop is the story of four hard luck bounty hunters (plus their Welsh Corgi) and their adventures in the near future. Each episode is a stand alone story (except a few of the two part episodes), but there is a continuity of the story and a few major story arcs that run parallel to the individual stories. It is the perfect gateway anime and I have personally gotten several people into anime who had never seen a single anime before this. It's anime crack! And Funimation did us a solid with their limited editions (3 different versions!). I chose the Amazon edition because I wanted the art books. They are smaller than I had thought, but they are pretty excellent as far as content goes. Bottom line? If you are familiar with the series, it's a new, high def release (cleaned up a bit, especially backgrounds), great sound, and worth double dipping for true fans. If you don't have the series, then now is the time to buy it. You won't regret it. I have watched hundreds of anime series since the 80s and I count this in my top 3.

Cowboy Bebop has been, since it's release in 1998, the bar by which every new anime series is judged by. It's just that good. Many have described it as 1970's cop show-meets western-meets high-quality drama-meets film-noir, and I am gonna have to agree with them. Cowboy Bebop revolves around futuristic bounty hunters Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, and the series is really just their exploits through the universe. Along the way, they meet female bounty hunter Faye Valentine, computer hacker Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky 4th (simply Ed for short), data dog Ein, and various bounties and figures from their past. The beauty of Cowboy Bebop is that although the show does have a recurring story based around Spike's past, this is more or less tossed aside for "filler" episodes, or one episode storylines. Through filler episodes, we make a very strong bond and attachment to these characters, and it makes the ending to it all the more heartfelt. When I watch Cowboy Bebop, I really do feel what happens to the characters. You feel sympathy and plight, happiness and joy, sadness and sorrow. You care about the characters, and I commend the staff who worked on the series for doing this. Very few anime series have characters for whom you can actually relate to, build bonds to emotionally, and frankly, give a damn about. Cowboy Bebop pulls it off with elegance and grace, as if it were nothing. All in all, Cowboy Bebop is one of the best anime ever created, hands down. it has excellent characters, wonderful story lines, beautiful animation, and mesmerizing locales. It remains to be one of my favorites of all time. I am so excited for this Blu-Ray release and can't wait to see what Funimation has whipped up this time in the release of this amazing nostalgic series for me.

Great series viewed with amazing quality.

Funimation has done a stellar job bringing this Blu-ray set to North America, and while it is THE definitive way to watch the show in English, there are some nagging usability issues which should be noted. What you need to know is that every episode is here in its original aspect ratio (4:3) in glorious HD, as it should be, with both the original Japanese audio with English subtitles and an excellent English dub done by Funimation. That said, CG graphics in some scenes do look slightly blurry. As other reviewers have noted, this is because the show's CG graphics were originally generated in standard definition (in 1998!) and have been upscaled to HD for this release. To remedy this upscaling issue, these assets would have had to have been re-created in HD, which could have risked altering the style of the original (see Ghost in the Shell 2.0, Star Wars on Blu-ray, blegh!). Personally, I’m glad the original animations were used. Additionally, the original opening and closing sequences for each episode have been edited to replace the Japanese credits on-screen with English translations. While there is an option to watch the original sequences on their own on disc 3, and Funimation did a great job with the translated sequences (mostly matching the original's visual style), the Japanese sequences are memorable, and it would have been nice to have the option to watch each episode unaltered. Minor usability issues: - You can’t switch audio/subtitle options during playback, so you won’t be able to compare audio tracks on the fly. Kind of a bummer. You must back out to the main menu to make changes. - English subtitles are tied directly to the Japanese audio track, so your only viewing options are English audio with no subtitles, or Japanese audio with English subtitles. There are no other language options. - All episodes on each disc are combined into one long clip on the two Blu-ray players I tested, even when choosing a single episode from the main menu (for example, choosing the second episode on a disc will place you at around the 21-minute mark of a 3+ hour clip of all episodes combined). It would have been nice to have the option to watch one episode at a time. - As others have mentioned, the way selections are made in the Blu-ray menu is counterintuitive: the item that is greyed out is selected and the items that are highlighted in white are not. There are sections of the menu with only two options (when picking between Japanese and English audio, for example) where this can be confusing even if you know what to look for. I should also note that my Blu-ray copy of Bebop arrived with two of the nubs holding each disc in place broken off, which fell out of the box when I first opened it. Since it took me a few weeks to open my set after buying it, I wasn't able to exchange it for an un-broken version in time. I don’t hold this against Amazon, since I’m sure they would have honored an exchange if I had reported the issue in time. My full breakdown of the contents of each disc: DISC 1: • Sessions #1-9 Extras • Session #1 Audio Commentary with Koichi Yamadera (Spike) and Unsho Ishizuka (Jet) • Session #5 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba DISC 2: • Sessions #10-18 Extras • Session #10 Audio Commentary with Wendee Lee (Faye) and ADR Producer Yutaka Maseba • Session #17 Audio Commentary with Director Shinichiro Watanabe and Composer Yoko Kanno DISC 3: • Sessions #19-26 Extras • Session #24 Audio Commentary with Megumi Hayashibara (Faye) and Aoi Tada (Ed) • Cowboy Bebop Session #0 • Interview with Wendee Lee (English Voice of Faye Valentine) • Interview with Cartoon Network Producer Sean Atkins • Original Opening Song • Original Closing Song • Original Closing Song Ep. 13 • Original Closing Song Ep. 26 • Textless Opening Song • Textless Closing Song • Textless Closing Song Ep. 13 • Textless Closing Song Ep. 26 • U.S. Trailer • Trailers ' Michiko & Hatchin ' Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine ' Black Lagoon ' Attack on Titan ' Chaos;Head ' Code:Breaker ' Samurai Champloo ' Funimation.com DISC 4 (addl. extras): • Memo from the Bebop: Dub Sessions Remembered • Ein’s Summer Vacation • “Tank!” Full-size Music Clip • “Tank!” Club Remix Music Clip - UK Version • Dinner Aboard the Bebop

Siento decir que tendré que devolver esta edición. No es por problemas de la caja. El problema es que se trata de una edición de USA que pone región A en la cubierta. Yo no sabía que a veces ocurre con este tipo de ediciones de USA que no se pueden reproducir con nuestros reproductores de DVD o BLUE - RAY. Agradezco al servicio de atención al cliente pero a pesar de mirar todas las opciones que pude de los menús del reproductor no se puede ver. La verdad es un chasco.

Cowboy Bebop on Blu-ray is a must-have for anime fans. This collection brings the iconic series to life with stunning HD visuals and crisp audio, making the space adventures of Spike, Jet, Faye, and Ed even more immersive. The blend of action, humor, and a killer jazz soundtrack remains as captivating as ever. The Blu-ray set also includes some great bonus features for fans. Whether you're revisiting a classic or experiencing it for the first time, this complete series set is an essential addition to any anime collection.

Nuevamente obtuve lo que esperaba de una edición de Funimation. La resolución está en 4:3 pero se ve bastante bien en la pantalla. El sonido 5.1 también es muy bueno. También incluye buenos extras como comentarios con la gente que participó en la creación de la serie, lo cual siempre es bienvenido. Como siempre, estas ediciones sólo vienen en japonés e inglés. Como punto negativo a nivel personal es que forzosamente te ponen los subtítulos en inglés cuando eliges el idioma japonés, esto puede ser molesto si ya manejas el idioma y quieres ver la serie de una forma "limpia". Fuera de eso, esta edición es muy buena.

リアルタイムで見て以来だから実に22年ぶり。 内容はほとんど忘れていて新鮮な気持ちで見る事が出来た。 カッコよくて面白くて泣けるビバップは本当に最高！！ 配信で見るのが一番お手頃だけど、これは持っていても後悔はしない。 それどころか国内版まで欲しくなってくる始末。そういう作品である。 一番気になっていた字幕が消せるかどうかだが 手持ちのUBP-X800M2 だと字幕ＯＦＦにできずに移動しても字幕の1列目が見えてしまう。 しかしディーガのBZT710だと画面の外まで移動できたので一応字幕オフ状態で見る事が出来た。 ただBZT710だと画質が悪く古くさく見えてしまうので字幕はうざったいが もっぱらX800M2で見てる。

Amazing