Will Shinichiro Watanabe Ever Make An Anime To Succeed Cowboy Bebop?
When Studio Sunrise gave the go for Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop, they only had one constraint: whatever the story was, it had to have spaceships that they could sell models of. With that one rule, Watanabe and some of the best minds in the industry created a neo-noir masterpiece remembered fondly decades later, but has he made anything that has surpassed it?
Watanabe has directed around 11 different anime, discounting «episode director» credits and some smaller projects. With the name recognition allotted to him, such a sizable portfolio sounds almost small at first glance, before the weight of some of those stories is taken into consideration. Watanabe's name brings with it an idea of a «Watanabe anime»: film-like imagery inspired by western cinema, great music, and even a push for diversity and representation not often seen in anime. With so many works that have formed this perception, even in recent years, what has made Bebop so persisting?
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Upon reflection, Bebop holds a place in viewers' hearts because of the unique position it holds in history. As one of the big successes to come from the shift in TV anime brought on by Neon Genesis Evangelion, Bebop was also a colossal hit in the west, propelled by earlier iterations of Toonami. It was a simple premise, about ludicrously cool bounty hunters, kung fu, and gunfights, but it was so cool that it drew people in.
This is thanks to people like Toshihiro Kawamoto, who designed the characters for Bebop, as well as shows like Gundam 8th MS Team, another Toonami hit from Sunrise. Animators like Yutaka Nakamura raised the bar for action scenes in Anime. Yoko Kanno created a soundtrack that was familiar to humanize
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