"Once upon a time, in New York City in 1941... at this club open to all comers to play, night after night, at a club named "Minston's Play House" in Harlem, they play jazz sessions competing with each other. Young jazz men with a new sense are gathering. At last they created a new genre itself. They are sick and tired of the conventional fixed style jazz. They're eager to play jazz more freely as they wish then... in 2071 in the universe... The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship "BEBOP", will play freely without fear of risky things. They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called... COWBOY BEBOP"That is the text seen in the opening roll of the series. Do you see the connection, despite the less-than-wonderful English?
It was in the first couple of years during World War II that some jazz musicians decided to break the contemporary mold of the genre and begin a new revolution known as bebop, otherwise known as bop. It was characterized by a fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation in harmonic structure and melody.
Before bebop hit the scene, swing and jazz music abounded, and were categorized by very rarely doing anything out of the norm - the styles were very fixed and organized. The public was shocked when bop started to make its way into the scene.
Bebop usually started and ended with a certain theme, and the middle parts would end up improvised, sometimes giving references to the original melody or alluding to well-known melodies. Sometimes, from start to finish, the tunes were entirely original.
Seeing the relation to Cowboy Bebop yet? Is the show's title making any sense to you now?
This series did redefine the genre. It became it's own genre. It's not your typical anime; it's more than that. Even years after it debuted and ended, it's still being discussed by fans around the world, debating on this and that.
More like bebop, CB also alludes to many musical pieces - from the session titles to in-show references. It references to movies, to other series. The characters the show revolves around are all unique, not adhering to any conventions and doing things their own particular way, breaking molds and running through life as they seem fit.
Cowboy Bebop broke the mold. Bebop broke the mold. Despite the series having very few actual bebop tunes in its soundtrack, we can get the drift, can't we? CB is the anime of bebop.
Now, as for the cowboy bit ... look back at the days when cowboys were around. Real cowboys? Their lives are hard in ways most of us wouldn't want to imagine, giving little pay and no visible rewards. They were free people, living life at their own pace, a sort of representation of a lifestyle that anyone could take up and do, regardless of social standing, race, religion ... it was outside of the boundaries of society at that time. Bounty hunters of the future are cowboys in that same respect.
Of course we could just simplify it and say cowboys represent a more romantic aspect of culture - you think cowboy, you think dramatic western showdowns, saving damsels in distress, riding horses; all sorts of fantastical and romantic things from an era long gone. That, of course, is far from how the cowboy life really is. See? There we go.
People may go "Cowboy Bebop?! What sort of thing is that?!" but now you are one of the few who can proudly exclaim that Cowboy Bebop is a great title, befitting of a series that will go down in history for breaking the mold.
Because really, what's better than that?