Monday, January 24, 2011

Characters: Cowboy Bebop

Characters: Cowboy Bebop


Spike Spiegel

Voiced by: Koichi Yamadera (JP), Steve Blum (EN)

In the past Spike was a top assassin for the Red Dragon Syndicate, a criminal organization. An unstoppable killer, Spike was practically a One Man Army, and was only more dangerous when paired with his equally dangerous partner, Vicious. Then something happened. Spike met Vicious' girlfriend, Julia, and Spike and Julia fell in love. (Indeed, one shot that shows Spike's reaction to seeing her hints it might even have been Love At First Sight, at least on his end). Although the details from this time are sketchy, it appears that Vicious soon found out, and the affair not only made Vicious determined to kill Spike, but made him fall out of favor with the Red Dragons as well. Spike decided to leave the Syndicate after one last job, but Vicious gave Julia a deadly order: kill Spike, or be killed herself before she could run. Somehow, Spike faked his death well enough that almost everyone believed he was dead, but Julia didn't leave with him. Instead Spike simply disappeared, and began a life of drifting until meeting Jet and forming their partnership.
In the present Spike is slightly lazy, big eating, easy going sort who has used his skills as an assassin and martial artist to become a bounty hunter. He's the type that always takes life easy except for when the adrenaline kicks in while taking down a bounty. And he certainly doesn't take anything personally or all that seriously... in fact, about the only thing that can spark an emotional reaction from him is the name Julia... still, Spike is going to eventually have to face his past. Not everyone knows or believes that he's dead, including his old mentor Mao Yenrai, and Vicious certainly doesn't believe it, (Vicious firmly believes that he is the only one who can kill Spike, and vice-versa) and still wants a piece of Spike, even as he begins hatching plans to take over the Red Dragons. And somewhere out there, is Julia.
Eventually, Spike's past catches up with him big time. Vicious does confirm that Spike is alive, and it turns into a full on hunt as Vicious tries to take over the Red Dragon Syndicate. Spike and Julia reconcile and plan on running away, but before they can she dies in a shootout with Vicious' men. After saying goodbye to Jet and the crew, Spike decides to go Storming The Castle and cuts a swath through The Syndicate to get to Vicious. The two mortally wound each other, with Vicious dying right away, while Spike lives long enough to see the dawn, walk back downstairs, and whisper "Bang" to the stunned members of the Syndicate before collapsing. Interesting side note: Spike Spiegel dies at the age of 27, the same age as many legendary rock figures like Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and many others.

Jet Black

Voiced by: Unsho Ishizuka (JP), Beau Billingslea (EN)

An ex cop who was known as the "Black Dog" during his as an officer because of his stubbornness and relentlessness is chasing down suspects. During his days as a cop Jet refused to go on the take or play the game until this finally got him ambushed by a syndicate,and his own partner, resulting in a wound that cost him his arm and made him turn in his badge. Between having been walked out on by his lover Alissa sometime earlier and his wound, Jet decided it was time to move on and try his luck in other parts of the solar system, leading him to purchase the Bebop, (and name it after his longtime love of jazz music) become a freelance bounty hunter and become partners with Spike.
By far the most old fashioned, levelheaded, and responsible member of the Bebop crew, as well as the conscience of the group. Tends to appear gruff, (and his height, muscular appearance and beard only add to the impression) but is quite the softy underneath with a surprising number of cultured habits, (including raising bonsai trees, listening to jazz/blues music, cooking, reading the works of 17th/18th century literature, etc) and has a tendency to do the right thing in all circumstances. He can be too old fashioned and controlling though, a fact which caused Alissa to leave him and sometimes makes him less than popular with the rest of the Bebop crew.

Faye Valentine

Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (JP), Wendee Lee (EN)

The first person to join Spike and Jet on the Bebop (unless we're counting Ein), Faye is many things. For starters she's a con artist, selfish, impulsive, self-centered, rude and manipulative. She's also lonely, heartbroken, wounded, and desperately searching for her place in the universe. Spike and Jet would first encounter Faye when she was working as part of a smuggling operation at a casino, posing as a dealer. Her job was to make it look legit when her contact would slide her a very special poker chip, but unfortunately there was a mix up when she mistook Spike for her contact, and hilarity quickly ensued. Sometime later in a different episode Faye would become a permanent part of the Bebop crew, despite much grumbling from both Spike and Jet.
Faye always approaches the world from an angle: she believes the world and people are out to hurt, use and exploit you, so it's best if you do it to them first. Anything is fair game to be used to get an advantage over people, include cunning, using the trust of others, her sexy good looks, and when all else fails, a ship loaded with machine guns and missiles. Her exact background is mysterious, and when pressed for answers about it she simply throws out one story after another, each more improbable than the last. Despite her usual indirect and sneaky methods, Faye is quite a competent pilot, markswoman, and even her punch packs a wallop despite her slim frame. When not taking down bounties, she tends to waste all her money gambling in an effort to get rich and pay off the ridiculously large debts that she has, which is just as mysterious as anything else about her past.
Eventually it turns out that Faye is actually from the 20th century. In her late teens she survived an accident with the Gates, the invention that makes solar system travel available to mankind, and was cryogenically frozen afterward until being revived more than 50 years later. After waking up she was tricked into assuming the massive debts (which, she admits, were little more than a drop in the bucket compared to her own truly massive health-care bill) of her supposed savior, a con man she had begun to fall for. It also turns out she has a touch of amnesia about her history prior to the accident, which she eventually overcomes and goes to find her home, only to find that there's nothing left of it.

Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, a.k.a. "Radical Edward," a.k.a Françoise Appledelhi

Voiced by: Aoi Tada (JP), Melissa Fahn (EN)

Oh Ed, Ed, Ed... where to even start with Ed? Ed is probably the world's foremost hacker, and is not shy about using her talents to cause mischief. A 13 year old demented genius, Ed was living alone on Earth and occasionally being hunted by the police when she first encountered the Bebop crew. The crew was chasing a bounty in a case where someone was believed to have hacked into an old Kill Sat and started using it to carve designs into the planet. Naturally, Ed was the prime suspect, but since Ed was aware of the Bebop crew and was a fan of theirs, (oddly enough, since the crew manages to blow every bounty and live inPerpetual Poverty because of it) she let them in on a secret: the real perpetrator was the satellite itself, whose program had a degree of awareness, a fact that Ed had recently discovered. In return for giving them this information and helping them deal with the rogue satellite, Ed only asked to become a member of the Bebop crew, a propositioned Faye agreed to without telling anyone and later tried to back out on. Unfortunately for Faye, hacking the Bebop's computer, controlling it by remote, and getting it to land where she wants it not exactly a difficult task for Ed.
After this Ed's legendary computer skills would be at the disposal of the Bebop crew, and it would come in handy in several cases. Ed would also get her A Day In The Limelight during the show's Mushroom Samba episode. This would continue until Ed and Faye simultaneously begin closing in on chasing down their pasts, in Ed's case in part through Faye's encouragement that finding the place where you belong is the best thing a person can do. To that end Ed posts a fake bounty on her ditzy father who good-naturedly and absentmindedly abandoned her years before. (Well, maybe more like left her off with someone and half forgot that she ever existed). The two briefly reunite, but Ed hesitates at joining him, and good old dad starts running off again. Quite possibly realizing that the place where she belongs is neither with dad nor aboard the Bebop, Ed leaves both, wandering off into the sunset accompanied only by Ein.

Ein


Encountered in the second episode, Ein is an "data dog" that was illegally researched and experimented on. Initially Ein was just supposed to be a tool to catch the episode's bounty, who had stolen Ein, but eventually, much to Spike's chagrin, Jet and Spike wound up keeping the dog on after things didn't quite work out in catching the bounty.
Exactly what a data dog is never gets explained, but Ein certainly has vastly greater than normal intelligence for a dog. (It's strongly hinted that Ein has a full understanding of the languages and world around him, and may in fact be the smartest member of the crew). Ein gradually becomes closest to and friendliest with Ed, with the two sharing a number of adventures, (especially in the Mushroom Samba episode) before leaving together.

Vicious

Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (JP), Skip Stellrecht (EN)

A man dressed entirely in black, who seems to have little emotion and to care about nothing. A walking tide of destruction and death. A skilled and remorseless killer who will not hesitate to snuff out anyone who gets in his way. In short, Vicious is a bad motherfucker, and seriously bad news for anyone who happens to be within about a mile of him.
As with everything else from Spike's past, not much is ultimately known about Vicious. He and Spike were partners, and top hitmen for the Red Dragon Syndicate, and at this time Vicious was already involved with Julia. Spike and Julia met, and soon fell in love. A few scenes seen in closing credits of the episodes hint that Spike and Julia carried out an affair in secret for some time before Vicious found out. Where a normal man might have been upset, Vicious just calmly set Spike up be killed in an ambush, (hinting that perhaps Vicious already wanted Spike out of the way of his climb to power) and, as a backup, instructed Julia to kill Spike at the meeting the two had arranged in order to run away together, or be killed herself. Julia never went to the meeting however, and Spike faked his own death, leaving Vicious to stew and continue to plot both vengeance and a ruthless climb to the top of the Red Dragons.
For a short time after Spike's faked death, Vicious left the Syndicate and served in a war on Titan, (a moon orbiting Saturn), operating there as The Mole, spying on the side he was ostensibly fighting for. His motives for doing this are unknown. When it was suspected that there was a spy operating in the ranks, Vicious pinned the blame on Gren, a younger soldier who looked up to and hero worshiped him. After the end of the war Vicious rejoined the Red Dragons and quickly climbed the ranks, gaining a large following among the Syndicate's mooks. When the opportunity presented itself, Vicious killed Spike's former mentor Yao and used that and a shameful desecration of Yao's body to lure Spike out, proving that his old rival was still alive after all. The encounter left both men wounded, but settled nothing.
Increasingly aware of Vicious' treacherous nature and ambition, the Syndicate elders declared that he would not be allowed to take over the Red Dragons. So Vicious responded by launching a coup d'etat in the form of a Xanatos Gambit. He allows himself to be captured in an assassination attempt, but stacks his execution squad with his own men, who free him and give Vicious the chance to assassinate the Syndicate elders for real, leaving Vicious the new leader of the group. After that Vicious redoubles his efforts to kill Spike and Julia, who have finally reunited. One of his mooks shoots and kills Julia, resulting in Spike returning and Storming The Castle for a final confrontation. The two mortally wound each other, with Vicious falling dead to a gunshot wound from Spike, while Spike slowly dies and finally collapses from a wound from Vicious' trademark katana.

Julia

Voiced by: Gara Takashima (JP), Mary Elizabeth Mc Glynn (EN)

Relatively little is known about Julia, and since she has very little screen time (aside from flashbacks, she only appears in sections of 2 episodes), and dies before the end of the second episode so the exact details on her history, personality and life are sketchy. From the scenes she's in we can see that she knows how to drive a car during a Car Chase, she can shoot a mook (albeit not nearly as smoothly as most of the main characters) and she's fairly smart: she gets how Vicious planted the transmitter on Gren immediately, for example. She's also quite loyal to Spike, when presented with the Sadistic Choice she chose to Take A Third Option and be hunted by Vicious rather than kill Spike.
Otherwise, it's possible to guess from flashback sequences that Julia was probably unhappy with Vicious for awhile before she and Spike began their affair. The flashback scene of their first meeting (which only lasts a couple of seconds) seems to show Spike immediately falling for Julia, however no similar reaction is seen from her. Things began to change when a wounded and bloody Spike collapsed almost right in front of her door one night after doing a bit of syndicate "business". Either as she nursed him back to health or shortly afterward, Julia began to reciprocate Spike's feelings and the two began having an affair. However, Vicious found out and this brought the situation to a head. Spike begged Julia to run away with him after performing one last job for the Syndicate, but Julia was reluctant, apparently fearing that the Red Dragon wouldn't really let Spike go and that Vicious would hunt them. After Spike leaves Julia is then confronted by Vicious, who presents her with the Sadistic Choice mentioned above. Instead, with the help of at least some members of the Red Dragons, (Shin can be heard leaving a message on her machine about Vicious' planned coup at the very start of episode 25) Julia escaped and went on the run until Vicious' coup.
In episode 25 we see Julia on the screen for the first time. In the wake of Vicious' attempted coup, she, like others, is being hunted by the Elders for having ever had ties to Vicious. Faye, separated from the rest of the team, spot Julia leading a group of mooks on a wild car chase and intervenes to help Julia. The two talk for a little while, and Julia recognizes that Faye is one of Spike's partners. Julia gives Faye a discreet message for Spike, to have him meet her at the same cemetery where they were supposed to meet before running away years earlier. When the two meet they reconcile and decide to attempt to run away again. However they decide to stop by Annie's place to seek help from their old friend, only to find Annie wounded and on the brink of death. When Vicious' mooks surround the building the two attempt to fight their way past on the rooftops, but Julia is shot by a mook in the back. Her dying words are "It's all just a dream." Spike tries to comfort her by agreeing, and then Julia dies.

Grencia "Gren" Mars Elijah Guo Eckener

Voiced by: Kenyuu Horiuchi (JP), Michael Gregory (EN)

Subject of the two-part episode "Jupiter Jazz." Gren fought alongside Vicious on Titan, and considered him a close comrade. As one might expect, this was an unfortunate error in judgment on Gren's part. Spike and Faye encounter him on Jupiter's moon Callisto, where he plays saxophone in a bar called the Rester House.
Vicious took advantage of Gren's friendship to frame him for espionage during the war on Titan, resulting in Gren being sent to prison. While incarcerated, he developed insomnia, and was used as a test subject for an experimental drug which severely imbalanced his hormones, causing him to develop breasts.
Gren posed as a Red-Eye dealer in order to find and confront Vicious, which he did while Spike was on Callisto searching for signs of Julia. The resulting confrontation left Gren with mortal injuries, and he died in transit to Titan after asking Spike to help him return there as his last wish.
LET'S PARTY!

Tongpu aka Mad Pierrot

Voiced by: Banjo Ginga (JP), Kirk Thornton (EN)

A one-shot character, the Mad Pierrot is a ruthless Serial Killer who chases down Spike and duels with him in an abandoned amusement park. What he is exactly is only implied, as Spike interrupts the answer and says he doesn't want to know. This just makes the character even more unsettling.

Vincent Volaju

Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe (JP), Daran Norris (EN)

The main antagonist of the Cowboy Bebop movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, he's apparently a terrorist hellbent on causing as much destruction as possible, and holds the highest bounty in recorded history on his head (300,000,000 wulongs). As it turns out, he's the sole survivor of a series of experiments during the Titan War, and plans to release the nanomachines which transformed him into a Super Soldier across the world, killing all in Mars.

Electra Ovilo

Voiced by: Ai Kobayashi (JP), Jennifer Hale (EN)

A corporate soldier who has some unknown past connections with Vincent. They were lovers, and she is the only one who carries the cure to the nanomachines he wishes to unleash upon Mars. Seeing as how she was the only who cared for him, she feels she has a duty to help him, and, later, put him out of his misery.
  • Action Girl / Hot Amazon: As Spike says, "I love the kind of woman that can kick my ass."
  • Deadpan Snarker: To a degree:
    Spike: Love the toreador thing. Black pants, red jacket. Nice look.
    Electra: The jumpsuit does nothing for you.
  • Hey Its That Voice: FemShep is rolling with the Bebop crew, now?
  • Love Martyr: To Vincent. Almost played literally when she wants she and Vincent to die together, but Vincent falters at the last minute to let her kill him.
  • Neutral Good: She has no problem with defying her corporate superiors to save Mars.
  • Star Crossed Lovers: She and Vincent have this.
  • Tear Jerker: When she kills Vincent, he tells her the only thing he remembers to be real for certain is his love for her.
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