She is the one who sent the tape to herself, it was supposed to find her in the mail system 10 years later but since she went missing, the tape has been in the mail system circulating for decades until it finally found her 50+ years later.
I went to a camp that had us write letters to our future selves and I received it 20 years later. I don't know who held onto it that whole time. The post office does have procedures for letters to "Dear God" or other things. And there are cases of people receiving mail ~70 years later because it fell behind a sorting machine and wasn't rediscovered until it got moved decades later.
"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil." Faye was brought out of cold sleep in 2068. She was frozen when she was 20 years old and remained frozen for 54 years, so Faye was born in 1994. Thanks for the wonderful conversations.
*Speak Like a Child* never misses. I've watched this show three times, but it doesn't matter. When the ending arrived... both of you were crying and I was crying looking at you, too. 😭 It touches the deepest emotional cords, it speaks to the dark weight in your heart you didn't know you had. Welcome to peak Cowboy Bebop. We're staying up here. We're not going back down. PS: the city shown in Faye's flashback is Singapore.
Growing up is really fucking weird. Being an adult and hardly recognizing yourself from 15 years ago is wild. Gotta be even weirder when you can’t even remember that person wearing a younger version of your face.
So Jet’s tale is a parallel to the episode. The fisherman saved a turtle who was actually a princess of the sea (Otohime, you’ll know that name) who invites him to the Dragon King’s Palace (Ryuku Kingdom). After a few days enjoying life he chooses to return to his wife and family, so Otohime gave him the Tamatebako, but told him not to open it. The fisherman returned but found none of his loved ones and none who recognised him, in a panic he opened the box - his stay was longer than he assumed, and centuries of age contained in the box returned to the fisherman. In parallel to Faye, the tape is the Tamatebako. She woke up in a world she didn’t recall, and when she viewed the tape, her true age metaphorically came back
One of the funniest episodes in the show being followed by one of the saddest and existential episodes of the entire series. That scene where Faye struggles to recognize her past self always gets to me, it always hits me with that one question "if your past self saw you now, would they like what they saw?"
They've already given us the dates and ages, so this won't be a spoiler: Faye was in the accident in 2014 when she was about 20, making her 23, biologically (it is now 2071 in the show). She was unfrozen in 2068 when we were told she was frozen at the time of the accident, 54 years back. What's screwing him up is that in Faye's time they still had Beta and CRTs; You have to remember this show was made in the 90s when those technologies were still prevalent and things like DVDs and flat-panels were mostly in the future.
Kinda crazy to me to think people born around 1999 have only known a digital world their whole life. I have seen all the technologies of the computer age, from magnetic tapes to floppies to Flash. In 30 years physical drives will be a relic and the kids born today will only know cloud-based computing. someday in the near future, chips will be implants and we may not need keyboard and mouse. AI will speak to us in relatively believable conversation. 2071 is still over 40 years away. Who knows if this is an alternate world, after all.
You hit the nail on the head Rusty. Our two host are so young they can't imagine a time where flat screens and smartphones weren't the norm yet, at the time of the making of this series. And Japanese people have always been behind with times, when it comes to technology. Despite their reputation being the opposite. Proof of this? If you went to Japan right now. You could find working pay phones. Also for the longest Japan refused to get on board with email. And still utilized fax machines, as the main means for sending information between businesses.
@@the_gratefulgamer Does it bother anyone else that the 20th century "nerd" called magnetic tapes "primitive"?? They were anything but! Very sophisticated technology, actually.
Every time I watch Faye's tape, she reminds me to be kinder to myself. It's okay to be a little critical of yourself, sometimes it's what makes us improve as a person, as long as it doesn't hurt us. We wouldn't treat our best friends like that, so we shouldn't do it to ourselves either, because we are the best of best friends. As always I loved the reaction, you guys are one of my favorites!
Pulp is a type of cheap paper that was used in detective, horror, science fiction, and comic magazines of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Noir (which means dark or black in French) was a style of film. Some of which included double indemnity and kiss me deadly. When color film became more prevalent, these films started being called neo-noir which would include the classic Chinatown movie.
Just to elaborate on that a bit, there came to be an association of pulp-printed books and magazines with certain genres, usually kind of edgier, thrill-oriented fiction. Eventually the term came to be applied to movies in this genre as well.
Yep! "Pulp" refers to the stories that appeared on that print that were intended for mass market appeal instead of fancy literature, and includes characters like Conan, Zorro, The Shadow and Tarzan.
What makes me cry about Faye seeing her younger self is that she doesn’t know that little girl, but she used to. Like, that was her but now it’s not, and while we age and grow older we can look back at the past and remember who we were and how we’ve changed, whether it’s good or bad. We are reminded of our younger selves when we look back at the past either through memories or pictures and video, but she can’t.. she lost that. She doesn’t know who she was and it just makes me cry every time I see it. But you guys are getting close to some of the most amazing episodes, not that the previous ones weren’t but things really start to ramp up a bit. So glad your enjoying this show, I’ve really enjoyed seeing your reactions and hearing your thoughts about it. Can’t wait for the next upload! Gonna be good, the next two are so much fun, especially #19
It doesnt matter where the tape came from. That is the point. That your past always catches back up to you in some way. It may come quickly like the hare or it may takes its time like the toroise. Hint hint: The 2 packages arrived with pictures of a tortoise and a hare. Jet told a story about a tortoise. Fay was betting on dogs chasing a hare around the track. This show is very layered.
im not entirely surprised that people are still gaining appreciation for this show (it is one of the all-time classics), but it makes me happy none the less.
I want to thank you guys for this series, because it just helped me win an anime hangman competition at my college’s anime club. The final one was the full title that Ed introduced herself as, and I remembered it because of this series.
@@michaelmcgee7683 Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III
From the Wright Brothers to the Moon landing was only 66 years. Colonization in 50 years isn’t too far fetched, especially if there is a new discovery to accelerate things
This is one of my top 10 in my library of favorite episodes of ANY show, period. a whole lot of emotion packed into a few minutes that has so much more meaning because you spend most of the series asking for more back story on every character. When you get it, it hits. But the best is yet to come.
The TV show the antique dealer was viewing appeared to be Beverly Hills 90210. The partially obscured names in the credits were Jason Priestly and Shannon Doherty.
Speak like a child is one of my favorite episodes of anything ever. And it only gets better the older you get. Maybe you've grown cynical over the years or maybe not lived up to the hope and dreams you once had for yourself. This episode is for you.
You have to remember that Large Cities like Chicago were built roughly 10-20 years after the Wild West ended. So colonies on different planets being erected so quickly after interplanetary space travel became a thing isn't too far off from possible. Plus this show was made in the Late 90s so the idea that VHS and Betamax tapes still being a thing so close to such advance technology is kinda like those old 70s movies that imagine the year 1999 having flying cars and teleportation devices. Looking too deeply into why a child would have these things in their room in an old tape that no one knows much about causes a more confusion than intended. Also, Jet and Spike aren't Earthlings, so they wouldn't really know a lot about older Earth technology anyway.
While VHS beat out Betamax by the 90s in the west, Sony was still making betana tapes until 2002 and sold them until 2016. I believe Betamax was slightly more popular in Asia and if someone had invested in Beta it wouldn't be surprising if they continued to use it for home movies and such even if they had switched to purchasing VHS for media. If Fayes' family or school was using Betamax for home videos it's a safe bet it was in the 90s or early 2000s at the latest.
I think some of the colonies on Mars, Venus, and the Jupiter moons were started prior to the gate disaster. The show was created in the 90s, so there was this optimism that colonization was coming soon.
Ever since I saw you guys watching 2 episodes at a time, I knew you'd be watching one of the funny episodes right before one of the most emotional episodes. A real rollercoaster ride. We all felt for Faye in that moment. 😭 Earth is not in the best place in this series, so there was a big push to colonize space. In 50 years, we went from the Wright airplane to jets. It's not beyond the realm of believability for humanity to advance that quickly. Faye's time on the Bebop might be the closest thing to a permanent address she's had in a long time, giving the shipping algorithm time to zone in on delivering those packages.
I always cry on this one! What breaks my heart about Faye's tape is when her childhood self is kinda making all these wishes for the future that Faye would think "no, that didn't come true". She didn't wake up feeling good with the warm sun & wind & next to someone wonderful, she's on a cold spaceship feeling alone in the world & addicted to gambling to cope with her impossible debts. It's so relatable because I'm constantly conscious of all the dreams that never came true and I've had to move past. But still I've always known that it's very important to keep your inner child alive so at least I'm grateful I never let go of that. I'm so glad Faye finally got to find her again and it's so sweet and encouraging what her childhood self had to say, admitting that getting into trouble is part of life but still cheering her on. Feels like the tension Faye was carrying just got washed away for a moment. Faye really is amazing to have adapted to her new time and learned to be a great pilot, she just needs some guidance and self-love.
VHS tapes did exist in the 80s btw, but we actually used them even in the 90s, great entertainment as kids as well. So not that old as you think. Times change very quickly. This episode and Faye's story is a good indication of how fast things can change in the world. Even more so when it comes to technology and media.
*"Mushroom Samba" Fun Facts:* 1) When the Bebop crashes, the sign "Western World Development Tract 8271" is a reference to the film "Paris, Texas" (1984). 2) The frog's referencing "Stairway to Heaven" is a homage to Led Zeppelin's song of the same title. 3) The coffin being dragged mirrors the main character of the Spaghetti Western "Django" (1966). 4) The lady bounty hunter *Coffy* was inspired by the Blaxploitation film of the same name starring Pam Grier. Now on to Episode 18...
I just realized young faye was dropping bars. It's a double. "Don't lose me" taken as win versus lose, wanting her future self to win, but also can be taken as "don't forget about me," which kinda makes it hit a little harder. BARS
The individual mushroom trips do actually have potential psychological/thematic meaning that has been discussed (everyone besides Ein, anyways), but it's premature to talk about them before you finish the series. A smaller version of that is also how each character went about deciding to eat the mushroom in their own personal character-defining ways (Faye being unapologetic about it, Jet needing to rationalize it with logic, Spike feigning disinterest but taking it with slight of hand).
That ending and Mehgan's reaction is exactly why Cowboy Bebop is my absolute favorite. This show makes you laugh one moment and cry the next. also Beta tapes are from the eighties. They lost the battle to VHS.
You guys dont know how time works. My 20 year old son has never seen a vhs tape in his life and only knows of them because i made it a point to tell him about history. My daughter barely knows what tapes are or what they do. I found a cassette tape in a box in my garage and neither of them knew what it was or what it did. My son thought it was video tape. My daughter has never seen a CD before except in old movies and tv shows. In 50 years no one will remember DVDs or blue rays or even thumb drives.
Couldn't agree more. Its crazy how time works. Eventually only old people and hardcore historians will know what happened or what technologies existed 40 years ago. And on and on it goes. Everything is forgotten over time. Its all ancient relics after some point.
First passenger flight on an airplane was in 1914 and traveled 18 miles in 23 minutes which beat the railroad at 11 hours. The Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place 56 years later in 1969. Technology advances rapidly. I doubt many zoomers would know what an 8 track player is and would probably consider it a relic since all music is digital now unless you really want a CD or vinyl I guess. Those were still around in the 70s at least, about 50 years ago. Love you guys, just wanted to give some perspective on time and tech.
I didn't fully appreciate this episode when I was 12. Now I think it's one of the most emotional and it still gets me deep even though I've seen the entire show every couple years or so.
36:04 End of 18 is a masterclass at pulling heart strings down to the chosen moment Poor Faye (High Socks) begins softly playing as child Faye talks to her future self. 🤌
Cowboy Bebop is a very retro sci fi. I mean, obviously it draws a lot from old movie genres like Westerns, Noir, and all manner of 70s movies (Bruce Lee movies, Blaxploitation movies, Alien, etc.), which were old at the time of Bebop's original airing. It's also loaded with very 90s tech. For example, TV screens and monitors behave like old CRTs of the time, Laughing Bull has a PlayStation 1 in his teepee, a garage mechanic works on the Columbia Space Shuttle (which was destroyed in an atmospheric re-entry disaster in 2003) like it's a 70s muscle car, and people are messing around with Betamax and VHS in a sci fi world where you can store data in chess pieces and, um, Corgis. Not to mention the general presence of paper-printed girly posters and smutty magazines, and the use of crop-dusters in the movie.
There's also a lot of plot lines that seem to draw on big news stories of the 90s that would have been more familiar to people watching when it first aired. Episode 4 has a plotline that's probably inspired by Western activist groups protesting against the Japanese whaling industry that were on the news a lot back then, episode 9 has a news channel interviewing a crackpot talking about aliens psychically manipulating people who seems to be based on (at least in his name) the famous "psychic" Uri Geller, episode 22 has a terrorist seemingly based on the Unabomber, and episode 23 has a cult that looks to be inspired by the Heaven's Gate cult and Marshall Applewhite.
Also, most of the firearms used in Cowboy Bebop are real models that (of course) existed when the series was created in '98. And different characters in the series have different preferred firearms of choice. Spike's use of an Israeli firearm, along with his last name being Spiegel, were the main points leading to a popular fan theory that Spike was supposed to be Jewish, though Watanabe has confirmed this was not intended. In spite of their last names, I actually think the main crew of Bebop are all meant to be Asian, though not necessarily Japanese. Some landmarks in the background of Faye's childhood videos hint that she's Singaporean. Spike's look is mostly modeled after a Japanese actor (Yusaku Matsuda), but they also took a lot of inspiration from Bruce Lee (who was Chinese) and the Syndicate that Spike used to work for seems to be more based around Chinese culture and the Chinese Triads than the Japanese Yakuza (Spike's mentor was named "Mao", and I've read that some Syndicate members wear clothing from the Qing dynasty). My only clue as to Jet's ethnicity is that he does Bonsai, which is Japanese, though someone with more familiarity with the Eastern philosophy and folk lore referenced in the series could probably put together a lot more than I could.
Spike has orange cat energy in episode 18, I swear. I have an orange cat and he'll casually stroll up to something and immediately find a way to fuck it up.
Faye is so focused on trying to regain her memories and past self. Spike told her in the previous Faye episode to not worry so much about her past and instead focus on her future. It's ironic because he's a man who feels half alive as he's tied so much to his past.
As someone who's carried that weight for 15+ years, my eyes start welling up as soon as i hear baby faye ask if she woke up feeling good, then asks about the sun and the wind. Children are a special kind of pure that we all tend to lose eventually as we deal with lifes more dire circumstances.
Saw this on the Members drop, but didn't get around to commenting. Speak Like a Child always hits like a truck, but I could have never predicted Mehgan crumbling like that. Like I'd mentioned before, I found you guys when Mehgan was introducing Josh to Evangelion. There are some moments in that series that can really break a person, and Mehgan never even flinched while Josh is trying to download all of Shinji and Asuka's trauma. Faye's complete loss of innocence, her loss of childhood, and the tragedy of not seeing any redemption in sight...yeah, it's definitely rough, and it comes out of NOWHERE. The last two minutes of SLaC are just a GUT PUNCH for Faye's story, and any adult who's ever wondered "What the hell happened to me that I'm THIS now?" has probably commiserated in that moment. When we cry for Faye...we cry for ourselves.
*"Speak Like a Child" Fun Facts:* 1) "Speak Like a Child" (1968) is an album and song written by American jazz musician *Herbie Hancock.* 2) The show the Tape Expert is watching is "produced by" *Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty,* two actors on "Beverly Hills, 90210". 3) The story that *Jet* narrates during this episode is actually a famous Japanese folk tale called *Urashima Taro.*
Random but, I just noticed they gave reference to “tamate bako” during the Fey tape episode. This was also referenced in One Piece; it was the box of steroids Hody Jones took from the Ryugu palace and turned the fishmen old.
Welcome to the best piece of media you’ve ever watched , aka cowboy bebop . You have no idea how hard this shit is about to hit “imagine watching this on toonami” ….nah fam I watched this back in 2001 on ADULT SWIM at 1 in the morning or so. Toonami had fuck all to do with this ……and yeah I was 12 and it was amazing 😂
Were all that little child to different degrees. A lot of women relate because they felt so innocent before they had to take on the world, deal with death, love, abuse, hardship... That little reminder that you still have that child with dreams inside of you, and having them speak to you and cheer you on is enough to break anyone.
54:26 After this attempt would've been funny if he had turned to look straight into camera and said "You're not perfect but you got a lot to give. So remember, I'll always be cheering you on. Let's-Go-Me!"
You are very close with what you said about Faye being under water etc - her character is heavily inspired by the folk tale Urashima Tarō. In fact all characters have literary origins that are very deliberately chosen for the overall theme of the show which put in one word would be: "existentialism" - but its to early to get into that now.
22:40 the Tamate Box. Remember that from One Piece? Spoilers for One Piece through Fishman Island Arc: The box Hody Jones had with the drugs but at the end it turned them all into old men.
Thank you both for the reactions :D. Was waiting for you to watch Speak Like a Child :D. Thank you guys :D. Can't wait to watch you all react to the rest of the anime :D
Pulp fiction is one of a genre of fiction stories published in the 30s - 50s. Mushroom Samba is nothing deep, just a funny episode. One of my personal favorites. Also, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." - USPS informal motto, James A. Farley Post Office Building NYC. Finally, omg...I'm old. My 1st grade school honors video (from 1984) was originally on beta.
SPIKE WTF BRO, CHILL. The dude is usually so low key even when he’s annoyed, I almost feel like him busting the Betamax player is more a plot contrivance than something he’d actually do in that moment.
Given how Spike treated the capsule containing the virus they got from the eco-terrorists in episode 4, treating a Betamax type like that seems pretty in character for him, at least to me.
yeah the first episode, I think the mushrooms they end up with are bad, because when ed goes in the ship that Domino's growing them in, he throws one into the bag and says "this one's bad". that's why they have no effect
Faye's reckless gambling habits make a lot more sense given her backstory in episode 15. She had an obscene amount of debt dumped on her by circumstances out of her control, and no means of even putting a dent in it. All she could do was run from her debts, resulting in her seeing money as "easy come, easy go".
Another aspect to look at is Faye's selfishness. She embodies "selfish" throughout the series (even when helping, it seems to be for her benefit). The tape, in a weird way, continues this cycle. Faye looks out for Faye. She cares only about herself, to the point of literally caring for herself.
I know you guys are coming up on the end of the series. The ending is a banger. Take some time to absorb it, let the credits play. Should definitely watch the movie afterwards, not quite as good as the finale but worth your time. There are many video essays on the series to watch afterwards, but the essential one is by Steak Bentley. Might even be worth a reaction.
We had a Beta player like that when I was a kid. I used to watch Winnie the Pooh on there all the time, until I shoved one of my toy blocks in there. Dad wasn't happy about that...
55:29 no you’re right it literally is time travel I watched a pod called star talk with Neil degrasse Tyson and they talked about how all points in time simultaneously exist it’s just that we only have access to the present. Look I can even talk to you in the future when you look back at this video 10 years from now! 👋🏻👋🏻
She is the one who sent the tape to herself, it was supposed to find her in the mail system 10 years later but since she went missing, the tape has been in the mail system circulating for decades until it finally found her 50+ years later.
I went to a camp that had us write letters to our future selves and I received it 20 years later. I don't know who held onto it that whole time. The post office does have procedures for letters to "Dear God" or other things. And there are cases of people receiving mail ~70 years later because it fell behind a sorting machine and wasn't rediscovered until it got moved decades later.
"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil."
Faye was brought out of cold sleep in 2068. She was frozen when she was 20 years old and remained frozen for 54 years, so Faye was born in 1994.
Thanks for the wonderful conversations.
*Speak Like a Child* never misses.
I've watched this show three times, but it doesn't matter.
When the ending arrived... both of you were crying and I was crying looking at you, too. 😭
It touches the deepest emotional cords, it speaks to the dark weight in your heart you didn't know you had.
Welcome to peak Cowboy Bebop.
We're staying up here.
We're not going back down.
PS: the city shown in Faye's flashback is Singapore.
Growing up is really fucking weird. Being an adult and hardly recognizing yourself from 15 years ago is wild. Gotta be even weirder when you can’t even remember that person wearing a younger version of your face.
So Jet’s tale is a parallel to the episode. The fisherman saved a turtle who was actually a princess of the sea (Otohime, you’ll know that name) who invites him to the Dragon King’s Palace (Ryuku Kingdom). After a few days enjoying life he chooses to return to his wife and family, so Otohime gave him the Tamatebako, but told him not to open it. The fisherman returned but found none of his loved ones and none who recognised him, in a panic he opened the box - his stay was longer than he assumed, and centuries of age contained in the box returned to the fisherman.
In parallel to Faye, the tape is the Tamatebako. She woke up in a world she didn’t recall, and when she viewed the tape, her true age metaphorically came back
Urashima Taro is an interesting tale and they've used it in a bunch of anime, like Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer and Lupin III.
One of the funniest episodes in the show being followed by one of the saddest and existential episodes of the entire series.
That scene where Faye struggles to recognize her past self always gets to me, it always hits me with that one question "if your past self saw you now, would they like what they saw?"
They've already given us the dates and ages, so this won't be a spoiler: Faye was in the accident in 2014 when she was about 20, making her 23, biologically (it is now 2071 in the show). She was unfrozen in 2068 when we were told she was frozen at the time of the accident, 54 years back. What's screwing him up is that in Faye's time they still had Beta and CRTs; You have to remember this show was made in the 90s when those technologies were still prevalent and things like DVDs and flat-panels were mostly in the future.
Kinda crazy to me to think people born around 1999 have only known a digital world their whole life. I have seen all the technologies of the computer age, from magnetic tapes to floppies to Flash. In 30 years physical drives will be a relic and the kids born today will only know cloud-based computing. someday in the near future, chips will be implants and we may not need keyboard and mouse. AI will speak to us in relatively believable conversation. 2071 is still over 40 years away. Who knows if this is an alternate world, after all.
You hit the nail on the head Rusty. Our two host are so young they can't imagine a time where flat screens and smartphones weren't the norm yet, at the time of the making of this series. And Japanese people have always been behind with times, when it comes to technology. Despite their reputation being the opposite. Proof of this? If you went to Japan right now. You could find working pay phones. Also for the longest Japan refused to get on board with email. And still utilized fax machines, as the main means for sending information between businesses.
@@the_gratefulgamer Does it bother anyone else that the 20th century "nerd" called magnetic tapes "primitive"?? They were anything but! Very sophisticated technology, actually.
Ein: Thank you.
Cow: Oh, it's no problem.
Seeing Mehgan cry made me tear up 😭😭😭💜
She's a hard luck woman.
Every time I watch Faye's tape, she reminds me to be kinder to myself. It's okay to be a little critical of yourself, sometimes it's what makes us improve as a person, as long as it doesn't hurt us. We wouldn't treat our best friends like that, so we shouldn't do it to ourselves either, because we are the best of best friends. As always I loved the reaction, you guys are one of my favorites!
Pulp is a type of cheap paper that was used in detective, horror, science fiction, and comic magazines of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Noir (which means dark or black in French) was a style of film. Some of which included double indemnity and kiss me deadly. When color film became more prevalent, these films started being called neo-noir which would include the classic Chinatown movie.
Just to elaborate on that a bit, there came to be an association of pulp-printed books and magazines with certain genres, usually kind of edgier, thrill-oriented fiction. Eventually the term came to be applied to movies in this genre as well.
Yep! "Pulp" refers to the stories that appeared on that print that were intended for mass market appeal instead of fancy literature, and includes characters like Conan, Zorro, The Shadow and Tarzan.
What makes me cry about Faye seeing her younger self is that she doesn’t know that little girl, but she used to. Like, that was her but now it’s not, and while we age and grow older we can look back at the past and remember who we were and how we’ve changed, whether it’s good or bad. We are reminded of our younger selves when we look back at the past either through memories or pictures and video, but she can’t.. she lost that. She doesn’t know who she was and it just makes me cry every time I see it. But you guys are getting close to some of the most amazing episodes, not that the previous ones weren’t but things really start to ramp up a bit. So glad your enjoying this show, I’ve really enjoyed seeing your reactions and hearing your thoughts about it. Can’t wait for the next upload! Gonna be good, the next two are so much fun, especially #19
34:50 "In your time I'm no longer here, but I’m here today, and I’ll always be cheering for you right here. Cheering for you, my only self..." ;(
Simultaneously heartfelt and tragic, Speak Like a Child gets me every time.
It doesnt matter where the tape came from. That is the point. That your past always catches back up to you in some way. It may come quickly like the hare or it may takes its time like the toroise. Hint hint: The 2 packages arrived with pictures of a tortoise and a hare. Jet told a story about a tortoise. Fay was betting on dogs chasing a hare around the track. This show is very layered.
im not entirely surprised that people are still gaining appreciation for this show (it is one of the all-time classics), but it makes me happy none the less.
Ein eating shrooms then turning into a hopping squeaky toy will always make me laugh.
I want to thank you guys for this series, because it just helped me win an anime hangman competition at my college’s anime club. The final one was the full title that Ed introduced herself as, and I remembered it because of this series.
Bonus points if you get Vash the Stampede’s full name!
@@michaelmcgee7683 Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III
From the Wright Brothers to the Moon landing was only 66 years. Colonization in 50 years isn’t too far fetched, especially if there is a new discovery to accelerate things
This is one of my top 10 in my library of favorite episodes of ANY show, period. a whole lot of emotion packed into a few minutes that has so much more meaning because you spend most of the series asking for more back story on every character. When you get it, it hits.
But the best is yet to come.
Whenever I see Faye's video diary, I turn into Dennis from Always Sunny. "I'm having feelings again. You remember feelings, right?" 😂
The TV show the antique dealer was viewing appeared to be Beverly Hills 90210. The partially obscured names in the credits were Jason Priestly and Shannon Doherty.
Speak like a child is one of my favorite episodes of anything ever. And it only gets better the older you get. Maybe you've grown cynical over the years or maybe not lived up to the hope and dreams you once had for yourself. This episode is for you.
The mushroom grower had a 'good' bag and a 'bad' bag. Ed got the wrong one.
"wrong" is relative here
You have to remember that Large Cities like Chicago were built roughly 10-20 years after the Wild West ended. So colonies on different planets being erected so quickly after interplanetary space travel became a thing isn't too far off from possible. Plus this show was made in the Late 90s so the idea that VHS and Betamax tapes still being a thing so close to such advance technology is kinda like those old 70s movies that imagine the year 1999 having flying cars and teleportation devices. Looking too deeply into why a child would have these things in their room in an old tape that no one knows much about causes a more confusion than intended. Also, Jet and Spike aren't Earthlings, so they wouldn't really know a lot about older Earth technology anyway.
This show was not alt history when it was made but it is alt history now.
_Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya. Nothing is quenchier. It's the quenchiest!_
While VHS beat out Betamax by the 90s in the west, Sony was still making betana tapes until 2002 and sold them until 2016.
I believe Betamax was slightly more popular in Asia and if someone had invested in Beta it wouldn't be surprising if they continued to use it for home movies and such even if they had switched to purchasing VHS for media.
If Fayes' family or school was using Betamax for home videos it's a safe bet it was in the 90s or early 2000s at the latest.
One of my favorite episodes of anything, makes me cry without fail every time
WE WANT MORE MEGHAN TEARS 😂
Ooooh they're coming
I think some of the colonies on Mars, Venus, and the Jupiter moons were started prior to the gate disaster. The show was created in the 90s, so there was this optimism that colonization was coming soon.
Yep, this is the episode that no matter how many times I've seen it in my life, always can get me.
Ever since I saw you guys watching 2 episodes at a time, I knew you'd be watching one of the funny episodes right before one of the most emotional episodes. A real rollercoaster ride. We all felt for Faye in that moment. 😭
Earth is not in the best place in this series, so there was a big push to colonize space. In 50 years, we went from the Wright airplane to jets. It's not beyond the realm of believability for humanity to advance that quickly.
Faye's time on the Bebop might be the closest thing to a permanent address she's had in a long time, giving the shipping algorithm time to zone in on delivering those packages.
Did you see the first delivery service was a tortoise and the second one was a hare?
I always cry on this one! What breaks my heart about Faye's tape is when her childhood self is kinda making all these wishes for the future that Faye would think "no, that didn't come true". She didn't wake up feeling good with the warm sun & wind & next to someone wonderful, she's on a cold spaceship feeling alone in the world & addicted to gambling to cope with her impossible debts. It's so relatable because I'm constantly conscious of all the dreams that never came true and I've had to move past. But still I've always known that it's very important to keep your inner child alive so at least I'm grateful I never let go of that. I'm so glad Faye finally got to find her again and it's so sweet and encouraging what her childhood self had to say, admitting that getting into trouble is part of life but still cheering her on. Feels like the tension Faye was carrying just got washed away for a moment. Faye really is amazing to have adapted to her new time and learned to be a great pilot, she just needs some guidance and self-love.
In the story, people were already populating other planets. Remember, Faye's accident involved one of those gates you often see floating in space.
VHS tapes did exist in the 80s btw, but we actually used them even in the 90s, great entertainment as kids as well. So not that old as you think. Times change very quickly. This episode and Faye's story is a good indication of how fast things can change in the world. Even more so when it comes to technology and media.
*"Mushroom Samba" Fun Facts:*
1) When the Bebop crashes, the sign "Western World Development Tract 8271" is a reference to the film "Paris, Texas" (1984).
2) The frog's referencing "Stairway to Heaven" is a homage to Led Zeppelin's song of the same title.
3) The coffin being dragged mirrors the main character of the Spaghetti Western "Django" (1966).
4) The lady bounty hunter *Coffy* was inspired by the Blaxploitation film of the same name starring Pam Grier.
Now on to Episode 18...
Pretty sure the "cactus juice" episode in ATLA was inspired by this.
I love tears in my coffee T_T. Hope yall are having a great week!
I just realized young faye was dropping bars. It's a double. "Don't lose me" taken as win versus lose, wanting her future self to win, but also can be taken as "don't forget about me," which kinda makes it hit a little harder. BARS
The individual mushroom trips do actually have potential psychological/thematic meaning that has been discussed (everyone besides Ein, anyways), but it's premature to talk about them before you finish the series. A smaller version of that is also how each character went about deciding to eat the mushroom in their own personal character-defining ways (Faye being unapologetic about it, Jet needing to rationalize it with logic, Spike feigning disinterest but taking it with slight of hand).
I'm ready for the water works this episode gets me everytime 😭
haven't even watched it yet and this is already my favorite video of the series so far, i love these two episodes
That ending and Mehgan's reaction is exactly why Cowboy Bebop is my absolute favorite. This show makes you laugh one moment and cry the next. also Beta tapes are from the eighties. They lost the battle to VHS.
You guys dont know how time works. My 20 year old son has never seen a vhs tape in his life and only knows of them because i made it a point to tell him about history. My daughter barely knows what tapes are or what they do. I found a cassette tape in a box in my garage and neither of them knew what it was or what it did. My son thought it was video tape. My daughter has never seen a CD before except in old movies and tv shows. In 50 years no one will remember DVDs or blue rays or even thumb drives.
Couldn't agree more. Its crazy how time works. Eventually only old people and hardcore historians will know what happened or what technologies existed 40 years ago. And on and on it goes. Everything is forgotten over time. Its all ancient relics after some point.
First passenger flight on an airplane was in 1914 and traveled 18 miles in 23 minutes which beat the railroad at 11 hours. The Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place 56 years later in 1969. Technology advances rapidly. I doubt many zoomers would know what an 8 track player is and would probably consider it a relic since all music is digital now unless you really want a CD or vinyl I guess. Those were still around in the 70s at least, about 50 years ago. Love you guys, just wanted to give some perspective on time and tech.
Faye’s tape gets me every time
What a combo one of the funniest episodes followed by maybe the most tragically depressing episode, lol.
This one hits hard but I think there's a more depressing one. It's um... _how not to spoil_ ...the one with the eggs.
I didn't fully appreciate this episode when I was 12. Now I think it's one of the most emotional and it still gets me deep even though I've seen the entire show every couple years or so.
36:04 End of 18 is a masterclass at pulling heart strings down to the chosen moment Poor Faye (High Socks) begins softly playing as child Faye talks to her future self. 🤌
Cowboy Bebop is a very retro sci fi. I mean, obviously it draws a lot from old movie genres like Westerns, Noir, and all manner of 70s movies (Bruce Lee movies, Blaxploitation movies, Alien, etc.), which were old at the time of Bebop's original airing.
It's also loaded with very 90s tech. For example, TV screens and monitors behave like old CRTs of the time, Laughing Bull has a PlayStation 1 in his teepee, a garage mechanic works on the Columbia Space Shuttle (which was destroyed in an atmospheric re-entry disaster in 2003) like it's a 70s muscle car, and people are messing around with Betamax and VHS in a sci fi world where you can store data in chess pieces and, um, Corgis. Not to mention the general presence of paper-printed girly posters and smutty magazines, and the use of crop-dusters in the movie.
There's also a lot of plot lines that seem to draw on big news stories of the 90s that would have been more familiar to people watching when it first aired.
Episode 4 has a plotline that's probably inspired by Western activist groups protesting against the Japanese whaling industry that were on the news a lot back then, episode 9 has a news channel interviewing a crackpot talking about aliens psychically manipulating people who seems to be based on (at least in his name) the famous "psychic" Uri Geller, episode 22 has a terrorist seemingly based on the Unabomber, and episode 23 has a cult that looks to be inspired by the Heaven's Gate cult and Marshall Applewhite.
Also, most of the firearms used in Cowboy Bebop are real models that (of course) existed when the series was created in '98. And different characters in the series have different preferred firearms of choice.
Spike's use of an Israeli firearm, along with his last name being Spiegel, were the main points leading to a popular fan theory that Spike was supposed to be Jewish, though Watanabe has confirmed this was not intended.
In spite of their last names, I actually think the main crew of Bebop are all meant to be Asian, though not necessarily Japanese. Some landmarks in the background of Faye's childhood videos hint that she's Singaporean. Spike's look is mostly modeled after a Japanese actor (Yusaku Matsuda), but they also took a lot of inspiration from Bruce Lee (who was Chinese) and the Syndicate that Spike used to work for seems to be more based around Chinese culture and the Chinese Triads than the Japanese Yakuza (Spike's mentor was named "Mao", and I've read that some Syndicate members wear clothing from the Qing dynasty).
My only clue as to Jet's ethnicity is that he does Bonsai, which is Japanese, though someone with more familiarity with the Eastern philosophy and folk lore referenced in the series could probably put together a lot more than I could.
Mushroom Samba was homage to Blaxploitation films like Django Unchained, and the actress Pam Greer.
That faye scene always makes me cry. It makes me very introspective.
Spike has orange cat energy in episode 18, I swear. I have an orange cat and he'll casually stroll up to something and immediately find a way to fuck it up.
The “bad” mushrooms don’t get you high, which is what he gave to Ed to get away lol
Faye is so focused on trying to regain her memories and past self. Spike told her in the previous Faye episode to not worry so much about her past and instead focus on her future. It's ironic because he's a man who feels half alive as he's tied so much to his past.
As someone who's carried that weight for 15+ years, my eyes start welling up as soon as i hear baby faye ask if she woke up feeling good, then asks about the sun and the wind.
Children are a special kind of pure that we all tend to lose eventually as we deal with lifes more dire circumstances.
Welcome to the best piece of media you’ve ever watched , aka cowboy bebop . You have no idea how hard this shit is about to hit
The genre of episode 17 is from the 70s its called Blaxploitation.
Great reaction to two wildly different episodes in terms of tonality. It keeps getting better!
Saw this on the Members drop, but didn't get around to commenting. Speak Like a Child always hits like a truck, but I could have never predicted Mehgan crumbling like that. Like I'd mentioned before, I found you guys when Mehgan was introducing Josh to Evangelion. There are some moments in that series that can really break a person, and Mehgan never even flinched while Josh is trying to download all of Shinji and Asuka's trauma. Faye's complete loss of innocence, her loss of childhood, and the tragedy of not seeing any redemption in sight...yeah, it's definitely rough, and it comes out of NOWHERE. The last two minutes of SLaC are just a GUT PUNCH for Faye's story, and any adult who's ever wondered "What the hell happened to me that I'm THIS now?" has probably commiserated in that moment.
When we cry for Faye...we cry for ourselves.
The contrast between Mushroom Samba and Speak Like a Child being back to back is among the most drastic of emotional whiplashes in the series...
*"Speak Like a Child" Fun Facts:*
1) "Speak Like a Child" (1968) is an album and song written by American jazz musician *Herbie Hancock.*
2) The show the Tape Expert is watching is "produced by" *Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty,* two actors on "Beverly Hills, 90210".
3) The story that *Jet* narrates during this episode is actually a famous Japanese folk tale called *Urashima Taro.*
Betamax came out in the 80s but wasnt discontinued until 2016.
30:25 A little groove to The Egg and I
Don't worry Mehgan I also weep every time I see the end of ep 18. Rewatched this show a few times and it always hits like a truck
Random but, I just noticed they gave reference to “tamate bako” during the Fey tape episode. This was also referenced in One Piece; it was the box of steroids Hody Jones took from the Ryugu palace and turned the fishmen old.
Welcome to the best piece of media you’ve ever watched , aka cowboy bebop . You have no idea how hard this shit is about to hit “imagine watching this on toonami” ….nah fam I watched this back in 2001 on ADULT SWIM at 1 in the morning or so. Toonami had fuck all to do with this ……and yeah I was 12 and it was amazing 😂
Were all that little child to different degrees. A lot of women relate because they felt so innocent before they had to take on the world, deal with death, love, abuse, hardship... That little reminder that you still have that child with dreams inside of you, and having them speak to you and cheer you on is enough to break anyone.
54:26 After this attempt would've been funny if he had turned to look straight into camera and said "You're not perfect but you got a lot to give. So remember, I'll always be cheering you on. Let's-Go-Me!"
4:28 Time to nod our heads to the beat of Chicken Bone.
子供の頃観たときは､ピンときませんでしたが、大人になって観ると色々な感情がわく素敵な話だと思います。
そんないろんな一面を見せてくれるカウボーイビバップは今でも好きです。
一緒に観られて嬉しかった．ありがとう。
I had the exact same reaction. Laugh crying. Its so hard to explain the flow of emotions
I knew the Faye episode ending was gonna hit Mehgan hard. It always brings tears to my eyes too. 😭
Was that a mention of 20th Century Boys at the end? It may be my all time favorite manga series. Urasawa is the absolute best.
Fayes words remind me of Gurren Lagann: "Believe in the you that believes in yourself"
Thank for your Reactions💜💜💜
You are very close with what you said about Faye being under water etc - her character is heavily inspired by the folk tale Urashima Tarō. In fact all characters have literary origins that are very deliberately chosen for the overall theme of the show which put in one word would be: "existentialism" - but its to early to get into that now.
You're gonna carry that weight.
22:40 the Tamate Box. Remember that from One Piece?
Spoilers for One Piece through Fishman Island Arc:
The box Hody Jones had with the drugs but at the end it turned them all into old men.
Thank you both for the reactions :D. Was waiting for you to watch Speak Like a Child :D. Thank you guys :D. Can't wait to watch you all react to the rest of the anime :D
Pulp fiction is one of a genre of fiction stories published in the 30s - 50s. Mushroom Samba is nothing deep, just a funny episode. One of my personal favorites.
Also, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." - USPS informal motto, James A. Farley Post Office Building NYC.
Finally, omg...I'm old. My 1st grade school honors video (from 1984) was originally on beta.
SPIKE WTF BRO, CHILL.
The dude is usually so low key even when he’s annoyed, I almost feel like him busting the Betamax player is more a plot contrivance than something he’d actually do in that moment.
Given how Spike treated the capsule containing the virus they got from the eco-terrorists in episode 4, treating a Betamax type like that seems pretty in character for him, at least to me.
@@chrisadraheim You know what? That’s a great point.
We all need a good cry every once in a little while!😭
7:19 Someone gif the reaction to Ein tripping.
12:40 Singing along to the beautiful vocals of the late Tulivu-Donna Cumberbatch in the track Mushroom Hunting.
yeah the first episode, I think the mushrooms they end up with are bad, because when ed goes in the ship that Domino's growing them in, he throws one into the bag and says "this one's bad". that's why they have no effect
58:54 "First cry in Bebop"
Probably not the last.
Faye's reckless gambling habits make a lot more sense given her backstory in episode 15. She had an obscene amount of debt dumped on her by circumstances out of her control, and no means of even putting a dent in it. All she could do was run from her debts, resulting in her seeing money as "easy come, easy go".
I imagine you guys get why this series is considered one the best of the best. A true 10/10. But the ending makes that 10 an 11. Brace yourselves...
Another aspect to look at is Faye's selfishness. She embodies "selfish" throughout the series (even when helping, it seems to be for her benefit). The tape, in a weird way, continues this cycle. Faye looks out for Faye. She cares only about herself, to the point of literally caring for herself.
I know you guys are coming up on the end of the series. The ending is a banger. Take some time to absorb it, let the credits play. Should definitely watch the movie afterwards, not quite as good as the finale but worth your time. There are many video essays on the series to watch afterwards, but the essential one is by Steak Bentley. Might even be worth a reaction.
That episode got me too.
We had a Beta player like that when I was a kid. I used to watch Winnie the Pooh on there all the time, until I shoved one of my toy blocks in there. Dad wasn't happy about that...
I think there is symbolism in their trips but the frog or the fish had nothing to do with it
Best episode 🎉
Love the reaction but the video is way too blurred/hidden
55:29 no you’re right it literally is time travel I watched a pod called star talk with Neil degrasse Tyson and they talked about how all points in time simultaneously exist it’s just that we only have access to the present. Look I can even talk to you in the future when you look back at this video 10 years from now! 👋🏻👋🏻
Omg is my favorite episodi
Been loving these Cowboy Bebop reactions. Hope you guys go on to Samurai Champloo, to continue the same bebop spirit.