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The following review of ‘Cowboy Bebop: The Movie’, by Film critic, Jason Solamons, was featured in the English newspaper, The Sunday Mail, on the 29th of June.

Cowboy Bebop is in the tradition of anime and manga, two of my least favourite words. They translate effectively, if not literally as ’Badly drawn cartoons with irritating voices and no laughs’

Rating: 2 stars

The thing which bothers me about this review, is not that the critic appears to dislike the movie, in fact he has every right to dislike or like whatever he chooses, but the fact he has a highly homogenised view of the entire anime and manga genre. Instead of looking at Cowboy Bebop, as a Film in its own right, he views it simply as just another anime film, using the review of it to voice his criticisms of anime in general, rather than the problems or merits of this particular Film.

When compared against another review by the same critic, this time for Fear dot com, The reviewer’s prejudice towards the film for simply being anime, become even more apparent. Fear dot com, is rated 1 star (lower rating, hence in the reviewers opinion, worse than Bebop). We are told which actors are in the film, a general idea of the plot, and why Solamon thinks that it is a poor film, the editing is clumsy ’losing any scary edge it might of had’ while the camera angles ‘gratuitously’ show the breasts of decaying corpses. If the writer is capable of reviewing a truly awful movie, isn’t it obviously possible for him to review a film, which by the rating system used, is classified as just ‘below average’? Solamons could have least given the reader a basic idea of what the film was actually about, or even who directed it, or gave us detail about how the film having low quality animation actually affected what the film had set out to do. Instead of a highly generalised statement, leaving the reader with no idea what the film is even about.

Solamons is not the only one to show such a snobbish and prejudiced view towards anime, the exact same sentiment is found throughout the mainstream media. Anime is viewed by its lowest common denominator, this means the shows which are force fed to the public as part of a merchandising strategy, or anime which gets into the mainstream papers for controversial content. Meaning that all anime, no matter the subject matter or certificate, is viewed by critics with Pokemon or Legend of the Overfiend, in mind. Which is obviously going to affect the way that the film critics perception of the genre.

The most common criticisms, as seen in Solamons review, are that the animation is poor, and the character voices are irritating. The Second point is easily justifiable, the voices in dubbed anime, often do not correctly fit the character, and in the original versions, the majority of female characters seem to have incredibly, and unrealistically, high pitched voices. So regardless of if the film was subbed or dubbed (it was dubbed) I have no problem with anyone finding the voices irritating. However I do have a problem with it being implied that anime is the only area to have this problem. Take a look at any American cartoon, to the characters sound remotely like real people? Or, more accurately, do they have incredibly fake sounding voices, often for purposes of amusement or to stress a certain side to their character, i.e. A cartoon villain with an exaggerated European accent.

We do not expect the character voices in western cartoons to sound realistic or easy on the ear, so why should we expect anime voices to do this?

The other criticism is that the animation quality, is supposedly not as good as American animation. To this I have one thing to say, anime may be more stylised and less colourful than standard American animation, but it can still be a lot more effective. Consider the Simpson's, a well-known American show, which has a very high cost per episode to produce. What does this high cost actually achieve? Bright blocks of colour which are highly unrealistic and boring static backgrounds with little detail. Now look at any of the episodes of the anime series of Cowboy Bebop. When a character is outside in a street, the backgrounds are highly realistic. People walk by, buildings are coated in posters, advertisements and graffiti, birds fly by and there is litter on the pavement. In short, it looks a lot more like a real street than anything the Simpson's could ever produce.

Not all anime are detailed or have realistic background colour, the odd shapes and weird colours used in pokemon are reminiscent of a cheep American cartoon. But quite a lot of anime has a highly atmospheric look, like Bebop. Its highly unfair to criticise the entire genre for the crimes of a few high profile series.

To judge a film by the quality of its animation is the decision of someone who believes the quality of a film is equal to the quality of its visuals. This is a pointless generalisation. Look at Disney films, they may have brilliant animation, but this does not stop the company from making bad films. ‘Nice animation’ could not save films like Pocahontas or any of the abysmal straight to video sequels, or television shows, which Disney is producing an abundance of these days.

Now look at anime. The television series ’Neon Genesis Evangelion’ was made on a low budget, the director cut corners by reusing footage, reducing the number of cells, reducing the quality of animation, or often just playing a voice track over still pictures (the infamous episodes 25-26 being a good example), However this hasn’t stopped the series from becoming one of the most popular of all time, neither has it stopped it featuring some of the most realistic characters I have ever seen in anime, or having amazingly well choreographed battle scenes.

Quality of animation does not guarantee a good film of television series. That should be down to the plot and characters. My personal opinion is that the majority of characters in anime shows I like (and I'm not talking about children's anime here) are infinitely more interesting than there counterparts in American animation and live action shows. I also find the plots more interesting, exploring ideas that would never even be thought about in an American or European show (Evangelion - Humanity fights a losing battle against an enemy that may be angelic in origin). Find the animation style visually interesting, and like to see traditional rules and conventions of American shows, overturned, making the plots a lot bless predictable.

And what of children's shows? I dislike the merchandising aspect, but if I had children, I would rather have them watch anime than American cartoons. Why? Despite apparent shallowness, children's anime often features complex issues and an emphasis on friendship loyalty and courage. Anime often shows a more realistic picture of family life than an American cartoon, for example Digimon features characters who may be adopted, or have parents who are divorced, or fear they can not live up to parental expectations. I would rather have a child watch something which partly relates to the situations they see around them, or teaches them the importance of friendship and loyalty, than a so called ‘superior’ American cartoon. Which have little new or interesting to say, are cliche and predictable and often resort to being down right disgusting to produce humour (Anyone remember Cow and Chicken) or just down right idiotic (most of cartoon networks original programming which is shown in the uk).

In conclusion, I believe that people who look down on anime or refuse to watch it for such trivial reasons as stylistically and them wise, it is not the same as American cartoons, and try to propagate the message that this makes it in some way not a valuable medium of entertainment, are missing out on an awful lot good stuff, because of there closed- minded attitude. Just as they like to ignore anime and its rapidly growing fan base, refusing to give either the respect it deserves, we anime fans should stick together and ignore every detrimental comment made by so called ‘professional’ film an TV critics. After all, if they can’t understand what there is to like about anime, they are probably to stupid to understand the complex plots and experimental techniques utilised in anime, and why should we listen to an idiot?

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Rem June 2003

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Thank you for reading, I have done my best to spell and grammar check, and apologise for the inevitable mistakes which will have slipped through the net.

I appreciate any comments/ideas/alternative views that you may have, so please review. After all, how will I ever improve, If I don't know what I’m doing wrong!