Bebop

Alan and I loved watching the anime work of Shinichiro Watanabe. He usually stumbled across them on adult swim on Cartoon Network, and I on the internet or through my nerdy med school friends (shout out to Linda!).  The two we bonded over were Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Both were just as much about the soundtrack as they were about the story and visuals, Bebop with its jazz and Champloo with its hip hop.

Memories include:
-- watching part of an episode in Steve and Twyla's basement on one of our solo trips to Minneapolis without Mom and Dad
-- watching Bebop sitting on the couch in the living room in Appleton, trying to explain the concept to Dad, with limited success
-- watching Champloo in Galena with the cousin when we had a mini family reunion there. That was same trip where Anna said her head looked too big in a photo because she was "more fronter," and where I won Hide and Seek by hiding in the cabinet under the counter in the kitchen.
-- Debating with Alan that Bebop was one of the few anime where the English dub was better than the original Japanese voices (which I still believe)
-- Debating which series was better. Alan originally thought Champloo, but I think he came around to my view on that one eventually.
--  Listening to the opening theme to Bebop in Alan's room in my house, reminiscing about the old times.
-- Discovering the music on his favorites playlist in preparing this blog.

Looking back at the themes of the series, Cowboy Bebop is about loneliness, betrayal and loyalty, and love gone wrong. Samurai Champloo is about quests for the unattainable, persecution, and the meaning of dignity. We watched them before these concepts would have much real-life meaning to Alan. It's almost as if they presaged the struggles in his life. Or maybe the seeds were already there, the roots starting to make their way into his heart.