CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I just bought Cowboy Bebop: the whole series. I like the series and I hate to say any thing against it...but I've been thinking lately and I couldn't help asking my self: Does Cowboy Bebp prtray or stress on any good or wholesome values or morals? Are the characters good examples? I mean they're really cool but...OK maybe I'm being too critical.
Could somebody please help me?

Hmm... I think the whole thing is one big morality play to the end, at least as far as Spike is concerned. It's not happy cheery uplifting, in fact it's quite depressing, but it is a warning in one hand about living for money, in the other hand about how futile life is... As a Christian we can apply this to thanking God that we have him and don't have to live such a futile life. As Christians we don't have to take part in the bittersweet symphony that the rest of the world seems to... Unfortunately, a lot of us do as well... But we don't have to.

The characters, from villains to heros, in Cowboy bebop are not role models but the other type of example... [spoiler="Spoiler"]We can feel for them and wish to see them succeed, but in the end they just dont...[/spoiler] I think many people have had a problem with this issue... I think that in a story even the protagonist can act in a way that's not right, but they can serve as examples of what to avoid. Maybe some of the choices they made to lead to where they were, we can avoid them... I personally didn't like the episodic nature of CB, but the last two eps really fixed it for me. Bang...

Which brings me to another point... I can't believe CN spoiled the end for new viewers... And then laughed about it... Those cards can be funny, but they can be pretty bad too... Sad, bitter people...

I also own the entire series and the OAV, and I loved it. I can't really honestly say they were GOOD examples of any one aspect, but on the other hand, they were not degenerate either. While it wasn't exemplarly, it wasn't gross either. You know?
I can give it a thumbs up with little if any qualms. My full review is here :http://reviews.christiananime.net/review.shtml?id=6

Hope that helped.

Bobtheduck wrote:Hmm... I think the whole thing is one big morality play to the end, at least as far as Spike is concerned. It's not happy cheery uplifting, in fact it's quite depressing, but it is a warning in one hand about living for money, in the other hand about how futile life is... As a Christian we can apply this to thanking God that we have him and don't have to live such a futile life. As Christians we don't have to take part in the bittersweet symphony that the rest of the world seems to... Unfortunately, a lot of us do as well... But we don't have to.

The characters, from villains to heros, in Cowboy bebop are not role models but the other type of example... [spoiler="Spoiler"]We can feel for them and wish to see them succeed, but in the end they just dont...[/spoiler] I think many people have had a problem with this issue... I think that in a story even the protagonist can act in a way that's not right, but they can serve as examples of what to avoid. Maybe some of the choices they made to lead to where they were, we can avoid them... I personally didn't like the episodic nature of CB, but the last two eps really fixed it for me. Bang...

Which brings me to another point... I can't believe CN spoiled the end for new viewers... And then laughed about it... Those cards can be funny, but they can be pretty bad too... Sad, bitter people...

I really agree with your post. Completely.

Yeah, the characters really aren't role models at all. But Bob has said it all.... so I don't know of what much else to add. I have a few thoughts, but they're not making any sense at the moment and probably never will.

Thanks guys, this has really helped.

that's the reason i didn't get into Cowboy Bebop.. too much not good stuff in it...

but, my mother thinks that Sonic the Hedgehog is eveil *rolls eyes*

One more note: I personally don't believe that *every* story has to have a role model or a clear teaching of a specific Christian moral to be worthy of being seen or read.

Some of the literary classics wouldn't fit either description, have characters that if anything serve to define the term "bad person," and yet the writing is good, the story itself is very well developed, and so on, so that makes it artistic and worth attention. . .and no, I'm not comparing anime to a literary classic, so put your flames and rocks down, please everyone? OK?

(as a side note, our only role model should be Jesus Christ as He is presented in the Bible. No one else, fictional or real, should even come close. -^.^-)

Well, Paul said something about him being a model, but I get your point. We only got to see a small portion of 4-5 years of Jesus' life on earth, so I think it's fine to notice the good and bad things that other people do and learn from other people, particularly our parents and other family members.

As for the "living for money" I think that money was one of Jesus' prime topics for a reason... Money = Power and power was the original temptation. Money is just the modern (meaning the last several thousand years or so) manifestation of that temptation in tangible form... I had to check myself today several times immagining a job I could get... I had dollar signs in my eyes... I was thinking "What if my pay were to get raised to x dollars an hour in x months, then I could earn x much more before I went to Japan, or if I went x time later, I could earn 1 1/2 times what I would otherwise" my brain gets all numbers, and when you think about numbers too long you somethingsomthing

あの人は、へんです

MillyFan wrote:One more note: I personally don't believe that *every* story has to have a role model or a clear teaching of a specific Christian moral to be worthy of being seen or read.

Precisely. None of this "I'd like to point out how many Christ-like attributes Spike has" junk. We don't need to make everything "ours" if you know what I'm saying, because trying to make up or find a Christian allegory for everything quickly becomes ludicrous. Entertainment will always be just that - entertainment. When it becomes something that you need to constantly be justifying, that's when the problem begins. I hope no one misunderstand me - I'm not saying that recognizing or pointing out good character traits is a bad thing at all, but trying to squeeze and twist something so it fits a makeshift Biblical mold is just silly. If something is Christian, that's awesome. If something is not Christian, don't try to make it so.

[quote="MillyFan"]One more note: I personally don't believe that *every* story has to have a role model or a clear teaching of a specific Christian moral to be worthy of being seen or read.[quote]
Amen. There's another side of the coin, too- Somethings coming from non-Christian viewpoints can portray a good message... Like someone was saying about the living for money thing in Cowboy Bebop. There's also the recurring theme in Star Wars about how hatred and fear are not good things.

I agree that the characters are not good role models at all. After all, we're talking here of an universe that is like the old west (hence the name): every man for himself. However, and this is important, the series was very responsible in showing that the consequences of every selfish, coward and malicious choices the characters really hurted them in different ways and they often expressed regret and even repentance for them.

[spoiler]That's why in the end, the only characters with a happy ending were those totally innocent, Eien and Ed.[/spoiler]

EDIT: Agh! I'm really sorry about necroing a thread. I ended here following a link in a recent thread and never stopped to see when was the last post.

Just gonna note here that this thread is from 2003--we generally encourage members to not gravedig threads. XD