I know Cowboy Bebop is typically considered to be cyberpunk but I just don’t see it. Yes, they’re low-lifes living in space, but is that enough to qualify as cyberpunk?
I guess yes, Jet has a cybernetic arm, and yes Radical Edward is a hacker, but it still just doesn’t feel cyberpunk to me. Part of the problem may be that technology never really feels dehumanizing, and society never feels on the verge of collapse. The show is also considered to be a space western and I can see that more than the cyberpunk label, honestly. For the most part, people don’t seem to be beaten down by society; they seem more like they’re just kinda lazily doing their own thing. That feels more “western” to me than “cyberpunk”. It’s weird how a lot of the tropes (like cybernetic limbs and hackers) can be present but I just don’t think the themes are there.
What do you think? Am I crazy? Would you classify Cowboy Bebop as more cyberpunk or more space western? Obviously I’m referring to the anime classic Cowboy Bebop here and not the mediocre live-action Cowboy Bebop.
I guess here’s a trailer if you’ve never watched it. It’s streaming on Tubi, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
“If it’s not constantly raining, it’s not ‘Cyberpunk’, it’s just ‘
SparklingDepressing Sci-Fi’”I’m not going to pretend to have any expertise on what is or isn’t Cyberpunk, but I would like to voice a differing opinion here, namely that locking genres into rigid boxes does a disservice to the genre itself, and literature on the whole. Nitpicking creative works that don’t check every box on a list doesn’t really help anything.
Funnily enough, most people here are saying “it’s a Space Western, not Cyberpunk”, which itself deviates wildly from the quintessential genre of Western. Why so quick and happy to broaden the scope of one genre, but not another? Frankly, I’d argue its Western elements are even more loosely held then its Cyberpunk ones, but everyone’s jumping on that definition as though it’s obvious.
The real truth, though, as some others here have said, is that the show is a fantastic blend of all of these genres and themes, balanced fantastically to give a unique result that’s nigh-impossible to tie down with one rigid definition. And overall, it’s clear to me that Cowboy Bebop wouldn’t be remotely the same without its Cyberpunk influences, and that’s good enough for me to let it sit under that lable without interrogating if it “belongs”.