(Cowboy Bebop 12-19) I wish that I could turn back time

...Space western? Yeah, you didn't invent that.

This shit is pretty unambiguously pretentious and I don’t like it. But I don’t really hold it against the show. It isn’t just the creators jerking off. Opinionated metafiction is one convention in a set of conventions that Bebop calls upon, then shows us through the eyes of a cast that doesn’t hail from the same set of conventions — this technique is a large part of why I like the way Bebop does references so much.

The aforementioned set of conventions is, despite the year in which Bebop came into being, modernism, and it’s easy to understand why the show feels so modernist. Many of Bebop’s references and remembrances hail from the early 20th century, modernism’s heyday. I don’t intend to do a lecture on modernism here — probably we’ve done that already, and you’re sure to find it in the archives. I mean to talk about one general trend within modernism that, though it’s been present in Bebop since the beginning, began to stand out to me at about the midway point.

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(Cowboy Bebop 1-11) The big Bebop family

Looking into the puddle that looks into you.

I wanted to get around to writing about the characters before I knew too much about them, hence my stopping myself before that big two-part thing in the middle and forcing myself to do this post (“forcing” because, goddammit, Bebop is a hard show not to watch). Is that strange? Maybe. I think it might help me track both changes in the characters and changes in how I feel about them.

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(Cowboy Bebop 1-7) Insert title of catechism song

This place looks familiar.

I offer you a quote from Ghostlightning, whose ongoing effort to engage with Cowboy Bebop’s love-remembering elements is one of the most meticulous and goddamn heroic blog activities I’ve ever seen:

We won’t find anything in Cowboy Bebop that has a reference that figures so significantly in the narrative so as to be the primary source of meaning and value. Cowboy Bebop can be fully enjoyed not knowing a single reference or allusion the show is making.

“A Masterpiece of Remembering Love: Cowboy Bebop; Episode 01 ‘Asteroid Blues’”

I’m certain that’s true. I’m enjoying Cowboy Bebop quite a lot despite being lazy about music and film (as mentioned before). I might be intimidated by the prospect of doing a series like this at the same time as Ghostlightning — walking in the shadows of giants and all, though he of all bloggers wouldn’t want anyone to feel that way — if not for my being reasonably confident that I won’t cover too much of the same ground. This is my first viewing of the show, for one thing. And, where GL’s Bebop posts are love songs to the act of remembering love, I like to write about and fangasm over structural points of interest and masterful acts of manipulation moments of emotional resonance.

Good thing, too. For someone like me, Cowboy Bebop is downright meaty.

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Before Cowboy Bebop: hipster inexperience and the social stuff

As mentioned previously, I intend to “give up” on following presently-airing shows, as doing so will allow me to fill out my mental repertoire of “classics.” And I suspect that I can say more, and more interestingly so, about Cowboy Bebop, Utena, etc.

When I write about these things, I’d very much prefer to focus on what I like about them. And I fully expect to like them overall. Enough people like them. In fact, quite a lot of people whose opinions I hold in high regard (mostly because they tend to like the same general sorts of things I do) like these things.

Cowboy Bebop, though, requires some qualification. It might help you to know a few things about my art preferences and foreknowledge before we begin (and, once we’ve begun, I’ll have other things to talk about). After all, the show enjoys a strange sort of cultural cache here in the west. It’s one of the very, very few Japanese cartoons that non-fan Americans are allowed to watch; it’s the absolute favorite of many a film-snob-type fan.

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Being there, alone

Who lives here?

Who lives here?

Every once in a while Cuchlann mentions that he wants to write more about video games. And he has — over here. (Did you know he set up a new solo blog? Rather than talking about nerd stuff how he’d talk about classic literature, he talks about classic literature how he’d talk about nerd stuff. If even there’s a difference. Which is kind of the point.) But resurrected dinosaur Super Fanicom needs more video game content, I say!

So, Proteus. Is it a game? The IGF seems to think so.

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Back, by Cuchlann’s beard!

And so it was that, following twelve hours of not-quite-but-almost-continuous work, each post’s images were henceforth hosted here, and the survival of Super Fanicom no longer depended entirely upon my income.

Which, incidentally, is a good thing.

Here are some things to expect, to know, and to cherish:

  • Lots of broken links at the moment. I think some of this will go away when the old domain is properly mapped, but I’ll be on the lookout for stragglers. Sorry for the bother in the meantime.
  • Damn near every Super Fanicom tract of yore and quite a few pontif.us screeds can be found here, with a few notable exceptions. Such as all the audio content. And, most unfortunately, the Strike Witches posts — that’ll be a long-term project (had I tried to include them today, I’d be far from done). I actually do still have the raw materials of the eight(?) we never did finish, though…
  • Wonder of wonders, we have post ideas! Or I should say that I have one post “idea” (which…well, you’ll see), and otherwise Cuchlann and I have a few post aspirations. Maybe some video sorts of things. Since the last time we tried audio I’ve procured a better headset and a hard drive that doesn’t lurch violently every three seconds.
  • If your name isn’t on the authors list to the right, rest assured that I’ve credited you for your posts in-text, and probably tried to get you signed up here properly; just shoot me an email with your WordPress.com username if you want that straightened out, and watch for the subsequent invite.

Tired. More anon.

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