Rating: 
Summary: Nice Little Starter Kit
Review: * I had heard that the anime series COWBOY BEBOP had a strong cult following,
but when I taped an episode off of CARTOON NETWORK I wasn't impressed,
finding the artwork shabby and the story baffling. I watched about half of
it and then gave up. This was a pretty small sample and of course a serial
story tends to not make much sense coming in at the middle, so I still had an
open mind on the matter. When I ran across COWBOY BEBOP BEST SESSIONS
(CBBS), a "Greatest Hits" sort of collection with six episodes, I decided to
give it a try.What CBBS amounts to is a nice "starter kit" for the series. The basic story
concept involves two bounty hunters or "cowboys": relaxed martial-arts
master Spike and older tough scarred-up Jet, who travel between planets in
the Solar System on their spaceship BEBOP (which is interestingly a sort of
"flying boat" that lands on water) hunting down bad guys for fun and profit.
These two characters are blatantly derived from the LUPIN III series, with
Spike as Lupin and Jet as Jigen, and COWBOY BEBOP also steals the "1960s/70s
caper flic" style of LUPIN III. COWBOY BEBOP has its own style, though, adding not only a space-based theme
but a bit of a "space western" flavor that predates Joss Whedon's short-lived
FIREFLY live-action series, and it introduces more distinctive characters,
including sexy and wild Faye Valentine, a skinny and crazy adolescent girl
named Ed, and the Welsh Corgi dog Ein. (How these characters joined up with
the BEBOP crew is not really explained in CBBS, no doubt being covered in the
"missing" episodes.) The scripts, on the average, are tidily written,
reasonably intelligent, and snap along nicely, and the production values are
generally well above the LUPIN III series. That's not saying much as such,
but the production values of CBBS are actually pretty good. Although the violence level gets a bit excessive here and there (this is not
a good video for young kids, and violence is only part of the reason), some
of the episodes are stylish, and one, involving Ed sneakily feeding the rest
of the crew "magic mushrooms", was in part downright hilarious, with the
crusty old Jet communing with a bonsai plant and discovering the Secrets Of
The Universe. I was hoping that a coyote talking with the voice of Johnny
Cash would have a cameo, but that was expecting too much. Incidentally, this episode involved the crew's ongoing search for something
-- anything! -- to eat, a theme repeated in some other episodes. It's an
amusing plot gimmick, since traditionally in space operas the crew just gets
something from the food replicator or whatever. Fans of the FARSCAPE series
will recognize this same running plot gimmick and I would bet FARSCAPE, which
seemed to have a good deal of anime influence, picked it up from COWBOY
BEBOP. The last episode of this set of six turned out to be the one that I had taped
and partly watched, and on actually going through the full thing I concluded
that my initial impressions had been correct -- its production values really
were shabby and the script baffling. It was just my luck of the draw to tape
one of the poorer episodes. However, it was a bit suspicious that this
episode was included in a "Greatest Hits" collection. This was better than
other episodes they *didn't* include?! In summary, this collection was a generally competent if not actually brilliant piece of work, and well worth my time. As far as the full series
goes, I'm still feeling a bit cautious about picking it up. I'm getting
tired of suckering myself into serially buying one volume after the next of
an anime series, hoping it's going to get better, or worse simply being
mindlessly strung along waiting for the next shoe to drop. I'll scout the
rental racks at Blockbuster for other COWBOY BEBOP DVDs for the time being.
Rating: 
Summary: Cowboy Bebop Best Sessions.
Review: After reading some of these reviews its funny how people ignore the name of the movie. Best Sessions, 6 of the best episodes from the series redone in 5.1 digital surround sound. Yesh if you arent a die hard CB fan then you won't want this, but if you are then this is a dvd that you want to pick up if you have a 5.1 system which is what this is aimed at.
Rating:
Summary: May not be what you think.
Review: Cowboy Bebop's best sessions is not really different from the six discs that make up the regular series. The stories are not changed at all. The dialogue, animation, and music are identically to the previously released discs. There are no extras worth speaking of, and no alternate endings or deleted scenes. The best sessions is just a supped up regular sessions in Dolby 5.1. There's also a (Japanese only) DDTS track. So, if you are considering purchasing this DVD for "new" material then don't bother. However, if you are a die hard fan, than what else can you do but click a few buttons and wait patiently for it to arrive at your doorstep.
Rating: 
Summary: Cowboy Bebop - Best Sessions
Review: Even though I'm a huge fan or the series, I would only recommened this dvd to most die hard bebop fans. It seems almost not worth buying but just to have it becasue the words "cowboy bebop" are written on it. Although the sound is amazing, it doesn't make up for the price. There are no extras at all, it seems like it was made just to milk the series as long as possible. I would save your money until the movie comes out, that would be worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent sampling of Cowboy Bebop
Review: First of all, the DVD case is very cool and is based off of the tape that Faye Valentine watches in "Hard Luck Woman." The case that has the DVDs in it fits in to a very nice slipcase. Now, for the DVDs themselves. The first three episodes on the first disk were picked by the director just for having the best sound. "Asteroid Blues" for the gun sequences and human interactions, "Ballad of Fallen Angels" for the music and "Wild Horses" for the spaceship action. The first two are classics, but "Wild Horses" suffers from a confusing plot and a really annoying character. The second disk includes 3 episodes that the fans in Japan (Not U.S. fans) voted for. They include the heartfelt "Waltz for Venus", "Mushroom Samba" the one where the crew trips on shrooms and "Hard Luck Woman" which has Faye and Ed finding out their pasts. EXTRAS: None, except for some trailers on the second disk, woo-hoo.(*sarcasm*)
SOUND: Amazing, especially if you have a super cool home theater like me.
Should you buy this as your first Bebop DVD?: I'd say no. You should get Cowboy Bebop - Sesson 1 to get a better understanding of the series, besides it's cheaper. So when should I buy this DVD?:
-When you have an awesome home theater
-When you don't want to spend $ on Sessions 2 and 4 just for "Waltz" and for "Samba"
-When you're already familiar with Cowboy Bebop and don't want to buy Session 1 just for "Asteroid" and "Ballad".
-When you're an obsessed Bebop fan!!! If it were up to me, I would have added such episodes as "Pierrot Le Fou" or "Cowboy Funk" instead of "Wild Horses" and "Hard Luck Woman" I think this deserves 4.5 stars, so I'm going to give it five to balance out the total score.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent sampling of Cowboy Bebop
Review: First of all, the DVD case is very cool and is based off of the tape that Faye Valentine watches in "Hard Luck Woman." The case that has the DVDs in it fits in to a very nice slipcase. Now, for the DVDs themselves. The first three episodes on the first disk were picked by the director just for having the best sound. "Asteroid Blues" for the gun sequences and human interactions, "Ballad of Fallen Angels" for the music and "Wild Horses" for the spaceship action. The first two are classics, but "Wild Horses" suffers from a confusing plot and a really annoying character. The second disk includes 3 episodes that the fans in Japan (Not U.S. fans) voted for. They include the heartfelt "Waltz for Venus", "Mushroom Samba" the one where the crew trips on shrooms and "Hard Luck Woman" which has Faye and Ed finding out their pasts. EXTRAS: None, except for some trailers on the second disk, woo-hoo.(*sarcasm*)
SOUND: Amazing, especially if you have a super cool home theater like me.
Should you buy this as your first Bebop DVD?: I'd say no. You should get Cowboy Bebop - Sesson 1 to get a better understanding of the series, besides it's cheaper. So when should I buy this DVD?:
-When you have an awesome home theater
-When you don't want to spend $ on Sessions 2 and 4 just for "Waltz" and for "Samba"
-When you're already familiar with Cowboy Bebop and don't want to buy Session 1 just for "Asteroid" and "Ballad".
-When you're an obsessed Bebop fan!!! If it were up to me, I would have added such episodes as "Pierrot Le Fou" or "Cowboy Funk" instead of "Wild Horses" and "Hard Luck Woman" I think this deserves 4.5 stars, so I'm going to give it five to balance out the total score.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent animation and sound! A fun DVD set! :)
Review: I first discovered Cowboy Bebop on the cartoon network and just absolutely fell in love with it. That made me want the whole series on DVD, but I just didn't have the bucks to justify that kind of outlay. Here's where this set comes in really handy. If you really like Bebop and want a good taste of some of the best without paying an arm and a leg, then this is the set for you! The sound is a bit cleaned up, too, which is nice, even if you don't have a top-of-the-line stereo system. All in all, a very enjoyable DVD set!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent animation and sound! A fun DVD set! :)
Review: I first discovered Cowboy Bebop on the cartoon network and just absolutely fell in love with it. That made me want the whole series on DVD, but I just didn't have the bucks to justify that kind of outlay. Here's where this set comes in really handy. If you really like Bebop and want a good taste of some of the best without paying an arm and a leg, then this is the set for you! The sound is a bit cleaned up, too, which is nice, even if you don't have a top-of-the-line stereo system. All in all, a very enjoyable DVD set!
Rating:
Summary: before you buy this....
Review: I gave this a three-star rating because it is excellent, but not the best Cowboy Bebop dvd deal you can get. Look into "Cowboy Bebop: The Perfect Sessions" before you buy this. That dvd, which costs maybe 5-10 dollars more, has the entire 26-episode series rather than just these selected episodes. Just throwing in this warning, as I bought The Best Sessions shortly before discovering The Perfect Sessions and don't want anyone else to have to waste money if they don't have to. And besides, The Best Sessions will just leave you wanting more Bebop anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: OK. I'll admit it.
Review: I haven't seen this DVD itself, but have all eight of the "Session" Discs. I honestly don't see how something like this can be a good thing. Cowboy Bebop is a single, coherent story. Each episode, no matter how random it may seem, contains a reference, scene, or something so small as a gesture that builds the series as a whole. Each episode relies heavily upon the viewer having seen the previous ones. When the series is broken down into "Best Of" segments, it loses that quality, in effect becoming snippets of a greater whole. Yes, these snippets may be good, but they cannot possibly convey the flow of the story in the manner of the full series. I would suggest saving your money and purchasing "Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Sessions."
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