The Goods



THE MANGA

Bebop Manga Cowboy Bebop: The Manga (second series)
Written By: Hajime Yadate
Art By: Nanten Yutaka

The Cowboy Bebop Manga version ran in the Monthly manga collection called Asuka Fantasy DX. Like the TV series, the Manga appears to be episodic in nature, each volume of DX containing a separate adventure. I should also point out that "Hajime Yadate (or Yatate)" is a pen name for a group of writers at Sunrise.

There are 3 collected volumes (tankoubon) for Cowboy Bebop so far. The first came out on April 7th 1999, for 520 yen. The ISBN# is: 4-04-853078-X

Volume 2 came out in November of 1999. Its ISBN# is: 4-04-853136-0 and it has a cover price of 520 yen. 

Volume 3 came out in April of 2000. Its ISBN# is: 4-04-853185-9 and it has a cover price of 520 yen. 

Below are scans of the tankoubon covers.

        



TOKYOPOP has translated the Bebop Manga drawn by Nanten Yutaka into English and released it in the US. How Amazing, I never would have expected that. I can't comment on how good the translations are, but if yu need another Bebop fix, this might be the thing for you. It's out of print now, but copies show up on Amazon sometimes!

Volume 1: ISBN1-931514-91-7
Volume 2: ISBN1-931514-48-8
Volume 3: ISBN1-59182-033-2

        

Cowboy Bebop: The Manga (first series)
Written By: Hajime Yadate
Art By: Cain Kuga

There is another set of Bebop manga that came out before the version shown above. The earlier Bebop manga is also written by Hajime Yadate, but it has a different artist. I should point out that "Hajime Yadate (or Yatate)" is a pen name for a group of writers at Sunrise. The character designs in this are a bit different from the anime. In the second manga series, the characters look very similar to the anime, but in this there are noticible changes. The most dramatic difference is in Edward. Either she is totally not shy at all, or she is a BOY in this version because while she runs around in those tight black shorts, her shirt in this manga seems to be made of some transparent material! Her (his?) hair is also all over the place in a spiky sort of way instead of poofy as in the anime. Spike's hair is much less poofy as well. Faye looks very similar to her anime self though.

Volume 1: ISBN4-04-852935-8
Volume 2: ISBN4-04-852997-8


    

Hey, whaddaya know, TOKYOPOP surprised me again by releasing this first Bebop manga in English too. They are calling it Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star.

This is also out of print now, but used copies do show up on Amazon

Volume 1: ISBN1-59182-297-1
(Buy it now at Amazon )

Volume 2: ISBN1-59182-298-X
(Buy it now at Amazon )

    




BOOKS IN ENGLISH

Hey, cool! Bebop is such a classic, there are books in English about it, too!

Yoko Kanno's Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack

Yoko Kanno's Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack
Author: Rose Bridges
ISBN# 9781501325854
List Price: $22.95
(Also available as an ebook)
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 33 1/2 Imprint


This book takes a look at the musical influences in Cowboy Bebop's Soundtracks by Yoko Kanno, and how those influences inform the music and help it tell the story of each character. Highly recommended! You can buy it HERE!

THE ART AND FILM BOOKS

(Just to be clear, all of the books are mainly in Japanese, except for random English in the episode titles and character names, etc. )

Film Books!

The film books are great! Each one is in color, and covers a set of 4 or 5 episodes, with pictures, character stats and bios, guest character information, character designs, and info on items and music used in each episode. The info shown below is for the original Japanese release of these film books, but TOKYOPOP has kindly translated them into English.

Filmbook #1

Book 1: Episodes 1-5
96 pages
ISBN# 4-04-853023-2, 700 yen
Cover: Spike Spiegel

Filmbook #2

Book 2: Episodes 6-11
96 pages
ISBN# 4-04-853024-?, 700 yen
Cover: Jet Black

Filmbook #3

Book 3: Episodes 12-15
96 pages
ISBN# 4-04-853025-9, 700 yen
Released: 2/5/99
Cover: Faye Valentine

Filmbook #4

Book 4: Episodes 16-19
96 pages
ISBN# 4-04-853026-7, 800 yen
Released: 3/20/99
Cover: Edward

Filmbook #5

Book 5: Episodes 20-23
96 pages
ISBN# 4-04-853027-5, 800 yen
Released: 4/23/99
Cover: Vicious

Filmbook #6

Book 6: Episodes 24-26
80 Pages
ISBN# 4-04-853028-3, 800 yen
Release Date: 7/30/99
Cover: Julia


Art Books:

The artbooks that I have are sort of like larger versions of the film books listed above. They both are at least full size, and contain tons of pictures, character info, pictures from all the episodes, and other info on the items, ships, and characters that make Cowboy Bebop so cool!

Toshihiro Kawamoto COWBOY BEBOP Illustrations - The Wind

Toshihiro Kawamoto COWBOY BEBOP Illustrations
- The Wind

ISBN#: 4-79-732781-2
Released: 10/23/2004
143 pages, color, 2940 yen.
Get it through Amazon

Finally, a NEW Cowboy Bebop artbook! This great book is bilingual, for the most part, and includes tons of great Bebop artwork, including a lot of the illustrations used for the DVD and VHS covers and the extra illustrations included with other dvd sets and CDs, magazine illustrations, and more! AnimeNation has a few nice preview pages on their site, so you can see an example of what is in here.
 

Cowboy Bebop: The Jazz Messengers

Cowboy Bebop: The Jazz Messengers
ISBN#: 4-04-852973-0
96 pages, color, 1400 yen.
Get it through Amazon

This book seemed strange at first until I realized that it opens and reads from left to right like American books :) This is an excellent book! It has sections of pictures for each character (pictures that aren't in the other artbooks), and TV episode pictures for the eps that aired on TV during the show's first run. There are interviews with the seiyuu cast and music composer Yoko Kanno.
 

Cowboy Bebop Gakken Mook

Cowboy Bebop Gakken Mook: Characters Collection
ISBN#: 4-05-602071-X
84 pages, color, 1600 yen

Yet another cool Bebop Image collection! Yes, even more images from the anime, divided up into sections for each character (though there seem to be an awful lot of Faye pictures). Each section also contains bits of random info about the characters (much of it humorous), and there is a sort of 'interview' with Spike. Some of the titles of the pictures of Faye are pretty funny :)

Cowboy Bebop: The After
ISBN#: 4-04-853103-4
96 pages, color, 1500 yen.
Check for it on Amazon

This is a most excellent new Bebop artbook! It is full of information (in Japanese), some of it repeated from previous books, but with some additional cool tidbits. Sections of this book include an illustration gallery, Bebop world info, Music Info, Episode guide, etc. One of my favorite parts of this book is the section on Bebop merchandise! Lots of cool photos of bebop stuff!

Cowboy Bebop: Sunrise Art Works
ISBN#: 4-83-544024-2
200 pages, 3000 yen.
Check for it on Amazon

This book contains more artwork from the Cowboy Bebop TV series, including character designs for just about every background character in the series, I think :)

Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door MOOK (Movie Book)
ISBN#: 4-04-853382-7
color, 1200 yen.
Check for it on Amazon

In Japanese. This is a collection of artwork from the recently released movie, Cowboy Bebop - Knockin' on Heaven's Door. It's basically a LOT of small screencaps from the movie from beginning to end with the script (in Japanese) in the margins. I am not sure if it's a complete Japanese script, or just the bits that go with the pictures. There are also color illustrations of some of the backgrounds from the movie, and some random character artwork. What is frustrating is that the cool character art images cover two pages, so there is the big break in the center where the binding is. -_-; Finally, in the back, there are interviews with all the seiyuu, Yoko Kanno, and there is a song-by-song discussion of the music from the movie soundtrack and some character designs.