Hot take: Cowboy Bebop is overrated and the pacing is actually pretty bad

I rewatched it last month for the first time since 2018 and I gotta say, people are WAY too nice about how slow it gets. The first 8 episodes drag hard with filler that barely moves Spike's story forward. I sat through that whole bit with the weird carnival guy in episode 6 and felt like I wasted 25 minutes. The movie and the last 3 episodes are great, but does anyone else skip most of the middle chunk on rewatches?

2 comments

2 Comments

roberts.troy1mo ago

Good ending doesn't excuse the long boring middle" - @allen.amy you absolutely nailed it. I fell asleep during the hacker kid episodes too, that old guy was just rambling about nothing. The pacing is brutal, episode 10 with the girl and the dog made me check my phone like five times. Nobody talks about how much of the show is just characters sitting around doing nothing important.

allen.amy1mo ago

Wait you really sat through the whole carnival episode without skipping? I zoned out halfway through that one. My first time watching I actually fell asleep during the filler episodes with that hacker kid and woke up confused. The show just meanders around letting characters smoke and stare at ceilings for way too long. I get that's the vibe for some people but it feels like the writers were just killing time until the Vicious payoff. By episode 15 I was checking how much runtime was left every scene. Good ending doesn't excuse the long boring middle.