Cowboy Bebop

Reading this book was a bit like riding a roller coaster. I soared, I plummeted, I soared again, I got all twisted around... and, though I left the experience questioning my life choices, I still undeniably had fun.

Not the greatest fun. Certainly not the best use of my time or money. But fun was had, nonetheless. Which is more than I can say for my experience watching the show this is based upon, so it automatically gets a few bonus points for that. Weirdly, however, the author was one of the screenwriters on the Netflix show, so I'm not sure why the writing is more entertaining here. Maybe it's because I already knew what to expect and didn't have high hopes to get dashed...?

I had a blast just absorbing this book like the action-heavy cheesecake it is, either way. Maybe it's not the most well-written or competently edited book I've encountered (more on that later) and maybe I actively dislike the Netflix canon upon which it's based, but I still had enough fun that I was able to overlook those things and just devour this book with a grin for a majority of the time spent reading it.

Make no mistakes, though: I didn't say ‘cheesecake' just because I like that particular confection; I said it because this is very much a literary dessert heavy on the cheese. The main characters are named Vicious and Fearless, okay. That's ten steps worse than the naming in original Cowboy Bebop canon where they are Spike and Vicious, so don't come here looking for something to take seriously. On top of that, instead of the original anime's chillingly competent and bloodthirsty criminals, here the boys are low level members of a crime syndicate with the collective being-good-criminals skills of two goldfish in a mud puddle. Not to be confused for a lack of combat skills or sheer brutality, mind; Fearless literally deep fries someone's arm as an interrogation tactic and Vicious lives up to his name when he isn't being a whiny edgelord. So... why and how are they so hilariously incompetent? Idk, my bff Jill. Nobody knows; that's just the way it is.

Basically, this is like the criminal-protagonists version of a buddy cop comedy. And, y'know what? I like those. This may not be the dead serious, angsty glimpse into Spike's time with the Red Dragon crime syndicate that I'd hoped for, but it's the mindless romp on the absurd side that I apparently needed. Emphasis on mindless.

But you're not here to see me find every way to say “it's cheesy, but I kinda liked it,” are you? So, let's delve into the contents of this book.

First things first: this is a prequel novel to the Netflix live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. It gives a glimpse into Spike's past, attempting to fill in some of the blanks with regards to how he and Vicious became close in the past - before Julia came between them and they turned into enemies. I personally believe it's better read in the middle of the Netflix series, if you're going to subject yourself to that experience at all, because some of the exposition is helpful to understanding references in the show itself but it doesn't completely stand on its own without insight into the adapted characterizations. If you go into this knowing only the anime characterizations, you're gonna have a bad time - especially with regards to Vicious' new backstory and personality.

Despite having nary a mention of Spike's syndicate-era alias of Fearless from Netflix canon in the book blurb, that's solely what he's called here. But - and this is a big but, like a full on badonkadonk - his personality is very recognizable for its Spike-ness throughout most of the book. (Y'know, when he's not busy being terrified of everything, fearing death, and bitching when things go wrong in a very not fearless manner... But there really are many Spike-worthy elements.) His appeal may have been cheapened with the worst alias possible, but he falls somewhere between the original Spike Spiegel (personality, most mannerisms, hot temper) and the Netflix remake (potty-mouthed to an extreme, some mannerisms, not being fearless at all half the time). Likewise, while Vicious still fits his adaptation (whiny edgelord, extreme daddy issues, weird attempt to make his villainy sympathetic), he also has some glorious, shining pieces of the original in his characterization (dangerous focus on vengeance, near-obsession with Fearless Spike, a penchant for extremely brutal overkill). For me, this compromise between the two extremes is the main appeal of the book.

It's a bit like reading that one fanfic that's trying so hard, and hitting the edges of what I want so consistently, that I'm willing to forgive it for being very much imperfect.

No, seriously. I went into this book so tentatively that I tried a sample first. And then I fell in love with how the dynamic between Spike Fearless and Vicious was portrayed and dropped ten bucks on it. I have been fascinated with the idea of Spike's time with Vicious in the Red Dragon syndicate for quite literally most of my life. I would give a fraction of my soul to have a prequel novel based on the original anime, so ten dollars for a version based on the knockoff seemed reasonable enough.

Granted, I later discovered that the best moments of characterization were strategically positioned in the first ten percent, but I never actually regretted the purchase. Just... questioned the price, because wow the editing is not great. But we'll get to that later. For now, the story.

Vicious and Fearless are best friends - the kind of best friends with some lowkey subtext, though normally just incidental or played for laughs - and constantly bicker with each other over the most inconsequential of things. They're very much a mismatched pair: one of them is an orphan who was abandoned in front of a nightclub as an infant and the other is a rich kid with daddy issues and a suicidal mom. Though they're close and clearly respect each other, the dissonance between their respective upbringings definitely causes conflicts. As does Vicious' general inability to handle a combat situation and Fearless' refusal to take anything seriously until his life's on the line. Like I said: the criminal-protagonists version of a buddy cop comedy.

They meet as young teens via flashback chapters covering what comes across as a human trafficking thing at first. Fearless is a pre-established pit fighter who's respected and feared by the other kids, and Vicious - known only as The White-Haired Boy at the time, because apparently we don't get to learn his original name - is a rich kid who's been sent to the pits by his abusive father as some kind of life lesson. Teens being trucked into a facility to have pit fights, where the losers are eradicated after three fails and everyone's called by a number or nickname instead of their actual name? I mean, it felt like a horrifying human trafficking thing... only to be revealed, later, as a (dubiously) consensual thing where the kids even get to phone home on occasion and can just wander away whenever they please. Though there's plenty of attempts to drive home that it's a dubious situation, where homeless kids are desperate for money and gravitate toward this pit fighting arena where they put life and limb on the line in exchange for food and shelter, it never quite hits home because that feels like such a downgrade from the original high stakes inferred from the introduction to the situation. But anyway...

Vicious, before he's vicious, is the quiet and broody kid who gets bullied and just sits there and takes it while he makes eyes at Fearless, whose style of martial arts - Jeet Kune Do - catches his attention. He's seen all the Bruce Lee movies of old, and he's more than a little star struck. For the most part, their youthful interaction consists of Fearless being the cool kid and “The White-Haired Boy” being the lost puppy who begs him for scraps of attention. Then, one day, something happens to bring them together - I won't spoil what, because I quite liked that bit - and suddenly they're the best of friends because despite their differences they kind of just click together. Which means they become fiercely protective of one another, to the point they're simultaneously deadly together and keeping each other grounded. This becomes an Achilles heel of sorts, as often is the case when people in a brutal environment become close.

(Does this sound like an m/m romance to anyone else? Because I found myself being a little disappointed that it wasn't, with all the plot beats they hit together. I mean, even when they're sneaking into a private strip tease, they're doing so together; the bisexual energy is crazy strong and I'm here for it.)

In the book's primary timeline, they're low-level criminals in the Red Dragon crime syndicate, helping clean up bodies left by assassins and performing menial errands like driving their capo to meet his mistress. Problem is: they're bumbling idiots. The kind of bumbling idiots who manage to piss off both a rival syndicate and their own then get into a life-or-death adventure simply by being too collectively stupid to make a single intelligent choice in a bad situation. Also, Vicious has this little issue where he blacks out and brutally murders people when he gets too upset, and as you can imagine that's part of how they managed to get into the hot mess that comprises the main plot.

This is where my fellow fans of the Cowboy Bebop anime stop and look at the above paragraphs like a shocked Pikachu. Go ahead, I'll give you time...

Wondering how these guys become the main villain and the badass protagonist of Cowboy Bebop, right? Yeah, same. But the thing is: they don't. And you're gonna have a bad time if you go into this expecting that. No, this is a thousand percent the live action tie-in it markets itself to be... minus the cover. (This book has literally nothing to do with Jet or Faye, or even Spike's time as a bounty hunter, so I have no clue why the cover was made how it is.)

The Vicious and Spike in this alternate universe aren't at all what anime fans know and love. But as a diehard fan of the anime who couldn't stand what the live action adaptation did to characterization, I can say with certainty that even the two stooges in this book are better written than the majority of the live action show itself. Vicious may still be the whiny rich kid with daddy issues that we were given in the Netflix version - and every bit as juvenile in his potty mouthed vocabulary - but he also has an intense darkness which is actually troubling and a dynamic with Spike Fearless which is mostly enjoyable to read. Fearless may not always feel like he could someday be Spike, but he's an interesting character in his own way. Likewise, the little homages paid to the anime are actually fun, feel lovingly included, and don't feel like the mockery they come across as in the live action show itself.

I very much had fun reading this for what it was with the critical part of my brain firmly planted in the off position. But when the critical thinking kicked back on? Well, I had to pause reading until I could turn it off again, because I lost enjoyment quickly every time.

As I mentioned in the beginning, this book isn't particularly well edited. The amount of typos, tense shifts in sentences, missing words, and grating writing quirks is astounding for a professionally published book that costs ten bucks in Kindle format. Some of the quirks include transitioning action with sudden, improper sentences like “When, Goldie called out to him.” and typing out sounds dramatically such as “BRAAAAAAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!” (actual example of when someone was shooting). In moderation, these things wouldn't be terrible and when I was caught in the reading zone, fully immersed, I didn't mind so much. However, they're frequent enough to become awkward and annoying with just a little bit of overthinking.

The best way I can describe it is to liken it to the action novels written for dudes to pick up at a drug store and read during a boring train ride or flight. You know the ones, where more time is spent awkwardly naming the exact model of car and gun being used in a scene than exploring the panic a character feels while their life is on the line. The ones where exclamations are tossed into the flow of writing to artificially amp up reader excitement despite the tone never noticeably changing!

Except here, weirdly enough, we get to know the exact model and calibre of one-off enemies' guns, but the main protagonists just have generic 9mm weapons. Because I guess the author forgot that there are a metric ton of potential handguns in many varied sizes and styles which can fire 9mm rounds...? Idk. Considering Spike's iconic Jericho 941 is once such weapon, it feels strikingly weird to have that dissonance and never even know for sure if he's using that particular gun yet or just a random one issued by the Red Dragon. But since I was having way too much fun just going along for the ride, I decided to explain this to myself as a bias toward what Spike Fearless notices in a scene - of course he'd stop and clock (not notice, or see, or observe; everything in this book is referred to, constantly, as being ‘clocked' when it's noticed) the models of weapons used in combat. That's actually a trait he has in the anime as well, so even though I doubt that was the intention I ran with it as if it were.

I also couldn't decide how I felt about Vicious being written as someone who has a trauma-induced mental illness which makes him black out when upset and turn incredibly violent. Fearless refers to this as a “darkness” which overtakes Vicious, and while that does seem to suit the character it also feels a bit like an attempt to forgive his evil deeds. Not to mention being something of an annoyingly overdone trope. I can't say for certain if this is part of the Netflix canon or added backstory, however, because I didn't make it through the final two episodes - just plot spoilers thereof - so for all I know this might be one of the changes associated with the show and thus something the author had to include. But like I said, I'm torn. It's not as terribly written as most instances I've seen of this trope... just poorly introduced.

That's not because it's poorly timed or anything. No, it's because this book is too heavy on the telling and too light on the showing. The right emotions are portrayed at the right times, but they're portrayed by telling readers what the characters feel instead of showing us. It's difficult to get wrapped up in the emotion and intrigue to feel the impact of Vicious having a mental break, because the writing remains just as distant as it is when he's doing anything else. Just saying a character feels something doesn't make it feel true. Without diving into his head, it's hard to feel the emotions along with him - and, thus, harder to feel as if the mental illness portrayed is ‘authentic.'

But then he snaps on some jerk who harasses him outside a bar and the ensuing gore-fest is so entertaining it doesn't completely matter that the emotions are only told-not-shown. Or the duo end up in a high-speed chase where Fearless has to climb across the car and reach under it while it's in motion to remove a tracking device and the banter may be lame but it's also amusing. Because, like I said, this book is (mindless) fun. It's like an oldschool comic book - SMACK! BAM! BOOM! WHOOSH! - mixed with a corny action novel. Or a silly yet engaging action comedy.

Much like such media: so long as I wasn't trying to take it too seriously, I enjoyed this book. Looking past how oddly not-Cowboy-Bebop everything felt was easy enough since Spike goes by a different name, which made viewing this as something entirely unique much easier. And as a unique entity, it's not half bad. Certainly not great literature, but not horrible either.

I could nitpick at least a dozen (more) minor annoyances. I could complain about the world building or several aspects of the characterizations. I could even grouse about how the flashback chapters are written in all italics and it makes my eyes go all wonky. But I don't wanna. Because it feels a bit like enjoying a rollercoaster then spending the next hour whinging about how the paint was chipped on the passenger cars and the queue was too long.

As far as I'm concerned, I needed this book right now. I needed something to lose myself in and just enjoy without having a future review stirring around in the back of my head the whole time. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it - especially not to fellow fans of the anime who are craving a peek at Spike's syndicate era relative to original canon, because this ain't it - but I liked it all the same and don't regret my purchase. Sometimes, a little mindless enjoyment of campy literature is a really good thing.

And honestly? I'm here to read for fun and enjoyment and entertainment. I'm sick of taking a hyper-critical eye to everything I read - though I normally can't help it because OCD sucks swamp water and my brain's gonna do whatever it wants without my input anyway. So the fact I was able to just sit down with this book and gobble it up like the junk food it is makes me happy. And as such, I'm ignoring the part of me that somewhat wants to write a novella about minor annoyances retrospectively and I'm instead giving this book an extra star like a shiny, little “you did good, book, thank you for entertaining me” badge.