The one thing I love about anime is how there are so many through lines from one work to another to another and so on. A great chain of people creating anime looking at other people’s ideas from their contemporaries or possibly from the people behind that. Not a lot of people look for these bits, but I think that this is something fun to look into. So with this step or thought, I think there is an obvious one from Dirty Pair to Cowboy Bebop in a lot of ways. So this may or may not be a conjecture, but from watching everything from the original Dirty Pair to re-watching Cowboy Bebop recently, this is a thought that just can’t escape my mind. Especially since both series are produced from Sunrise and so many other things?
Dirty Pair and Cowboy Bebop represent a used future where it isn’t a futuristic and sleek as some series like to see that time period. A broken future in which normal police cannot keep control of their own areas of space. I mean, would the title of Problem Solver really exist in a universe that knew how to function by itself in self contained ways? Same with bounty hunters being a viable job option in Cowboy Bebop. Any functional universe wouldn’t have these positions as an options. The Dirty Pair universe is cleaner in some cities on some planets, but others are like the wild west and much less functional. It is also a working person’s universe. Much bigger than Cowboy Bebop, but just as messed up.
Then there are the girl’s jobs. With Kei and Yuri working for an organization like the 3WA, they are constantly on the job in the series. The two are problem solvers and that means taking whatever jobs they are given and working in situations they usually don’t want to for money. Just show up in the Lovely Angel and start something. Its their job to be taken everywhere and eventually, they will screw it up. That kind of happens in Cowboy Bebop even if it’s a bit freer form. The crew of the Bebop are bounty hunters in which motivates each episode to be after some character to motivate the plot. Its the same thing. Especially when everything they achieve is screwed up in the end.
Lastly, there is Shinichiro Watanabe himself. Did you know that he was involved in Dirty Pair in some ways? Well, in a small directional way. Episodes 3, 7, and 9 of the Dirty Pair OVA are directed by him. One of the earliest jobs that he could take on his path to being who we all know him for today. I have a feeling that he took a little bit of Dirty Pair and made the version he wanted to make. Yeah, he is the real connecting piece of this whole process. There are a lot of roots in Dirty Pair for a lot of works. Even some Space Dandy stuff too considering the way that show operates as well. Or how there is the usual group of three (because Mughi counts damn it) from Dirty Pair to Cowboy Bebop. No hard facts, only looks and possibilities here. But I would like to believe this small conspiracy if I could.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 