Cowboy Bebop Opening

Cowboy Bebop (the movie) is an animated action comedy movie targeted toward teenage males aged 15 to 21 who enjoy comic book violence, sci-fi, and anime. The opening was designed around Yoko Kono’s theme, “Tank!,”. Mixing the jazz beats with stylistic visuals to create a unique style all its own.  The opening itself borrows influence from the Steve McQueen movie ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ made in 1968. Both use a unique mix of black backgrounds  with pictures using eye catching colouring to stand out, this makes Cowboy Bebop’s opening seem to be a homage to movies from the 60’s. 

The opening wants to create a style all its own, breaking the codes and conventions of the genre by combining different elements of art. This is shown by wording across the screen stating: “They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. They are sick and tired of conventional fixed style jazz. …the work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called COWBOY BEBOP, will play without fear of risky things.” The idea that the opening was built around the musical track gives off the idea that the movie will be a fast paced action movie with fantastical style and jazz centric music.  

The Opening uses lighting as a heavy feature, none of the characters are coloured in and are instead seen as either silhouettes or outlined figures having their body manipulated by the lights angle.

From the opening, the target audience will assume the movie is an action movie set in space with handguns and artillery, due to the amount of ships and guns shown in the intro.   

Link to Cowboy Bebop opening (via Art of the Title): http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/cowboy-bebop/