Interest
Ender's Game Author Praises Cowboy Bebop
posted on by Gia Manry
Orson Scott Card, the American author best known for his science fiction story Ender's Game, devoted a significant portion of his April 6 column for the Greensboro, North Carolina's Rhino Times newspaper to Sunrise's 1998 television anime Cowboy Bebop.
In the article, Card narrates his own relationship with anime, which he says he was not interested in until his daughter became an "anime snob." It was due to his daughter's interest that he eventually watched Cowboy Bebop, which Card calls "better than all but a handful of science fiction films, ever."
After explaining the anime's premise, Card compares it to the Joss Whedon live-action television series Firefly, wondering if Whedon's show was itself inspired by the anime. As highlights of Cowboy Bebop, Card specifically cites "Yoko Kanno's explorations of every kind of jazz, beatnik, and '50s rock all woven through a delicious new age sensibility."
Sunrise released the pictured anniversary box set of Cowboy Bebop in Japan on March 26, 2010, and Bandai Entertainment released its Anime Legends edition of the television series in North America in 2008. There has been no Blu-ray release of the television series in either country, but Image Entertainment will release the anime film Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door on Blu-ray this June.
