brief post on bebop

This last week I finally got my package from home, which was packed with clothes, snacks and the treasured discs from my Cowboy Bebop boxed set. I watched a few episodes tonight with some of the American students, and I found that after having lived here for about two months, I was able to pick up on some little things in the show. Little things that were distinctly Japanese, but I never would have noticed before.

The biggest "aha!" moment came from the first episode. Spike, Cowboy Bebop's main character, walks into the bathroom to wash his hands. He runs into one of the criminals he's chasing at the sink, says something snarky and sly, as Spike usually does, and then walks away while he's wiping his hands on a small towel. And then he tucks the small towel into his back pocket.

You see, public Japanese bathrooms typically don't have paper towels or anything to dry your hands with. So everyone carries handkerchiefs and small towels with them.

Still, it was weird to actually notice that seemingly insignificant detail. I've watched this episode at least 3 or 4 times back in the States, and never even noticed this.

But, there are still some things in Bebop that just don't make any sense no matter what culture you're from. Like when Ein, Spike and the Bebop crew's dog, jumps from a very, very tall bridge and is rescued by Spike who catches the dog with the front windshield of his spacecraft. The dog has fallen very far at this point. Spike is driving at top speed. How the dog landed on the windshield without so much as a "plop" or terrific splattering sound, will forever be a mystery to me.

Thanks for the awesome care package, momma. I'm off to continue my personal rebellion against the amount of homework here. (Seriously, we went on a field trip to the pottery museum today and we got TWO sheets of homework from it. Gaahhhh.)