I was lucky: I got to watch Cowboy Bebop (the classic anime) in 2000.
I had just moved to Japan to teach English as an ALT the previous year. Stuck in the countryside with no friends and very little to do when not working, I immersed myself in Japanese language study.
Part of that involved keeping the TV on in the background, even though I couldn’t understand any of it.
After a few months of studying, I got help from a student in the English Speaking Society (a club at the high school where I was working) in getting a membership card at the only video rental store in town. At the time, the owners weren’t so keen on allowing a foreigner to rent videos; they even asked how I could guarantee that I wouldn’t simply up and leave and take their videos back to my home country.
Over the three years I was in the town, I borrowed hundreds of videos from that little store. None of the Japanese-language ones had English subtitles (obviously), and Cowboy Bebop was a series I must have borrowed at least three times, understanding more each time I watched it.
In the anime, the primary characters all have katakana names – Spike, Faye, Jet, Edward – and their computer screens always show English. The opening credits are in English, and the text behind the credits is also in English, even as the characters use Japanese (it’s never said, but we can assume universal translators in action). The show features multiethnic interaction with no hints whatsoever of racism or prejudice. A show way ahead of its time.
As various websites have pointed out, it was originally designed to sell Bandai toys, but the director had other ideas.
Episode 5 explains, with text behind the characters: “This is not a kind of space opera.” It slips in references to shows and movies like Star Trek and Star Wars, but it’s really an angst-ridden, existentialist space western with misfits galore.
Based on jazz.
“Space jazz,” really, is a better description of the show (even though pop, funk, and even heavy metal are played — entirely made by Kanno Yoko’s band, which she specifically created just for the show).
The live action remake version was just released on Netflix on November 19th (EST; click on the link to see the trailer on YouTube), who I sincerely hope do it justice (most, if not all, of their recent remakes of anime have quite frankly sucked donkey).
It’s not supposed to have a happy ending. I hope it doesn’t.
And I hope there’s no second season. The anime is brilliant. Don’t ruin its legacy.
Thousands of debris fragments forced the astronauts/cosmonauts (and “taikonauts” in the Chinese-only space station) to shelter in their own separate modules.
“A kind of space madness,” is how one analyst phrased it.
Scientists around the world always have to deal with political maneuvering (i.e., bullshit). (Reference: 2010: A Space Odyssey – The Year We Make Contact).
Kamo’oalewa is one such piece of lunar rubble that spiraled away from the moon. But rather than landing on Earth or simply tumbling off into the void, it found itself a quasi-satellite in its own right.
Dunno what’s cooler: the name of the Moon fragment or the fact that the grad student at Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona that discovered the ”moon” is named ”Sharkey.”
Also, the complete and utter lack of visuals is appalling…plus the repetitive politically-oriented automatic videos and random ads irritates me. Honestly, WTF is up with US-based websites these days. Unreadable.
Still, it’s telling that the ”moon” has a Hawaiian name. Much like the navigator in my story…
Where’s the Artemis?? What’s up with Mars? And Ceres seriously…?
Sorry I haven’t kept up the story posts, everyone.
I know it’s been almost a month since the last Bringer of Light episode. Work just got dumped on me, and I can barely find time to give my writing students feedback. We switched back to face to face classes…with live streaming on Zoom for students who couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to campus…which is definitely NOT a teaching style I would recommend to anybody, anywhere, ever.
It’s been like laying down tracks in front of an oncoming train. Every day.
There is lots more good stuff for Riss and her crew, I swear. I’ve got drafts up to Chapter 42, and plots to the end after that. Let me see if I can get the next one up for you all in a day or two…
Over the years, the SAA has been responsible for several spacecraft failures and even dictates when astronauts can and can’t perform spacewalks. As the space around Earth becomes filled with an increasing number of craft, what does the SAA mean for the future of spaceflight?
This post is from back in February 2021, but I just stumbled across it this morning and thought it was an interesting read.
Learn something new every day!
This part caught my eye…
Radiation is a colorless, tasteless, and odorless enemy…
…and I couldn’t help thinking…
Iocaine powder?!?
It’s okay. I’m immune 😂
Anyway, the article linked above is food for thought. Whenever electronic objects pass through the SAA, which is where the loops of the Van Allen Belt dip perilously close to the Earth, the electronics get a massive amount of radiation and go haywire.
Seriously expensive to shield stuff up there — and as more and more satellites (and people) go up, so does the risk.
Apparently, this is designed to shoot alcohol into your hand “whenever and wherever you feel like it.”
Hmm. I don’t suppose a clever person could figure out what else to fill it with that would be easily slipped into someone’s drink or food. Or spray your own hand and then shake your enemy’s. Or touch his face.
Say, didn’t this happen already to a member of a certain pariah country’s ruling family?
And, uh, Spidey doesn’t just spray his hands. That’s not really how it works. Just saying.
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