Few works of Japanese animation have hadas profound an impact on Western cultureasCowboy BebopandNeon Genesis Evangelion— and secretly,the two were always answering the same prompt. AlongsideGhost In The Shell,Perfect Blue, and the obligatory Ghibli releases, the two are part of a wave of contemplative, boundary-testing anime that emerged in the 1990s. As for the question of what spurred the popularity of jaded, world-weary protagonists like Spike Spiegel and Shinji Ikari, the answer is simpler than you may think.
What’s harder to answer is the degree to which their paths diverge and the differences between their depictions. WhileCowboy Beboptakes a more all-encompassing approach centered around ennui and social decay,Neon Genesis Evangelionis markedly introspective. Both are calls to action with themes of meaning, change, and the connections and associations we build with others. This divergent approach islinked to the circumstances birthing both series, and I think that it actually thrusts deeper into the hearts of these works than anybody would expect.
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Cowboy BebopAndNeon Genesis EvangelionShare A Common Foundation
The Lost Decade Was The Premise For Both Contemplative Classics
To set the stage:Japan in the ’90s wasn’t in a great spot. During the 1980s, an economic bubble developed alongside a relatively lavish life of conspicuous consumption. The bubble burst in the early 1990s, leading to immense economic and social fallout. In practical terms, what this meant is that for many people,daily life would become much harder.
Mass layoffs were prominent as temporary work became more of a norm. Beyond its inherent instability, temp work meant little to no benefits for those who were able to find it. Japanese companies lost their market dominance, even domestically.This period of economic instability is known as the Lost Decade, though many economists argue it continued long after the ’90s.
As careers vanished into thin air and households destabilized, people throughout Japanbegan to feel a strong sense of anomie and apathy. Making matters worse, Japan has historically had a “hiring season” where students out of university are recruited in bulk, and Japanese careers tend to be lifelong. If one doesn’t find a job in the first recruiting season, one will be in for a very difficult year - and since the initial recruitment was so important, the effects would linger for years ahead.
The Japanese recession took an extensive toll. In 1999, for example,theNew York Timesreported a 34.7% rise in suicide rates. Amid this background of catastrophe, impossibility, and lives of stolen meaning,Cowboy BebopandNeon Genesis Evangelionboth arose with narratives about meaning and happiness in the face of horrific circumstances. The way they approach the question of"how can I find meaning in an unbearable life?“makes for an incredible lesson.
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Cowboy Bebop -The Ironic Art Of Living
Cowboy BebopSays Hell Is Other People
A huge amount of 19th-century philosophy wrangled with why one shouldn’t give up and die. From thinkers like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, a thread would develop calledexistentialism, championed and reconsidered by 20th-century thinkers like Camus and Sartre. The core of existentialism is that “existence precedes essence.” In other words, paraphrasing from Nietzsche,people (and things and words) “become what they are.”
This refracts through time: a person’s past and context have a role in determining who they’re becoming, but the personalso has an important role in determining their own future and meaning to life. For the existentialist, meaning must becreated. This is convenient, because it also means a person can look at their context and take control over it and what they’re becoming, creating their own meaning in life.
Cowboy Bebophas an absolutely dreadful setting. One of its most implicit themes ishow the structure of society itself has determined the roles and personalities of Spike, Faye, Jet, and everyone elsein it — just like Japanese viewers were adrift in a sea of uncertainty in the Lost Decade. Surely enough, those moments of the past and those contextual glimmers through which theCowboy Bebopcast exists always come back to haunt them.
As faces from the past return to reveal they have become someone else,Cowboy Beboprelentlessly reminds the viewer of the impermanence of ideas and faces. In the face of these circumstances, Spike and the crew try totake control and decide the meaning of their own lives.Cowboy Bebop’s famously ambiguous endingmight or might not show Spike’s death: this uncertainty is the point.
Spike decided tocreate his own meaning in lifeby chasing down a face from his past and tackling the Red Dragon Syndicate he was once a part of. Recognizing his relative insignificance in the world, he created a meaning for his life that was significant in itself. If Spike died, it’s because he chose to diewith a meaning he created —notbecause of a despairing lack of meaning. I think that’s the finer, often missed, point.
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Neon Genesis Evangelion -Solitude Was Always A Lie
EvangelionAnalyzes Civilization And Its Discontents
Suppose my parents lost work and seemed to change; I’m tirelessly studying for high school and college just to have a small chance at a seemingly fleeting career; in the end, I feel as though the roles I’m meant to occupy, the relationships I’ve always held, and the things I’ve been raised to believe are fictions.Evangelionuses Freud and Jung to answer this unsettling premise.
Freud held that the psyche was composed of three aspects: conscious, unconscious (instinctual and repressed), and preconscious (internalized rules and norms). He thought that, as we go through life, the stages of our upbringing form these psychic aspects. For Freud,their tension plays a major role in how we see and act in the world.
Freud constructed metaphors, including the “psychic structure”, for interpretation. The division isn’t literal. Because all personalities are unique and psychology is inherently a study of internal processes we can’t see, Freud thought linguistic interpretation was better than just looking at a person’s actions in a laboratory. It’s inherently a philosophy, which is the basis for a lot of misconceptions.
By contrast, Jung was a former colleague of Freud who broke from psychoanalysis to found analytic psychology, focusing on the interconnection of people and cultural artifacts. Jung believed archetypes form a symbolic register in the collective unconscious that we emulate and project. From Jung comesEvangelion’s emphasis on religious symbolism, especially Gnosticism.
The theories of both get far more complicated. Essentially, both argue that these unconscious forces direct us,constructing and being constructed by our relationships with others. Importantly, these influences can also be understood and, usually, overcome.
Evangelionmirrored the experiences of many viewers at the time, especially with its pilots being high schoolers. Rei is constructed in someone else’s image to enact precisely the role given to her, sacrificing herself for somebody else’s preoccupations.Mass-produced as a clone to struggle and die, she analogizes the social order. At a time when one is expected to fulfill social obligations that ultimately lead to meaninglessness and uncertainty,Rei also serves as a relatable metaphor for an inauthentic life.
Rei indirectly showed that without critical introspection, the path one is made to unquestioningly follow could lead the world to a cataclysm. Conversely, Shinji’s self-acceptance inEvangelion’s legendary (and controversial) original finaleshows the resolution of the psychoanalytic process. Shinji comes tograsp and embrace how he views the world and others, accepting that he can change and lead other happier, less lonely lives. This resolution also parallels Asuka’s bathtub tragedy, the implied result of unbearable psychic tension.
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BebopAndEvangelionPursue Beauty Within Catastrophe
In The Worst Of Times, There’s Still Something To Love
BothCowboy BebopandEvangelionwould become renowned for their differing depictions of meaning and happiness amid turmoil, but their connection to the Lost Decade is often underemphasized. There’s one more buried revelation, though.Cowboy BebopandEvangelionboth used an experimental method to show that life still had things to love.
WithBebop, it was the synthesis of jazz, noir, cyberpunk, and Westerns.Evangeliondoes the same with gnosticism, psychoanalysis, and mecha anime. I firmly believe combinations like thoseonly occur when someone pours everything they love into a single opportunity for creation. Both show how, in horrible times,we can channel the parts of life we loveto make beautiful art and beautiful lives - or at least create meaning that might transcend the mess.
The two iconic shows were born from the same premise: the Japanese crisis of the Lost Decade and the psychoses it created withing the country. They found radically different answers because their creators loved different things in life when life was hardest. They show that the answer to the question"how can I find meaning in an unbearable life?“hinges most of all on the “I”. In other words,Cowboy BebopandNeon Genesis Evangeliontaught me and countless other fans thatmeaning is always right in front of us, and there are many ways to search for it.
Cowboy Bebop
Cast
Cowboy Bebop is a 1998 animated series set in 2071, where humanity has colonized the Solar System following a catastrophic event. As crime surges, bounty hunters known as “Cowboys” are employed by the Inter Solar System Police to capture criminals in exchange for rewards.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese animated television series created by Hideaki Anno. The show follows teenagers piloting giant mechs called Evangelions, tasked with defending Earth from mysterious beings known as Angels. As they confront these threats, they also grapple with personal and psychological issues.
