NOTE: This article was originally going to be a substack letter but I changed my mind. Hence, my writing style isn't the same as my usual blog work.

Howdy There! In today's post, you'll have the pleasure of learning about my favorite anime, with a focus on music, soundtracks and cultural impact. Feel free to hop around based on what floats your boat. I'm just going to ramble about specific anime, who I believe they're for and fun things I know about them. In this article, I'll focus on

Shinichirō Watanabe

If you want bangers, this is the guy. Watanabe is the mind behind Cowboy Bebpop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy and diretor of Kids on the Slope. He worked with Nujabes to create the Samurai Champloo OST, which is an entire conversation in its own right and Yoko Kanno who composed bangers for Cowboy Bebpop (Tankl!), Kids on the Slope and Space Dandy.

Cowboy Bepop

Is there a more iconic anime? As a Gen Z, I was born way after the show's initial airing but I still appreciated the soundtrack. Tank! is one of the best intro songs I've had the pleasure of experiencing. This anime is a Watanabe original and faithful to his style has a very episodic, almost isolated story telling arc, where each episode is kinda doing its own thing and that's the point. We're here for the jounrey not the destination. Even though it does give us a conclusive ending that references things from throughout the story.

If you like Bepop, Space, Cowboys and Westerns then this anime is for you. Albeit controversial, I do enjoy all my Watanabe original anime in dub as I find the English voice acting super vibe appropiate and that makes it a great starting point for any anime newcomers.

Samurai Champloo

What if we had Samurai, Hip Hop and a ton of vibes. That's Samurai Champloo. Watanabe's projects all seem to center around a specific music genre and setting. With the charchters and plot naturally following the premise and universe he builds.

Thus, with Samurai Champloo, Watanabe works with the legendary Nujabes to cook up an awesome OST. With Fat Jon, Forces of Nature and Tsutchie contributing. The show has 5 OST albums. That's how much orignal music was produced for it and the best part is that its all good! I made a playlist for each one when I was a lad in high school.

If you like Cowboy Bepop and want to try a different music genre and time period then this is a good pick. The dub is also great. Nujabes is also a really influental producer in the hip hop realm and probabalty infleuced a few more songs than you'd expect but that's a conversation worth its own article.

Space Dandy

This one has less mainstream appeal as its definitely more anime than music and extremely cartoony. It's differnetn from the other two projects and has a lot of guest directors. Giving it a wider creative direction and some of these directors let became reknowned for their own shows such as the working on the One Punch Man Season 1 and other acclades.

The target vibe is Disco and funk era. With the episodic nature being dialed to the extreme as there are literal episodes that destroy the universer and then we pick up right afterwards. It's not a spoiler because you can't really predict when it will happen. I might even be lying right now and you wouldn't know.

I should make a Space Dandy mix one day in all honesty.

Kids On The Slope

If Watanabe's music taste is great but you're not a fan of his story telling style. Then this is the one for you. Kids On The Slope is a manga written by Yuki Kodama and Wantanabe was in charge of the anime adapataition and worked with Yoko Kanno to make the soundtrack. So this is the same power duo from Cowboy Bepop but working a new story.

The anime is a coming of age story of a boy learning to love jazz as he transfers to a new high school and just grows up. Its only 12 episodes and each one is named after a Jazz Standard. It's pretty good. It has no dub but the story is pretty easy to watch with the family. No dub though.

Special Mentions

Blue Giant

It's not a Wantanabe anime but it might be an honarey one. It's an anime movie about a boy who's dream is to become the world's greatest jazz musican. He moves from Rural japan to Tokyo with nothing but a saxaphonme and a dream. It's a really good movie. Alas, it seems to not have gotten too much mainstream traction in the West. However, when I visited Korea and Japan over winter, I saw a fair amount of recongnition for it in vinyl cafes and record stores. Which was nice.

If you like Jazz, I'd honestly reccomend watching the movie blind so that you experience the muisc raw. It's really an audio visual expereince and I wouldn't want to rob you of the pleasure of experiecing it for the first time. So only listn to the song below if you're undecided about the movie.

Music Theory

I enjoy analysing music and lerning the theory behing the songs I love. Charlie has some amazing analysis on the jazz in Kids on the Slope and Cowboy Bebop and more.

In case I don't see you again, good afternoon, good evening and good night.