NFB Re-Watches Cowboy Bebop: “Waltz For Venus”

Hey, if I knew you earlier would we have been friends?

Air Date: 24/04/1998

Director: Yoshiyuki Takei

Writer: Michiko Yokote

Synopsis: Spike crosses paths with Roco, a young man hiding his involvement in a significant crime, and desperate to learn some of his martial arts skills: but his motivations are not as clear-cut as they seem.

Review

Cowboy Bebop lurches towards a story of much greater seriousness and pathos than “Heavy Metal Queen” in “Waltz For Venus”. And while that story is undoubtedly full of clichés from the general crime genre, it’s also undoubtedly a much better session. In this episode, Spike Spiegel finds himself unexpectedly called upon to be a mentor of sorts to a troubled young man trying to stay ahead of retribution, and in so doing has to confront a few things about himself. The reckless, somewhat careless, and always rather flippant guy that we have gotten used to seeing over the last number of episodes temporarily fades from view: instead, we are left with a person who is worried about his soul, for lack of a better term, and finds a cipher for that worry in the form of Roco.

We start things off with a very unexpected look at the Bebop as a success: not only doing their jobs properly in wrangling a few bounties, but foiling a spaceship hijacking in the process. While “Waltz For Venus” won’t belabour the point, an underlying theme throughout the session will be the Bebop crew coming together in order to achieve something, even if they spend a lot of time in the episode apart. It’s actually a bit important to show them all as at least somewhat on the same page occasionally: while it is darkly amusing to see the various ways in which their quest for bounties does not come off, they would start to seem a bit clownish after a while if they never caught any.

Enter Roco, this rather annoying individual that you can’t help but like. It’s more than just the later revelation that he is undertaking all of his criminal deeds for the benefit of his blind sister. Roco just seems like a genuinely nice guy: the idea of a criminal with a heart of gold has rarely been so apropos, even if the entire concept is weighted down with layers of cliché. Spike’s intrigue with Roco matches our own, and it’s easy to understand why this “sensei” chooses to actually show Roco a few moves, even before we get into the more serious stuff later. It suffices to say that Spike clearly sees something of his younger self in Roco: we can infer that Spike too was something of a hoodlum in his younger days, full of enthusiasm for learning martial arts that would aid him in looking cool, beating people up, and rising up the ladder of criminal syndicates (and trying to escape them because of a woman). The experience of life has taken much of that enthusiasm from him and made him wonder if he is truly as good a person as others seem to think he is: coming face-to-face with a person like Roco places that question firmly in Spike’s mind. Coming a few weeks after he had to temporarily step back into his old life in “Ballad Of Fallen Angels”, and even less time since he got what was essentially a premonition of his demise in “Sympathy For The Devil”, it’s understandable that Spike forms a connection with Roco and becomes preoccupied with making sure that he isn’t swallowed up by the underworld. Hence why he looks into Roco’s background a bit more than he might otherwise be expected to, leading him to Stella.

The second half of the episode is the double whammy, as we get the tragic backstory of Stella, an innocent young girl afflicted by a cruel disease, before we are inevitably led towards the tragedy that we know is going to be the focal point of the exercise. I would go so far as to say that “Waltz For Venus” is actually a bit predictable in that regard: with such cliché characters and narrative, I suppose I shouldn’t be too shocked that it ends in a tragedy and a bittersweet conclusion. Spike has come to identify with Roco enough that he goes to the point of risking his own life in order to protect Roco’s, and is suitably devastated when he is unable to. Before we get there though “Waltz For Venus” finds a way for Faye to be an active participant in the story, albeit she is sort of in a story of her own to a large degree. The scenes where she tracks down information on the gang members out for Roco are almost inserts, there just to break up the more important stuff with Spike, Roco, and Stella, but I did find them very entertaining and an important glimpse of how effective Faye can be at the job of bounty hunting.

It all leads to that blistering finale, where the crew of the Bebop, and Roco, come to the reckoning with Piccaro and his hoodlums. Roco demonstrates some of Spike’s fluidity in a very nice moment, and it is rather heartening to see how all three (human) members of the Bebop crew rally around in order to complete the job. But the inevitable tragedy is only deferred, not stopped, and it is no surprise to anyone when Roco’s last involvement in the plot is to be shot and deliver some heart-breaking final words. For Spike, it is a case of there but for the grace of God: I’m sure he was in similar scrapes at a younger age and made it through, but Roco is not as lucky. Neither is Stella. In the epilogue Spike pays Roco the compliment of insisting, to his sister, that he was everything she thought that he was, and it isn’t just empty words coming out of his mouth: it’s the truth.

On a character level, we see a lot of different things in “Waltz For Venus.” Aside from the heart of gold criminal, I’ve always seen a little bit of an ignorant gaijin in Roco, this pestering annoyance who maintains a surface level appreciation for martial arts outside of his ken, and doesn’t let up until someone from the culture deigns to actually teach him a few moves. We see a different side of Spike than we have seen before, as discussed, and we come to understand that deeper internal battle for him, as he reckons with the question of whether he is a good person or not: suitably, “Waltz For Venus” chooses not to really give us a firm answer on that, though Spike’s actions at the conclusion paint the picture of a decent person. And we get to see some added layers to Faye Valentine, a woman who is reckless with her money and seems to always be going for the spectacular in how she goes about getting more, to the point of flamboyance (a suitable contrast to the more classic cool and relaxed fluidity of Spike, or the by-the-books seriousness of Jet). If Spike is water, then Faye is a brick. Stella is comparatively undercooked to them all, lacking much in the way of agency, but there is only so much time in this kind of medium: something had to give.

It’s a very interesting episode from a visual perspective, on a number of levels. As I recall, I don’t believe that we ever go back to Venus, which is somewhat of a shame: the planet has a distinctly Middle-Eastern vibe to its architecture and people that is somewhat unique to Cowboy Bebop, and its general colour palette is also fairly singular. There are some really great environments at play here: the bazaar-like structures that Roco flees through, the dilapidated home of Stella that still has a certain coziness to it, the church where the finale takes place. All the way to the last shot, “Waltz For Venus” seems intent on making a painting out of every frame to at least some degree, and goes all in on some genuine sci-fi landscapes with the floating estates.

The other big element of the animation is the depiction of Spike’s martial arts style, which becomes a de facto tribute to the work of one Bruce Lee. While never named directly in this episode – he was previously – Lee’s style of martial art is very evident in what Spike attempts to teach Roco, and the animation reflects that. It’s hard to truly get across what “being like water” is in this kind of medium, but “Waltz For Venus” manages it somehow, making Roco, and the viewer, understand the nature of how Spike inflicts pain when he needs to: through quick side-steps, minimal force that utilizes the target’s own misplaced energy, and a commitment to going with the flow. It puts some of Spike’s previous combat encounters, like the fight inside the casino in “Honky Tonk Women”, or even his final punch-up with Asimov in “Asteroid Blues”, in a new perspective.

Musically, the session isn’t especially notable if I’m being honest. Most of the music featured, most especially the arrangement of “Forever Broke”, have been heard before in some form, with the hypnotic melody of “Stella By Moor” about the only thing that really stands out. I would go so far as to say that, with the exception of “Stella By Moor”, this is the first session where I really noticed the absence of seriously affecting pieces of music. I wonder looking back if this was an intentional choice, so that the deeper tragedy of the story being told could be associated with larger stretches of silence than we are used to. I might be reaching a little bit there. It isn’t too serious a detriment to the episode really I suppose, and “Stella By Moor” is a special enough piece of music to justify it’s double airing here. It’s like “Waltz For Venus” as well: it makes your heart ache, but you just can’t stop wanting to experience more.

I control the flow of power and to do that, I have to relax the whole body to be able to react to any movement.

Notes

-Something different to start us off: Venus is a very different looking planet to places we have seen before, a sickly yellow colour from orbit. That must be the terraforming, as the real planet looks significantly different.

-This episode took a little while to air outside of Japan, and not hard to see why: the plane hijacking depicted in the opening scenes was never going to go over well in post 9/11 America. It’s positively alien to see such a thing occur and not be treated like the biggest news story going.

-I always laugh at loud as this guy who instantly suggests that the hijackers “take the others” but let him go.

-An amazing moment where we focus in on Spike, asleep while wearing a facemask with eyes on it. It’s like Homer Simpson in the Quimby trial.

-Right from the start, Spike demonstrates his water-like approach to attackers, dealing with this initial one by doing little more than getting out of his way. Roco is suitably impressed.

-And the crew gets a bounty. The reality of how this works is remarkably mundane: Spike just puts his card into a machine and a robotic voice thanks him. No dramatic handovers here.

-Faye’s approach to money is reckless to a fault: she takes her cut of the bounty immediately, and it’s all seemingly gone within a day. While the show won’t go too much into it, its reasonable to infer she might have a gambling problem, one rooted in her own personality.

-A great moment to demonstrate Spike’s philosophy: Roco comes at him with a knife, and Spike barely moves in tripping him up. It’s just a small step and a leg out and Roco goes flying. Spike looks distinctly unbothered by the encounter.

-It’s admittedly a little strange that Spike just takes the pills that Roco offers him, without a moments thought.

-I love the brief turn into a first person perspective as Spike flips Roco forward and onto his back, it really gives you an idea of what it would be like to experience that.

-Another nice animated moment, as Spike reveals the ash plant after Jet has outlined just how much such a thing is worth. These two have a habit if surprising each other in these exposition scenes, as we have seen before.

-Faye gets a score against Jet when she suggests they keep the plant and sell it, and he hesitates for a second before denying this as a possibility: “You had to think about that” she teases.

-As Spike goes about investigating Roco, we got another arrangement of the previously heard “Forever Broke”, that I don’t believe has ever been commercially released. It’s as sad and cutting as ever though.

-Poor Roco gets worked over pretty bad by Piccaro and his toughs, to the point of getting a cigarette put out on his forehead. I believe this scene is a reference to the 1974 film Chinatown.

-Our first renditon of “Stella By Moor” is for the scene where Spike discovers Roco’s sister, and boy is it a heartbreaker. This xylophone tune manages to be sad, wistful and heartrending in 68 tight seconds. I understand it’s an instrumental take on the song “The Singing Sea”, which will pop up in its true form later on.

-Stella insists that Spike has “something beautiful inside”, which fits with the man we have gotten used to so far. He’s not a villain at all, and has gone out of his way to help others in the past.

-Faye takes care of business in her hunt for information, that’s for damn sure. In the initial scene she absorbs the leers and cat calls, then very straight-facedly pulls out a gun. We’ve gotten kind of used to Faye as a somewhat comedic character up to now, but this is a different side to her.

-If “Waltz For Venus” has a major issue, it is the under-developed nature of the villains of the piece. Having spent a great deal of time on the antagonists since the start of the show, this is now two sessions in a row where the bad guys are essentially an afterthought in relation to the episodes’ once-off protagonist. It didn’t work in “Heavy Metal Queen”, but does work here.

-I’m always a little surprised by the depiction of a gay sex scene that Faye walks in on. Surprised, that is, that the people behind the episode were happy for such a thing to be depicted. It’s courage you wouldn’t usually see from animation, even in Japan.

-It’s important that Roco faces a moment of decision, here as he decides to warn Spike about the men who are coming to kill him. He has, to quote Stella, “something beautiful inside” too.

-Faye’s intervention at the finale is something else, as she starts blasting away at the bad guys from on high. She’s certainly mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore.

-A nice moment when Roco demonstrates the bit of martial artistry that Spike imparted to him. But it’s just the light before the darkness.

-An excellent stylistic choice, as Roco is shot and the camera mostly focuses in on the ash plant getting smashed and destroyed. It’s a double whammy, for sure.

-Roco’s last words are pretty heart-breaking, and I’m struck that even at this dire moment he is still trying to make Spike impressed by him: “Master, you see it? I was fluid like water.” Tellingly, he wonders if he and Spike would have been friends if they had met in a different time in their lives. I’d say so.

-That’s two bounties successfully captured (taking the two groups as a single entity each) two bounties killed by the authorities before they could be claimed, one that was arrested before it could be claimed, one that escaped, one that was dead to begin with, two murdered before they could be claimed and now one that accidently killed himself before being claimed. I don’t think I’ll count Roco.

-While unstated, I think we can safely assume that Spike has paid for Stella’s treatment. I wonder what Faye would have to say about that.

-Spike’s judgement on Roco, to Stella, is that he was “exactly the guy you thought he was”. In a meta sense it’s a final word on what we should think of Roco, who really did have a heart of gold.

-Spike gets the pleasure of seeing “snow” on Venus as he departs, as “Stella By Moor” gets his second airing. It’s a gut punch of a moment, Spike surrounded by all this unexpected beauty, found in such harsh surrounds. A suitable final image for the session indeed.

Final Verdict: I sometimes find that “Waltz For Venus” gets relegated in remembrance of the show. Maybe that’s because of its genuinely tragic overtones, the lack of stand-out music or the way that the episode doesn’t quite pop like others though. Regardless, it’s a bit of shame: there is a lot to enjoy here, whether it is the look at this different kind of environment, Faye’s involvement giving her new dimensions, or this study of Spike as a person at conflict within himself. More importantly, it’s a big step up from last week. Coming up next, the Bebop completes the compliment.

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