Axx°N N. wrote:Also, I've never heard anyone ever mention the manga, I sometimes forget they exist. They're just one of those manga that exist because everything has to have one. The anime has notable crew on every front, the manga were borth drawn by virtual nobodies.

Yeah, I have both the mainline manga as well as Shooting Star and when I do think about Bebop, I usually think more about the episodes than any story from the manga, even though they're not that bad.
Also, I get the feeling that the stories in the mainline manga were based on ideas for the show, but were scrapped for the episodes we got.
Fun fact: the magazines the two manga appeared in were shojo mags of all things.

I wonder how they even made a Cowboy Bebop manga. In my experience, the animation and music of the original are very important to the overall feel of the story. I mean, "Bebop"... It's in the name.
The same could apply to Evangelion and it certainly did. But Sadamoto changed the story so much it almost didn't matter. It's like reading something new. Is Bebop manga the same?

As stated above, there are two manga. One is the mainline manga where the chapters can fit in between the TV episodes. The stories range in my opinion from meh to me wishing it was actually part of the TV show (Like I said above, I have a feeling these stories were considered for the TV show, but were scrapped for the episodes we got). They also keep with the musical themes despite it only being a manga. For example, I think there was one story where a plot point hinged on the song "Nowhere Man" by the Beatles.

The second manga is called Shooting Star Bebop or Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star in the West. This manga is in it's own universe with its own character designs, stories and even characters and I think it was written during the show's abortive first run in 1998.

That's interesting. I strongly prefer a fresh story that fully leverages the strengths of the manga medium over a weaker retelling of existing anime material. So maybe I'll start with Shooting Star (awesome name, by the way). But it's good to know that the original manga is also good in its own way. I love when stories diverge like you described.