Green Bird

[BigShot Jordan]

Every now and then, a scene is so well crafted and its music is so beautiful that it will leave a person in awe, even after repeated viewings. To hear the music alone will revive the memory of scene with incredible clairity in one's mind. In The Ballad of Fallen Angels, episode five of the anime television series Cowboy Bebop, there is such a scene. This scene is set to the song Green Bird.
There are no other sound effects, there is no need. Though the beautiful piano and vocal melody of Green Bird contrasts with many of the images we are shown during this segment, the slow and slightly dazed state of Spike Spiegal's mind is represented oh so well. In a truly excellent form of character development, the parallels that run through Spike's mind as he falls out of the cathedral window really hit the mark. The falling glass and the falling rose petals, the current fight with Vicious and a similar fight from the past, the black roses from gun play and the red roses from a more peaceful time, all these parallels fit together yet remain intriguingly subtle. Lastly, the quiet and peaceful images in sepia add to the study in contrasts.
Green Bird is the eleventh track of the second original soundtrack for Cowboy Bebop entitled No Disc (VICL-60202). It is sung by Gabriela Robin who is also the vocalist for Cats on Mars which is also on No Disc (Cats on Mars is featured in episode 9, Jamming with Edward). The rest of the CD is a lot more hot & cool & anarchy & peace & potato-like. We asked Kanno Yoko during Anime Expo '99 what language the song was in and she said it was a mixture of English and Latin. The CD includes only a translation into Japanese, there are no lyrics in it's Latin-English mix.

i have found the english lyrics to the song also.
here they are:

Spring has come
Bugs stick their faces out of the ground
Birds are eating them

Spring has come
Children go to school
Stray dogs are bearing many puppies

Spring has come
Women face mirrors
Custard pie bakes
(repeat)



http://hameln.caltech.edu/~katy/cowboy/bwRedRose.jpg

http://hameln.caltech.edu/~katy/cowboy/bwSpikeOutWindow.jpg



http://hameln.caltech.edu/~katy/cowboy/bwSpikeEye.jpg


http://hameln.caltech.edu/~katy/cowboy/bwJuliaTouga.jpg


http://hameln.caltech.edu/~katy/cowboy/bwViciousSpike.jpg





















see you space cowboys.

[Japuka]

Well put. I remember that scene vividly. I too was in awe when I first saw it and even when I rewatched it several times more.

[KamuiX]

Just glancing over the boards when I saw this thread... The Green Bird scene was by far one of my favorites of the series.

And here's my two cels I was lucky to get from this awesome scene:

http://www.anime10.com/cels/brandon/valentine-lg.jpg
http://www.anime10.com/cels/brandon/julia-lg.jpg

[BigShot Jordan]

hiya KamuiX and welcome to the forum :wavey:

nice cels by the way.



i'm very glad to have another Bebop fan come to this forum.





[Edited by jordan on 03-11-2000 at 09:20 AM]

[KamuiX]

Hey'ya :)

Yeah, I absolutely love the CB series, the sweet animation tied in with the great music and story make it one of the best. Collecting cels from this series is currently my biggest hobby (other then playing videogames ...heehee) ;)

Anyways, I'll be posting all around the boards pretty frequently, 'cause I'm a general anime fanatic :D


Oh, and I just noticed your pic with Julia, here's my cel with the background:

http://www.anime10.com/cels/brandon/julia_total-lg.jpg
Sorry about the watermarks, this is for my web collection



See you space cowboy ...

[eva2000]

hi ya KamuiX and welcome to my forums :D

great cels btw :) you should pop in on the Fan Art/Images forum ;)

[Yui_Reborn]

Hang on a second here-do you actually OWN that cel of Faye? Judging by what I've seen lower-quality Faye cels go for, I would guess that one must have cost $200+!

Where does one even get fine cels like that?

[KamuiX]

Hi'ya,

Hello eva2000, thanks for the nice comments. I'll post more of my future images there.

Yep, they're both mine, but um ....trust me, you don't want to know how much they cost :heh:

But cel collecting generally isn't a cheap hobby, as most of the higher quality cels from popular series almost always tend to cost a pretty penny. I have about 30 cels in my collection, which I'll have posted with Anime10 here soon :)

[KamuiX]

Oops, forgot to add this:

If you want to get into cel collecting, there's quite a few places on the web you can go to but the best place to start is probably either cels.org or animanga.com. Cels of the quality that I've shown aren't easy to find, as there are many, many other collectors that are hunting for these. (Which is part of the reason why many higher quality cels cost so much ...:()

The best advice I can give is pick one series to collect from (two if you have money to blow), then follow each online dealer with just that one series. You'll have much better luck finding the cels you want. Keep in mind that many cels are already in somebody's collection, so to get that "perfect" scene you may have to purchase it from another collector - which usually turns out to be even more expensive (sometimes WAY more expensive) then getting it from a retailer.

[Edited by KamuiX on 08-11-2000 at 08:16 AM]

[Yui_Reborn]

Thanks for the info KamuiX! I envy your cel collection......sigh.......

Actually, I really needed another collectable that I absolutely must have and can't afford, thanks a lot! Mumble mumble mumble..............sob.......

[KamuiX]

Sure thing, but don't worry it's not alway so bad ...you can find cels from series like Tenchi at around $8 - $120 on average. But, don't get your heart set on Eva or Cowboy Bebop - Evangelion cels, if you can find them, are usually a minumum of $1000+ (Gainax never released cels to the public, which means those that are on the market are probably stolen). Cowboy Bebop cels, for key characters, cost anywhere between $100 (for mediocre shots) up to $1000+ depending on the shot. After a little shopping around it isn't too hard to pick a series that's affordable - problem is trying not to buy those "special" cels ....*sigh* :stareup:

Hope that helps :D

[heart havok]

:B:


YES! i am COMPLETELY enjoying Cowboy Bebop!! hell, i am ------- DYING for more!!! i've only seen eps 1-7 now {i can't believe it's taking me so long to get around to watching them!!!!} but they are {in the words of Theodore from "Four Rooms"!!!!!} "------- good. ------- good sir."!!!!!!


that scene is by far, ------- alone even , the best ------- scene i could imagine fitting in that anime!!!!!!! ANY ------- ANIME even!!!!!!!! that scene ALONE is possibly enough to shoot Cowboy Bebop to THIRD on my list!!!!!!!!! {note : before now, EVA and LAIN were the only anime on my list that had any specific order} but i can't wait to watch the rest!!!!!!!!!! it's ------- art.!!!!!!!!!!! no!!!!!!!!!!!! it's more than ------' art, it's a ------' masterpiece all in its own!!!!!!!!!!!!!


by the way, Big Shot, thanks for the title and lyrics to that song. Adieu.

[Otaku]

wow sounds like a great episode
i can't wait to get my tape