First of all, Watanabe has created a future world full of terror and injustice for us. The inaction of the government and the police made it necessary for bounty hunters to exist. How should humans survive in an absurd universe? Maybe you can only choose to be indifferent. In such a world, what people can do is definitely not "help the world", so they can only "be good alone". Just to be a true existentialist. If you don't, you will suffer. This is especially true for bounty hunters. Spike is not much different from the male protagonists in traditional Westerns. It's just one driving a spaceship and one riding a horse. (In one of the episodes, Watanabe even arranged a bounty hunter on horseback directly.) He is not very like Clint Eastwood in good, evil, and ugly, but much like Jason Robards in the West. They all buried their painful past in their hearts and couldn't let go. In a world of existentialists who have long abandoned the dualism of good and evil, it is very dangerous to not forget the past. Personal heroism is also something that existentialists do not do. In the end Spike died, (Watanabe even shattered the audience's last hope with the disappearance of a guardian star at the end of the final episode.) He also failed to protect his lover. Don't blame Watanabe for being cruel, but blame the world for being absurd. After all, Spike cannot be an existential hero in a full sense, because it cannot be forgotten. Jeter is so similar to him, and Fei, who finally found her memory, can still be as carefree as before, caring nothing? So it seems that only the kid Ed is living smartly and happily.
Secondly, Watanabe emphasized the importance of the other. Existentialism magnifies the concept of the other infinitely, and the objectification of the subject is regarded as an important feature of modern society. There is nothing stranger than self. People have become accustomed to judging themselves with the eyes of others. In the world of space cowboys, those who were caught by some people offering high rewards, how many of them are really guilty and deserve to be put to death? A mushroom that can produce hallucinations, members of several animal protection groups... Spike, Jeter, and Fei also live in this big net created by others, and there are also people who want to take their lives. The Other is everywhere, even in the world of relatively free bounty hunters. Spike left the organization, Jet left the police station, and Fei fled the hospital. Efforts to get rid of the shackles of others proved to be a failure in the end. This is the dilemma of existentialism, that is, want to escape this absurd world but have to face it again.
Finally, Watanabe tried his best to portray the lonely mental state of the people in the play. Cigarettes, alcohol, and jazz are the best pronouns for loneliness, images that appear repeatedly in this animation. There is a rose here, but zero is being adjusted; there is love here, but don't expect a happy ending; there is friendship here, but most of them are mixed with hypocrisy. Only loneliness is the most real, and when existentialism comes to an end, only loneliness is left. Bacon said: "A person who likes loneliness is either a god or a beast." I even agree that there is both a god and a beast in a lonely person. This is the case with Mersault among the outsiders, who can see through the absurdity of the world like a god, and kill the pimp like a beast. Spike also contains these two personalities. And when the loneliness comes to an end, only death is left. Death may be his best destination, bury the painful past, and now he can finally start to forget it. Jeter, Fei finally stayed, they still have to face the vast universe and endless loneliness.
In short, liking space cowboys is a happy and painful thing. What is happy is that it is so well-made, it is definitely a pleasure to see it; what is painful is the loneliness that invades the bone marrow, which seems to linger no matter what.
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