PACKAGING – RELATIONSHIP TO BEBOP
While I can understand your initial thought that the Digipack to Cowboy Bebop has no relationship to the series barring harking back to the era it was released – there are actually two things that it was chosen for that are a love letter to the series.
i. The 5.1 Surround Sound anniversary edition came out in Japan each disc was contained
ii. The fact Spike and Jet is chasing after a Betacam tape player in Speak Like a Child sparked our trail of thoughts on this too – they come back with a VHS player instead! So our BD release was modeled on VHS tapes for the digipack and the DVD set will be based on a Betamax. It’s subtle but we hope fans appreciate the link into that episode ^^.
Incidentally, we presented the release style and digipack to the original producer and now President of BONES, Masahiko Minami, who laughed with glee at Tokyo Anime Fair this year and said it was, and I quote, “Very in the style of Bebop.” As high a praise as I’m going to get, so it works for me!
That said, if you have any suggestions for future releases of Bebop for packaging do fire away with an email via the above ^^!