I saw this on krunk4ever and had to share it. I dunno if this is a recent thing or what, but this gif shows what appears to be Naruto heavily lifting some animation cues from a scene in Cowboy Bebop. Looks pretty incriminating to me. Perhaps the animation guys who did Cowboy Bebop were also on the Naruto team and this is just coincidence…
For more fun with plagiarism, check out the Slam Dunk incident that happened a while back.
Whoa… I never saw that…
My guess: Heck yeah, it was intentional. Plagiarism? Not so much that, as much as it’s a scene that gives a tip of the hat to CB. Well, that’s what I’d hope, anyways~
Let’s also not forget the time when Naruto referenced Jean-Luc Godard
Upper slide looks like the Cowboy Bebop movie, done by Bones. Don’t know about Naruto, but it sure aint bones
The plagarism incidents were well covered a while back. In fact, a lot of mangaka have actually been accused of it. Those of note are DGrayman’s mangaka and Inoue Takehiko. Cant remember the rest but there sure are a lot more.
So Spike knows Jyuuken? Why didn’t he use Kaiten in the last episode to save his own ass lol?
Morph: There’s a fine line between homage and plagiarism. I think this one crosses that line.
jpmeyer: Whoa, that totally went over my head. What are you talking about about?
Eleutheria: That was just my guess that they had the same director. Otherwise there’d be no justification at all for the blatant copying.
tjhan: Do you mean this particular incident was well covered? I’m interested in finding out if anything happened as a result of this gif. So far I haven’t had any luck, though.
From my understanding the Cowboy Bebop fight exceution itself isn’t unique but is rather a reference/homage to Bruce Lee since both Lee and Spike use Jeet Kun Do (I’v got no clue if I’ve got that spelled right). So it’s not so much that Naruto is coping Bebop but rather they are both doing homages to the work of the great, late Bruce Lee. That’s my understanding if the situation at least.
If they are actually following cues from their respective manga, some instances of the fights may be very similar but not exact, but when animated, appear exactly alike.
After all they put the “Good Guy” and the “Bad Guy” in opposite places.
Personally I’d like to see less of the DBZ motion blur used in the Naruto scene.
I like Naruto but please God end the filler. Untill then I may be forcing many “friends” to their deaths on anime such as Princess Princess.
if youre gonna copy. copy from the best. naruto and cowboy is waaaaay different. this is just a scene. maybe same makers. who knows? anyone know ?
No. Just no. Stop trying to defend Naruto up there, you jackanapes! It isn’t working!
I didn’t think I could dislike it any more than I already did. But this… my disrespect for the series’ unoriginality and inaccuracy has heightened.
Wow Arale… Touch a nerve? And no one was defending the show.
Anyway, that episode was financed and guidanced by Gainax who had something to do with the animation direction of Cowboy Bebop the movie. There, problem solved.
And even if thats not the case, Naruto was never that amazing of a series, but its fune and enjoyable nonetheless, and I don’t see why this should change anything seeing as those few frames of animation have nothing to do with the mangaka or even the main storyline.
lol, I meant “fun”
But meh, Gainax probably did it as a homage or repeat some frames for the sake of it. Disney did it alot, the ending of Beauty and the Beast where the prince and belle dance are repeated frames from Cinderella but redrawn. Its very common in animes and occurs alot within the same company, I don’t see why this should be any different.
I’ve seen this previously, my guess initially was that they were both referencing a particular scene in a Martial Arts movie. Chances are it’s a Bruce Lee one, due to the overt references to Bruce Lee in both series.
It is because the guy who did the key animation for the train scene in the Cowboy Bebop movie,Toshiyuki Tsuru, is the same guy who did the storyboarding for that episode of naruto. He reused his old work.
Cheers,
SB
@Crocodile: Yes, Spike practices a form of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do, which was created and made popular by the great Bruce Lee. However, the Cowboy Bebop scene itself, while employing the style of Jeet Kune Do, is original in camera angles and sequence. The Naruto scene is a blatant rip-off of the CB scene, as it is obvious the same shots and sequencies are copied.
@SB: I’m pretty sure Yutaka Nakamura was in charge of the art direction, choreography, and possible key animator of that train fight scene. I also don’t think he has had his hand in Naruto either.
wah~ that’s so cool~
The person who did the fight sceen for cowboy bebop is the same guy as the one in naruto. Also thats a common fight style, it was bound to come up again sooner or later.
lol. face it. even if the same art guy from CB had a part in making Naruto its still copying in a sense. the guy cant just put some of his old work into an old series (which is brilliant and amazing by the way) and put it into naruto, which i dislike.
Cowboy Bebop is MUCH better than Naruto. both the series and movie are amazing. oh, and yeah stop defending naruto. its really obvious your making stupid excuses like ‘homages’ just to think that your precious naruto isn’t bad. :p
I agree with Taellie!! Cowboy BeBop is a great series and Naruto isn’t. I don’t belive it’s the same person who does both shows. It’s plagiarism no matter how you look at it and it has only deepened my total direspect of Naruto anime. It doesn’t matter if its the same style or not. Bruce Lee is not the problem here it’s Naruto trying not to do there own work hoping no one will notice!! Well we did!! Thank you so much for letting us see this.
i believe both anime came from the same manga company? im not sure didnt research but yeah
ok, Naruto and CB are two totaly different shows. differnt time frames different everything you can t compare the two with wich one is better or worse, but i do think that naruto copied CB with that scene but who cares its just a t.v. show right….. anyway they did i nice job of doingit exactly though. wow.. : )
Franco was mentioning that the two were made by the same studio/production company, no the plot or genre, Roxer. And in truth, if they were made by the same studio then there would be no problem. However Franco doesnt no what he is talking about. Cowboy Bebop is an original anime, meaning there was no manga before the anime.
Back to what i was talking about, if they were the same studios, then they would be no confrontation because legally, the studio has the copyright. Generally, studios make their employies sign a waver so that any work they do for them is the studios property. So even if the director and the rest of the entire staff were the same, it would not make a difference because the studio has the rights to the cowboy bebop film.
However, you guys(especially you naruto haters) are pushing it out of perportion. The scene is 10secs, probably less. If the entire episode was full of rips from the movie, yeah the studio who made CB could sue. But its just 10 seconds or less. Another reason that they both have different audiences. One is a film targeting a more mature audience, the other is a weekly show with most of its viewers starting at high elementary to early highschool.
Like someone said before, its an homage. Movies and shows do it all the time.
I don’t hate Naruto, but Cowboy Bebop is far better.
Meh, Naruto is pretty derivative and unoriginal as a whole. Lifting that fight scence (and unless there’s some refrence to Cowboy Bebop in the credits after that particular episode, it stealing, not an homage) doesn’t really suprise me. They’re not specifically targeting CB though, there’s another .gif with Sasuke that mirrors Bruce Lee exactly from one of his movies. Also, the CB fight scene is original as far as I know, I’ve seen just about all of Bruce Lee’s movies (I’m a fan of Kung-Fu movies) and there is no scene like that in any of his movies I’ve seen, though I can’t be 100% sure on that.
The clips not really Bruce’s style though. Think of the Bruce Lee movies you’ve seen: The fights are surgical, clean. Bruce strikes quicly and confidently, it really never looks like there’s a chance he’ll lose (except in climactic ‘boss’ battles). This fight is more brutal and knock down-drag-out than a typical BL fight. Spike is grabbing Vincent and sluggin him, more like a streetfight than the styalized duals you’d expect from Bruce. If you have the movie and see the whole scene, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I’m pretty confident this is an entirely original scene from the makers of CB.
To kill this homage argument: Naruto is made for ‘tweens and teens. I’m 23 and watch it because it’s mindless fun from time to time, but the character developement, plot, and general tone of the series isn’t made for a mature audience. Cowboy Bebop, however, isn’t targeted at that demographic at all, it deals with tragedy, death, love, revenge, etc. Themes kids aren’t neccessarily drawn too. An homage is typically used in a way so that the audience will catch the refrence and enjoy it as a kind of ‘inside joke’. You’d have a hard time convincing me a typical Naruto fan would have appreciated CB enough to have bought the Movie (that scene isn’t from the series) and seen that part of the film to be able to recognize the reference, which is how an homage works. I won’t go so far as to call it stealing, because it IS just a couple of seconds, but you can’t really call it an homage either.
In any case, Naruto really is a mediocre anime (though like i said, it’s good mindless fun from time to time, when it tried to get dramatic it tends to fall flat) and I suggest you guys look into better titles with more complex plots and a good sense of drama. Cowboy Bebop is actually a good place to start, since we’re talking about it so much.
Don’t be weebo guys, just because it’s from Japan and listed as ‘anime’ doesn’t mean it’s quality material. Look for the good stuff.
Woah, I wrote a book.