One Avatar Character That Was Inspired By Cowboy Bebop

An Avatar: The Last Airbender character was partly inspired by Cowboy Bebop. The popular Japanese anime, Cowboy Bebop, originally aired in 1998 and 1999 and was broadcast a few years later in the US. Cowboy Bebop consists of 26 episodes and falls into the niche genre of neo-noir space western. Bebop revolutionized anime and became one of the most acclaimed anime shows of all time. It’s no surprise, then, that the show was a favorite of Avatar showrunners Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and that they would want to pay homage to three of their favorite Bebop characters.

In Bebop, three old men (named Antonio, Carlos, and Jobim after Brazilian musician Antônio Carlos Jobim) appear regularly, running into the Bebop crew on various planets in at least eight episodes, though they never seem to remember each other. The three old men are often comic relief within the surrounding action and became favorites of DiMartino and Konietzko. Because of their love for the three old men, DiMartino and Konietzko had a similar character appear four times in Avatar.

In the book Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Art of the Animated Series, written by Konietzko and DiMartino, it’s revealed that the recurring appearances of the Cabbage Merchant (also known as the Cabbage Man) in Avatar were inspired by the three old men from Cowboy Bebop. Konietzko writes:

The cabbage merchant became an unlikely recurring character… We thought it was a little silly at first having him conveniently appear wherever the gang happened to be. But we always loved the three old guys who kept popping up on various planets in one of our favorite series, Cowboy Bebop, so we got used to the idea.

Though Antonio, Carlos, and Jobim didn’t directly inspire the Cabbage Merchant, they influenced the decision to bring the character back after introducing him in Avatar season 1, episode 5, “The King of Omashu.” The Cabbage Merchant shows up in the Earth Kingdom a total of four times in Avatar season 1 and season 2. All four times, his cabbages and/or cabbage cart are destroyed – once by the earthbenders in Omashu, once by Aang in a small Earth Kingdom town, then at an Earth Kingdom checkpoint by a platypus bear, and finally an escaped rabaroo in Ba Sing Se. The first three times, the Cabbage Merchant responds with an agonized exclamation: “My cabbages!” The last time, he starts to say his catchphrase, but stops and throws a cabbage over his shoulder, saying, “Oh, forget it.”

The Cabbage Merchant is a fan-favorite recurring character in Avatar: The Last Airbender and has inspired fan artists and cosplayers since the show first aired in 2005. Though his appearances – and the appearances of the three old men in Cowboy Bebop – don’t seem to follow any logic, the payoff was well worth the risk that Konietzko and DiMartino took on a running gag involving an unlucky merchant and his beloved cabbages.

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