The American and European science fiction vision of the future predicts a state of being beyond the comprehension of modern-day humans. This is a very Buddhist mindset: future as Nirvana. Ironically, in Japanese science fiction, the future is basically the same as the present, a finite and comprehensible world, only with cooler toys. This is a very Western version of tomorrow. Why this inversion of futures has occurred, I can’t say, but I do know that deep down I find the Japanese vision of a future world where people still have bodies and smoke cigarettes and have limitations to be much more satisfying than the American/European future where we all become insubstantial ghosts in a great machine.
And in the Japanese version of the future, maybe we finally get to find out what happens after the last episode of Cowboy Bebop.