a production team led by director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto,

character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane,

and composer Yoko Kanno. The twenty-six episodes (sessions) of the series

are set in the year 2071. It follows the adventures, misadventures and

tragedies of a bounty hunter crew travelling on the Bebop, their starship. Cowboy

Bebop explores philosophical concepts including existentialism, existential

ennui, loneliness, and the past's influence.

The series premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from April 3 until June 26, 1998,

broadcasting only twelve episodes and a special due to its controversial content.

The entire twenty-six episodes of the series were later broadcast on WOWOW from

October 24 until April 24, 1999. The anime was adapted into two manga series

which were serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Asuka Fantasy DX. A film was later

released to theaters worldwide.

The anime series was dubbed in the English language by Animaze and ZRO Limit

Productions, and was licensed by Bandai Entertainment in North America. For

English releases in the United Kingdom, it was licensed by Beez Entertainment

and is now licensed by Anime Limited. Madman Entertainment has licensed it for

releases in Australia and New Zealand. In 2001, Cowboy Bebop became the first

anime title to be broadcast on Adult Swim in the United States. Since then, the

series has aired continuously in rotation due to its success.

Cowboy Bebop received universal critical acclaim and is often considered to be a

masterpiece. The series became a commercial success both in Japanese and

international markets, most notably in the United States. The series has become

a cult classic and garnered major science fiction awards and international

praise for its characters, story, voice acting, animation and soundtrack.

Plot

Setting

The series is set in the year 2071, when the entire Solar System has been made

accessible through hyperspace gates. In 2022, an explosion of an experimental

hyperspace gateway severely damages the Moon, resulting in a debris ring and

meteor bombardments that eradicate a large portion of the Earth's population. As

a result, many survivors abandon the barely habitable Earth to colonize the

inner planets, the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter.

Mars has become the new central hub of human civilization, and interplanetary

crime syndicates exert influence over the government and the Inter-Solar System

Police (ISSP), limiting their effectiveness. As a result, a bounty system

similar to that in the Old West is established to deal with fugitives,

terrorists, and other criminals; the bounty hunters involved are frequently

termed "cowboys". The standard currency is the woolong, which is roughly

equivalent to the present-day Japanese yen.

The technology in Cowboy Bebop's world is a mixture of futuristic (cybernetics,

jump gates, energy weapons) and modern (wheeled cars, handguns, zippo-styled

lighters). Yet, even technology often looks a bit older and battered.

The three main classes of vehicles present are ground vehicles, air vehicles and

space vehicles. Ground vehicles are wheeled automobiles not much different from

modern automobiles. Aircraft are mostly jet-powered, although helicopters are

also seen. Spaceships range in size from small one-man fighters to immense

passenger liners and cargo ships.

Story

The series revolves around the adventures undertaken by the crew of the

spaceship Bebop. The crew is made up of five main characters: Spike Spiegel, an

exiled hitman of the ruthless Red Dragon Syndicate; Jet Black, a former ISSP

officer who retired following a mob hit that cost him his arm; Faye Valentine,

an amnesiac con artist who awakened in the future after a lengthy period of

cryogenic hibernation; "Radical" Edward, a barefooted preteen girl who is a

prolific computer hacker; and Ein, a hyper-intelligent, genetically-engineered

Welsh Corgi dog.

Throughout the series, Bebop crew members deal with unresolved issues from their

pasts, and the show regularly utilizes flashbacks to illustrate the history of

the main characters. The day-to-day life of the crew is also explored throughout

the series.

Characters

Spike Spiegel is a former member of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate. Spike is a

master in firearms and hand-to-hand combat, practicing Jeet Kune Do, and is also

a skilled pilot. He flies a red customized Mono Racer, an atmosphere-capable

spacecraft called Swordfish II. His right eye is cybernetic. He is haunted by

the memory of his time in the syndicate, and particularly by his romantic

relationship with a mysterious woman named Julia, and his conflict with arch-rival

and former syndicate partner, Vicious. He is also a pickpocket. He is the first

bounty hunter to debut.

Jet Black is a former ISSP (Inter-Solar System Police) detective and is the

owner of the Bebop. Once called The Black Dog by his fellow officers, he left

the ISSP in disgust due to its corruption and red tape, and turned to bounty

hunting as a way to apply justice. Although medical science could replace his

lost arm, he voluntarily wears a cybernetic prosthetic as a reminder of the

consequences of rushing into danger. He also owns a small yellow utility ship

called Hammerhead. The Hammerhead has been equipped with a mechanical claw, and

a harpoon that can be used as a tow cable. Like Spike, he too is haunted by the

memory of a woman, Alisa, his longtime girlfriend who left him without reason.

He is the second bounty hunter to debut.

Faye Valentine is a novice bounty hunter with a gambling addiction. She joins

the crew of the Bebop uninvited, to the consternation of Jet and Spike. Though

she abandons the ship several times during the course of the series, her

attachment to the crew always brings her back. These feelings are apparently

reciprocated, as Jet and Spike always allow her to return despite claiming they're

pleased to see her leave. She pilots a generic heavy spacecraft called Red Tail,

which gets its name from the red flap on the back of the otherwise pale blue

ship, and has been heavily modified with armament and tracking sensors. Her

gambling, cheating, and competitive skills are unrivaled except by Spike. Much

of her past and her real last name are a mystery, however it appears that she

was severely injured in a space shuttle accident and was then cryogenically

frozen until she could be healed. This expensive medical procedure left her

deeply in debt, made worse when she inherited the debts of her husband (a man

who married her shortly after her surgery, then later faked his death in an

automobile accident). She emerges from the cryonic sleep in an amnesiac state,

from which she eventually recovers. All vestiges of her past — home, family,

possessions — are gone. She is the fourth bounty hunter to debut.

Edward is a young computer genius and master hacker. She uses the alias Radical

Edward when hacking. Ed is a girl, though her name and androgynous appearance

suggest otherwise. She had followed the travels of the Bebop before encountering

the ship, and agrees to help the crew track down a bounty-head in exchange for

becoming a member of the crew. Although extremely intelligent, Ed is still a

child, and looks up to the crew of the Bebop as members of her family. She uses

the fanciful name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV, but an odd encounter with

her father reveals that her real name is Françoise Appledelhi. She spends much

of her time with Ein. She is the fifth and last bounty hunter to debut.

Ein is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a former lab animal identified as a "data dog" by

the scientists who reared him. The scientists used him for unspecified

experiments, enhancing him to give him extraordinary data-sniffing and pattern-recognition

abilities. It is suggested that he possesses enhanced intelligence, which he

subtly displays throughout the series, including showing the ability to speak to

other animals (and possibly Ed), and perfectly hacking the Scratch website in

session #23. The rest of the Bebop crew, with the exception of Ed, often fail to

notice these qualities and treat Ein as an average pet. He is the third bounty

hunter to debut.

Vicious is a grim enforcer of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate, a former friend of

Spike and now his nemesis. Vicious wields a katana for a weapon and is always

accompanied by a strange, crow-like bird perched on his shoulder. He lives up to

his name both through his violent actions and his treacherous scheming within

the syndicate. Vicious is the series' only recurring antagonist, appearing in

five episodes.

Production

In the late 1990s the space adventure genre was a very popular TV theme in Japan.

Notable examples of such include Sunrise's Outlaw Star and Madhouse's Trigun.

Sunrise became very enthusiastic to create a series of the same genre and

consequently assigned its top talents towards its development.

The leader of the creative team was director Shinichiro Watanabe, most notable

at the time for directing Macross Plus, the futuristic adventure anime OVA

series, and Mobile Suit Gundam. Other leading members of Sunrise's creative

team were screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto,

mechanical art designer Kimitoshi Yamane and composer Yoko Kanno. Most of them

had previously worked together, in addition to having credits on other popular

anime titles. Nobumoto had scripted Macross Plus, Kawamoto had designed the

characters for Gundam, and Kanno had composed the music for Macross Plus and The

Vision of Escaflowne. Yamane had not worked with Watanabe yet, but his credits

in anime included Bubblegum Crisis and The Vision of Escaflowne.

Watanabe wanted to create a program that would also appeal to adults, exploring

a number of philosophical concepts and themes in the process. The most important

of the many elements of Cowboy Bebop were its existentialist and philosophical

concepts. The dialogue of the series was kept "clean", but its level of

sophistication was appropriate to adults in a criminal milieu. Themes such as

drug dealing and homosexuality were key elements of some episodes.

The series' art direction centers on American music and counterculture,

especially the beat and jazz movements of the 1940s–1960s and the early rock and

roll era of the 1950s–1970s, which the original soundtrack by Yoko Kanno and the

Seatbelts defines.

The atmospheres of the planets and racial groups in Cowboy Bebop mostly

originate from Watanabe's ideas, with some collaboration from set designers

Isamu Imakake, Shoji Kawamori, and Dai Satou. The staff of Cowboy Bebop

established the particular atmospheres early in the production. In early

production, ethnic groups were not fully established. Watanabe wanted to have

many racial groups appear in Cowboy Bebop.

Mars was the planet most often used in storylines in Cowboy Bebop. Satoshi Toba,

the cultural and setting producer, explained that other planets "were

unexpectedly difficult to use". Toba explained that each planet in Cowboy Bebop

had unique features, and in the plot the producers had to take into account the

characteristics of each planet. Toba explained that it was not possible for the

staff of Cowboy Bebop to have a dramatic rooftop scene occur on Venus, so "we

ended up normally falling back to Mars".

Analysis

Style and appeal

Several planets and space stations in the series are shown to be made in the

Earth's image. The streets of celestial objects such as Ganymede resemble a

modern port city, while Mars is replete with shopping malls, theme parks,

casinos and cities. Cowboy Bebop's universe is filled with video players and

hyperspace gates, eco-politics and fairgrounds, spaceships and Native American

shamans. Futuristic elements are combined with the modern elements, "allowing

audiences to easily connect with the Cowboy Bebop world".

In his review of Cowboy Bebop, Miguel Douglas, editor-in-chief of iSugoi.com,

describes the style of the series:

the series distinctly establishes itself outside the realm of conventional

Japanese animation and instead chooses to forge its own path. With a setting

within the realm of science fiction, the series wisely offers a world that seems

entirely realistic considering our present time. Free from many of the elements

that accompany science fiction in general — whether that be space aliens, giant

robots, or laser guns — the series delegates itself towards presenting a world

that is quite similar to our own albeit showcasing some technological advances.

Certainly not as pristine a future we would see in other series or films, Cowboy

Bebop decides to deliver a future that closely reflects that of our own time.

This aspect of familiarity does wonders in terms of relating to the viewer, and

it presents a world that certainly resembles our very own.

Daryl Surat of Otaku USA commented on the series' "broad-ranging" appeal due to

its style:

Cowboy Bebop was that rare breed of science-fiction: "accessible". Unlike many

anime titles, viewers weren’t expected to have knowledge of Asian culture —

character names, signs, and the like were primarily in English to begin with —

or have seen any other anime series prior.

Susan J. Napier argues, in her book Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke:

Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation, that anime increasingly "exists at

a nexus point in global culture…an amorphous new media territory that crosses

and intermingles national boundaries". Napier goes on to point out that many

Japanese commentators refer to anime with the term mukokuseki, meaning "stateless".

This implies that much anime is not specifically Japanese and therefore lacks a

distinct national identity. Napier states that this "very quality of 'statelessness'

has increasing attraction in our global culture". It is said that Cowboy Bebop

reflects this and it is a great part of the show's appeal.

Genre and cultural references

Watanabe's main inspiration for Cowboy Bebop was Lupin III, a crime anime series

from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. According to Watanabe, the series

paid subtle tribute to his favorite American films and series, which were shown

in Japan during that time, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bruce