Name: Cowboy Bebop
Released: 1998

Cowboy Bebop

カウボーイビバップ

1998 -1999 Sunrise TV Tokyo / WOWOW 26 episodes Completed

Action Sci-Fi Neo-Noir Western

In the year 2071, humanity has colonized the solar system. Two bounty hunters, Spike Spiegel, a languid ex-syndicate hitman who moves like water and fights like something out of a Bruce Lee film, and Jet Black, a retired cyborg cop with a conscience, drift through space aboard the Bebop chasing criminals for cash they never quite manage to keep. They are joined, eventually, by Faye Valentine, a gambling amnesiac with a past she can't access; Ed, a hacker prodigy who exists somewhere between genius and feral animal; and Ein, a corgi of unusual intelligence.

Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and scored by Yoko Kanno, Cowboy Bebop is 26 sessions of the most confidently realized anime ever made. Jazz, blues, rock, opera, the soundtrack alone is a masterpiece. The animation is cinematic. The writing is lean and ruthless. Every episode is its own genre film. The finale is one of the best ever committed to any medium.

TV Tokyo initially aired it in 1998 and pulled it after 12 episodes for being too adult. WOWOW aired the complete series. Adult Swim launched with it in 2001. The rest is history.

You're gonna carry that weight.

Spike Spiegel

Protagonist

Lanky, perpetually underfed, carries himself like someone who learned to move from watching Bruce Lee films. Former Red Dragon syndicate enforcer who faked his death and ended up on a bounty hunting ship going nowhere in particular. One eye sees the present, one eye sees the past, and the show is honest about which one he spends more time looking through. Everything about Spike is performance layered over damage layered over a man who decided a long time ago that he was already dead. The martial arts are Jeet Kune Do influenced, fluid and economical and absolutely lethal when required. The philosophy is whatever happens, happens. The reality underneath that is more complicated and he knows it.

+23 LORE

Jet Black

Protagonist

Former ISSP officer. Lost his arm to a betrayal the show gives him time and space to explain on his own terms. The Bebop is his ship and the crew is functionally his family whether he uses that word or not. Grows bonsai. Cooks for everyone. Runs the bounty logistics with a practical competence that holds the entire operation together while Spike generates the chaos around him. Jet is the grounding wire. Paternal without being soft, principled without being rigid, and the most complete human being on the ship by a comfortable margin.

+10 LORE

Ganymede Elegy Gives Jet the Explanation He Wanted Too Late Past, Memory & Moving On Black Dog Serenade Closes the ISSP Chapter Without Reopening It Past, Memory & Moving On Asteroid Blues Tells You What Kind of Show This Is Session Guide Stray Dog Strut Gives the Bebop a Dog Instead of a Payday Session Guide Honky Tonk Women Introduces Faye as a Problem the Crew Cannot Get Rid Of Session Guide Ganymede Elegy Gives Jet His Own Version of Spike's Problem Session Guide Black Dog Serenade Shows Why Jet Left the ISSP Session Guide Speak Like a Child Gives Faye Something Money Cannot Recover Session Guide Jet on the Bebop: The Person Who Keeps the Place Running The Bebop Crew Spike and Jet Rarely Say What Their Friendship Is The Bebop Crew

Faye Valentine

Protagonist

Arrived via cryogenic pod and a stack of debt that was not technically hers but got assigned to her anyway. Con artist, sharp, self-protective, presenting a front of pure mercenary disinterest that the show quietly and consistently undermines across twenty-six episodes. Faye does not know who she was before the freezing. The search for that person runs underneath everything she does and every wall she builds. The tough act is real. So is everything underneath it. One of the great slow-burn character studies in the medium.

+11 LORE

My Funny Valentine Explains Why Faye Distrusts Every Rescue Past, Memory & Moving On Speak Like a Child Lets Faye Meet Herself Past, Memory & Moving On Hard Luck Woman Gives Faye an Address With No Home Left in It Past, Memory & Moving On Honky Tonk Women Introduces Faye as a Problem the Crew Cannot Get Rid Of Session Guide Jupiter Jazz Pulls Spike, Faye and Gren Toward Different Ghosts Session Guide My Funny Valentine Makes Faye's Amnesia Personal Session Guide Speak Like a Child Gives Faye Something Money Cannot Recover Session Guide Hard Luck Woman Lets Faye and Ed Find the Past and Choose Different Futures Session Guide Faye Before the Tape: Never Owe Anyone Enough to Need Them The Bebop Crew Faye After the Tape: Proof Is Not the Same as Recovery The Bebop Crew Hard Luck Woman Changes the Bebop Before the Finale Does The Bebop Crew

Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV

Protagonist

Self-named. Genius hacker. Perpetually barefoot. Possibly the most gifted person on the Bebop by a significant margin and operating in a frequency the rest of the crew cannot quite tune to. The show uses that gap for comedy and for something considerably lonelier underneath the comedy. Her relationship with Ein is the warmest thread the series produces. What she decides at the end of her arc is Bebop being honest about what found family can and cannot fix, and it lands harder than it has any right to.

+5 LORE

Jamming with Edward Completes the Bebop's Accidental Family Session Guide Hard Luck Woman Lets Faye and Ed Find the Past and Choose Different Futures Session Guide Ed Treats the Bebop as a Place to Visit, Not a Place to Be Saved The Bebop Crew Ein Leaves With Ed The Bebop Crew Hard Luck Woman Changes the Bebop Before the Finale Does The Bebop Crew

Ein

Supporting

Data dog. Welsh Corgi. Hyper-intelligent in ways the show demonstrates consistently without ever fully explaining. Ein is aware of considerably more than the crew gives him credit for and the crew already gives him substantial credit. Operates as a unit with Ed. Cowboy Bebop is many things and one of them is a show that understood completely what it was doing when it put a good dog on a ship full of broken people.

+6 LORE

Session 2: Abdul Hakim Bounty Hunt Ledger Stray Dog Strut Gives the Bebop a Dog Instead of a Payday Session Guide Jamming with Edward Completes the Bebop's Accidental Family Session Guide Hard Luck Woman Lets Faye and Ed Find the Past and Choose Different Futures Session Guide Ein Leaves With Ed The Bebop Crew Hard Luck Woman Changes the Bebop Before the Finale Does The Bebop Crew

Vicious

Antagonist

Spike's former partner in the Red Dragon syndicate. Carries a katana and a bird. Cold in the specific way that people are cold when they have removed the parts of themselves that found warmth inconvenient. Vicious is not a complicated character and the show does not try to make him one. He is the path Spike did not take, or the path Spike was always going to end up back on, depending on how you read the series. The blade to Spike's gun. They were the same once and the show never lets you forget it.

+10 LORE

Ballad of Fallen Angels Makes Vicious More Real Than Spike's New Life Past, Memory & Moving On The Real Folk Blues Removes the Distance Between Memory and Reality Past, Memory & Moving On Spike, Vicious & Julia: The Tragic Triad Red Dragon Syndicate Ballad of Fallen Angels Is the First Time Spike Stops Pretending the Past Is Over Session Guide Jupiter Jazz Pulls Spike, Faye and Gren Toward Different Ghosts Session Guide The Real Folk Blues Ends the Story Spike Has Been Living in All Along Session Guide Spike Spiegel vs. Vicious (Cathedral Showdown) Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Gren & Vicious Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Lin & Syndicate Death Squad Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Vicious & Red Dragon Syndicate Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger

Julia

SPOILER!

Supporting

Appears late. Casts a shadow over everything that comes before her. The woman Spike left the syndicate for and the woman the syndicate used as leverage against him. Julia is Bebop's central absence, the figure whose presence in memory shapes Spike's entire trajectory across the series. The show earns her arrival carefully and deliberately, parceling out what she means through implication and silence long before she is on screen. When she finally arrives she means exactly what she was always meant to mean.

+4 LORE

Jupiter Jazz Turns Julia Into a Direction More Than a Person Past, Memory & Moving On The Real Folk Blues Removes the Distance Between Memory and Reality Past, Memory & Moving On Spike, Vicious & Julia: The Tragic Triad Red Dragon Syndicate The Real Folk Blues Ends the Story Spike Has Been Living in All Along Session Guide

Laughing Bull

Supporting

The shaman. Appears briefly, twice, and speaks to Spike in metaphors about stars and fate that are easier to dismiss than they are to forget. Laughing Bull is Bebop's spiritual register, the show acknowledging that underneath the jazz and the noir and the bounty-of-the-week structure there is something older and quieter being asked. He does not explain it. He does not need to. See you, space cowboy.

Cowboy Bebop

Session Guide

Sessions 1–5: The Crew and the Past Arrive

Asteroid Blues Tells You What Kind of Show This Is

Stray Dog Strut Gives the Bebop a Dog Instead of a Payday

Honky Tonk Women Introduces Faye as a Problem the Crew Cannot Get Rid Of

Ballad of Fallen Angels Is the First Time Spike Stops Pretending the Past Is Over

Sessions 6–11: Standalone Stories Build the World

The 'Standalone' Sessions Are Doing Character Work

Waltz for Venus Shows the Version of Spike Other People See

Jamming with Edward Completes the Bebop's Accidental Family

Ganymede Elegy Gives Jet His Own Version of Spike's Problem

Toys in the Attic Lets the Bebop Become Its Own Haunted House

Sessions 12–18: Everybody Starts Looking Back

The Past Stops Staying in the Background

Jupiter Jazz Pulls Spike, Faye and Gren Toward Different Ghosts

My Funny Valentine Makes Faye's Amnesia Personal

Black Dog Serenade Shows Why Jet Left the ISSP

Speak Like a Child Gives Faye Something Money Cannot Recover

Sessions 19–26: The Crew Starts Coming Apart

The Last Stretch Removes the Places Everyone Was Hiding

Pierrot le Fou Makes Spike Look Mortal

Brain Scratch Gives the Series a Different Kind of Escape

Hard Luck Woman Lets Faye and Ed Find the Past and Choose Different Futures

The Real Folk Blues Ends the Story Spike Has Been Living in All Along

Bebop Adventures Part 1

Red Dragon Syndicate Part 1

Bebop Adventures Part 2

Red Dragon Syndicate Part 2

Bebop Adventures Part 3

Red Dragon Syndicate Part 3

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