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Cowboy Bebop
カウボーイビバップ (Kaubōi Bibappu)
Demographic	Seinen
Genre	Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Science Fiction, Space western
TV anime: Cowboy Bebop
Director	Shinichiro Watanabe
Writer	Keiko Nobumoto
Studio	Sunrise, Bandai Visual
Network	TV Tokyo (1998-04-03 to 1998-06-19, 12 episodes only) WOWOW (1998-10-23 to 1999-04-23, Full Series) Animax (full series)
Other networks: Animax Cartoon Network (full series) Cartoon Network (Adult Swim) Cuatro, Canal 33 GMA Network CNX, AnimeCentral TMF MTV A+ Hyper, TVP Kultura CCTV-6 Razer ABC2 SIC Radical
Original run	April 3, 1998 – April 23, 1999
Episodes	26
Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (天国の扉)
Director	Shinichiro Watanabe
Writer	Keiko Nobumoto
Studio	Sunrise BONES Bandai Visual[2]
Released	September 1, 2001
Other countries: August 30, 2002 March 6, 2003 May 5, 2003 2002 July 1, 2003 September 12, 2003 October 1, 2003 April 6, 2004
Runtime	115 min.
Manga: Cowboy Bebop
Author	Hajime Yatate Yutaka Nanten (art)
Publisher	Kadokawa Shoten
Other publishers: Tokyopop Editora JBC EMA
Serialized in	Monthly Asuka
Original run	April 1999 – April 2000
Volumes	3[3]

Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ, Kaubōi Bibappu^?) is a Japanese anime series created by Sunrise. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto, it consists of 26 episodes (called "sessions") and one feature-length film. It follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071.

Cowboy Bebop was a commercial success both in Japan and worldwide, notably in the United States. After its commercial success, Sony Pictures released the Cowboy Bebop movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door to theaters worldwide and followed up with an international DVD release. Two Cowboy Bebop manga series were adapted based on the anime, as well as two video games, one each for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles.

Cowboy Bebop has been strongly influenced by American music, especially the jazz movements of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and the early rock era of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many of its action sequences, from space battles to hand-to-hand martial arts combat, are set and timed to music. Episodes are called Sessions (in reference to musicians playing a "jam session"), and titles are often borrowed from album or song names (such as Sympathy for the Devil or My Funny Valentine), or make use of a genre name (Mushroom Samba and Jupiter Jazz), indicating the episode's musical theme.

Further information: List of Cowboy Bebop episodes

In the year 2071, the crew of the spaceship Bebop travel the solar system trying to apprehend bounties. In the slang of the era, "Cowboys" are bounty hunters. Most episodes revolve around a specific bounty, but the show often shares its focus with the pasts of one of each of the four main characters and of more general past events, which are revealed and brought together as the series progresses.

In the year 2021, ring-shaped hyperspace gateways were constructed across the solar system, allowing easy interplanetary travel. Unfortunately, the gate network contained a fatal instability that was ignored by the contractors who built the system. The instability grew until a gateway near Earth exploded, releasing a powerful burst of energy that cracked the Moon. In a cataclysmic disaster referred to as "The Gate Accident", meteoric debris from the devastated Moon rained down on the planet, destroying much of Earth's surface. The death toll was by far the most catastrophic in recorded history; around 4.7 billion lives were lost in the initial incident alone. Decades later, debris from the disaster still falls on Earth with the same frequency as rainstorms ("rock showers" are a part of daily weather forecasts), forcing those remaining on Earth to live mostly underground. Most left Earth after the Gate Incident and spread out across the solar system, living in colonies on Venus, Mars, some habitable asteroids, Saturn's moon Titan, and the Galilean moons of Jupiter, as well as many space stations and a penal colony on Pluto. As shown by posters and ads the solar community is very interracial and English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese are some of the languages shown to be currently used. The total population of the solar system in 2071, when the series takes place, is only 1.5 billion.^[4]

Many of Mars' impact craters were domed and transformed into thriving metropolitan areas for those who could afford it. Venus was terraformed, with oxygen provided by a species of oxygen-producing plants floating in the atmosphere. This is not a perfect process, however, since the spores of these plants cause “Venus Sickness” in some people. This condition, left untreated, may lead to blindness or death, and proper treatment is expensive. Many moons of Jupiter, such as Callisto, Io, Europa, and Ganymede, have been terraformed and colonized with varying degrees of success. Callisto is a cold, inhospitable moon (with the entirely male city, Blue Crow), while Io is a volcanic ball of sand with a toxic atmosphere. Meanwhile, Ganymede is almost completely covered by water and is known for its declining fishing industry. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is a barren desert world whose population has been at war since the 2060s. The Titan War II in 2068 was survived by veterans such as Vicious, Gren, Vincent, and Electra. There is a Solar System Penitentiary on Pluto, and certain asteroids (such as Tijuana, the asteroid colony seen in the first episode) have been colonized for their minerals and other natural resources.

After the advent of space travel, the bounty system of the Old West was reinstated by the government to help curb growing crime levels. Bounty hunters are encouraged to capture criminals and return them (alive and relatively unharmed) to the authorities for monetary rewards, in part through a regular television broadcast of "Big Shots", a bounty-hunter news program featuring a heavily-accented Mexican and a perky blonde with mostly-exposed breasts. These bounty hunters are now referred to as "Cowboys" in slang. In addition, ruthless crime syndicates have large influence in the Solar System, indulging in such fields as bribery, murder, extortion, drug dealing, money laundering and other criminal offenses. The Woolong is the universal currency, and paper money is less common since more people carry convenient money cards and rely on digital transfers.

The technology in the world of Cowboy Bebop has undergone advances to accommodate 21st century life in the Solar System. Medical advancements such as artificial organs, organ regrowth and cryogenic freezing have been mastered and are in full use. Home entertainment hardware called “Alfa Catch” provide a mind-machine interface for capturing or projecting images, games and movies. Virtual reality gaming is standard, and analog hardware such as videocassettes (VHS or beta) can only be found as antiques. Finally, World Wide Web has evolved into a massive Solar System Web (SSW). With these technological advancements also came a new breed of hackers, known as "Net Divers" in slang.

Space travel is made relatively easy and casual however artificial gravity is still limited to centrifugal force. Some directed energy weapons have also been built but principally ballistic and explosive weapons are used. In addition to that many gun models present today are widely used in the series.

Main article: List of Cowboy Bebop characters

Promotional poster of Cowboy Bebop, featuring the crew of the Bebop.

The series features distinctively different main characters. The first two introduced in the series are Spike Spiegel and Jet Black. The two pilot their spaceship, the Bebop, and work as bounty hunters. Spike is a former member of the Red Dragon crime syndicate who is haunted by a past love triangle between his former syndicate partner, Vicious, and a mysterious woman named Julia. Jet is a former Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP) officer and the owner of the Bebop. Once called "The Black Dog" by his fellow officers for his relentless nature, he bears a cybernetic arm as constant reminder of what happened when he rushed into trouble without looking first. Like Spike, he is haunted by the memory of a woman: Alisa, his longtime girlfriend who left him without notice.

More characters are introduced and become members of the Bebop crew. The first was Ein, a Welsh Corgi and former lab animal identified as a "data dog" by the scientists who created him. The terminology for this title is never explained, however it is suggested that he possesses enhanced intelligence (exceeding even that of humans) as he is seen in a later episode hacking into a computer system with great ease, whereas all previous attempts by the other characters had failed. In spite of his enhanced intelligence and comprehension, he is usually depicted as a regular dog and often spends most of his time hanging around the ship. Next was Faye Valentine, an amnesiac, awakened from a 54-year cryogenic slumber. She is tricked into assuming the debt of the man that woke her, and constantly attempts to gamble on quick cash as a solution to her problems. Her past is a mystery, even to herself, and is unraveled progressively throughout the series. The last addition was Edward, a young, eccentric computer genius and master hacker. Though she is a girl, there is a popular confusion as to Ed's gender. She gave herself the long and fanciful name "Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV" after being abandoned at an orphanage by her father, but it is revealed later on that her real name is Françoise Appledelhi. She goes by the name Radical Edward when hacking.

The main antagonist is Vicious, Spike's former syndicate partner. Though he is not featured in most of the episodes, he is mentioned and shown in flashbacks in several episodes throughout the series. Other antagonists include a variety of bounty-heads that the crew hunt to collect funding.

Cowboy Bebop almost didn't appear on Japanese broadcast television due to its depictions of violence. It was first sent to TV Tokyo, one of the main broadcasters of anime in Japan. The show had an aborted first run from April 3, 1998 until June 19, 1998 on TV Tokyo, broadcasting only episodes 2, 3, 7 to 15 and 18.

Later that year, the series was shown in its entirety from October 23 until April 23, 1999, on the satellite network WOWOW.^[5] With the Tv Tokyo broadcast slot fiasco, the production schedule was disrupted to the extent that the last episode was delivered to WOWOW on the day of its broadcast. Cowboy Bebop won the Seiun Award in 2000.

The full series has also been broadcast across Japan by the anime television network, Animax, who has also aired the series via its respective networks across Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. Cowboy Bebop was popular enough that the movie, Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira (Knockin' on Heaven's Door), was commissioned and released in Japan in 2001, and later released in the United States as Cowboy Bebop: The Movie in 2003.

In a 2006 poll by TV Asahi, Cowboy Bebop was voted 40th for Japan's all-time favorite anime.^[6]

On September 2, 2001, Cowboy Bebop became the first anime title to be shown as part of the U.S. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block.^[7] It was successful enough to be broadcasted repeatedly for four years.

• In the United Kingdom, Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast in 2002 as one of the highlights of the ill-fated "cartoon network for adults", CNX. As of November 6, 2007, it is being repeated on AnimeCentral.
• In Australia, Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast in 2002 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and began broadcasting on ABC2, a digital free-to-air network, on January 2, 2007.
• In France, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during summer 2000 on Canal+.
• In Germany, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 2003-2004 on MTV.
• In Poland, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast several times by Hyper and TVP Kultura.
• In Israel, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 2001-2002 on Bip's late-night anime block.
• In Spain, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 1999 in Buzz, during the early 2000s in K3's 3XL.net and the summer of 2006 on Cuatro's late-night show Cuatrosfera.
• In Canada, Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast on December 24, 2006, on Razer.
• In Italy, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast after November 1999 on MTV and again in 2007.
• In Singapore, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast on Arts Central at the 11 pm time slot, and had several scenes cut for violence and other graphic content.
• In Portugal, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast on SIC Radical in 2001 and again in 2007.
• In The Netherlands, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast by TMF in 2005 Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, starting September.
• In Latin America, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast in 1999 on Locomotion.

Cowboy Bebop contains strong violence, language, and brief nudity. The given ratings are TV-MA in the USA, while the Adult Swim broadcast is rated TV-14 with edits), M and MA15+ in Australia, 14A, 18A and 16+ in Quebec, Canada, 12 and 15 in Britain and 16 in Poland and Germany.

A poll in the Japanese magazine Newtype USA asked its readers to rank the "Top 25 Anime Titles of All Time"; Cowboy Bebop placed second (behind Neon Genesis Evangelion) on a list that included such anime as Mobile Suit Gundam.^[8] In a recent poll by TV Asahi, Cowboy Bebop was 40th for Japan's Favorite Anime of 2006.^[6] The American Anime magazine Anime Insider's 50th issue in November 2007 ranked the 50 best Anime (that's available in America) by compiling lists of industry regulars with Cowboy Bebop ranked #1.

In the U.S., Cartoon Network has regularly rotated Cowboy Bebop in and out of its Adult Swim block line-up several times. The network has also moved Cowboy Bebop out of its anime lineup periodically in order to show other anime features such as Read or Die and Blue Gender. As of September 17, 2007, the show has been brought back to the line up and starts at 1:00 AM.

Main article: The Seatbelts

Cowboy Bebop's 2nd Original Soundtrack CD, entitled No Disc. Albums from the series rarely display art related to the show. Like the one above, they only indicate their connection by displaying the series name.

One of the most notable elements of Cowboy Bebop is its music. Performed by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts, a band Kanno assembled to perform music for the series, the jazz and blues themed soundtrack helps to define the show as much as the characters, writing, and even animation. Many fans find the soundtracks enjoyable to listen to as albums on their own, independent of the series. Cowboy Bebop was voted by IGN in 2006 as having the greatest soundtrack for an anime.^[9]

• Cowboy Bebop
• Vitaminless
• No Disc
• Blue
• Remixes: Music for Freelance sets itself in the Cowboy Bebop universe, and purports to be a broadcast from the pirate radio station Radio Free Mars. This album includes remixes of Seatbelts tracks from the previous 4 albums, remixed by popular American and British DJs.
• Box Set: CD box set - A compilation of tracks from the first 4 albums, and previously unreleased/live material as well as dialogue tracks.
• Greatest Hits: TANK! THE! BEST!

• Future Blues
• Ask DNA
• Cowgirl Ed

Tim Jensen produced lyrics on some songs:

• "Ask DNA" sung by Raj Ramayya
• "Gotta knock a little harder" sung by Mai Yamane
• "Call me, call me" sung by Steve Conte

• An official side story to Cowboy Bebop was released on the Original Cowboy Bebop website called Cowboy Bebop: UT. Taking place long before the series started, it features Ural and Victoria Terpsichore (V.T. from episode Heavy metal Queen) when they were bounty hunters. The story is available at the site mirror hosted by Jazzmess.com.^[10]

• Bandai released a Cowboy Bebop shoot 'em up video game in Japan for the PlayStation in 1998. A PlayStation 2 Cowboy Bebop video game was released in Japan, and the English version had been set for release in North America during the first quarter of 2006. However, as of November 2007, GameSpot reports that the North American release has been canceled.^[11]

• Two short manga series based on the Cowboy Bebop property were released in the US by Tokyopop.

• List of Cowboy Bebop voice actors

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Cowboy Bebop

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• Mirror of Cowboy Bebop official site
• Adult Swim - Cowboy Bebop
• Cowboy Bebop at the Internet Movie Database
• Cowboy Bebop at TV.com
• Cowboy Bebop (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Cowboy Bebop on AnimeNFO
• Cowboy Bebop Anime Screenshots Archive