About Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop is a Japanese anime television series made by the studio Sunrise. Its core team was director Shinichiro Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane and composer Yoko Kanno, who are credited together under the collective name Hajime Yatate. It was Watanabe's first series as sole director. The 26 episodes, called 'sessions', had an uneven start: because of its early-evening slot and its violence, TV Tokyo's broadcast in spring 1998 showed only 12 of them plus a special, and the full series was first shown on the satellite channel Wowow between October 1998 and April 1999. A film, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, followed in 2001.
The story is set in 2071, roughly fifty years after an accident with a hyperspace gateway left Earth almost uninhabitable. People have settled the planets and moons of the Solar System, and to deal with rising crime the Inter Solar System Police (ISSP) runs a legal bounty system: registered bounty hunters, nicknamed 'cowboys', bring criminals in alive for a reward. Spike Spiegel, once a member of the Red Dragon Syndicate, and Jet Black, a former ISSP officer, hunt bounties from Jet's ship, the Bebop. They are soon joined by Faye Valentine, an amnesiac con artist; Ed, an eccentric young hacker; and Ein, a Welsh corgi with human-like intelligence. Most sessions stand alone, and the crew's mishaps usually leave them broke.
Running underneath is Spike's past: his rivalry with Vicious, his former partner in the syndicate, and the woman they both loved, Julia. The series mixes science fiction with the Western and film noir, and its themes are loneliness, boredom and the impossibility of escaping one's past. Kanno's soundtrack, mostly jazz and played by the band she formed for it, the Seatbelts, is as famous as the show, and most session titles borrow the name of a musical genre or a song. Cowboy Bebop won the Seiun Award for best media in 2000 and is widely ranked among the best animated series ever made. In the United States it was one of the first programmes on Adult Swim when the block launched in September 2001, and it is credited with introducing a wave of Western viewers to anime.
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What the Cowboy Bebop Quiz Tests
Our Cowboy Bebop quiz covers the 26 sessions of the 1998 TV anime, plus two questions on the 2001 film that say so. It does not use the manga adaptations or the 2021 live-action series. Easy levels cover the premise and the people behind it: the year, the crew, their ships, Spike's old syndicate, Ein's breed, the opening theme, and who directed and scored the series. The middle levels follow the sessions in order, from the stolen dog in 'Stray Dog Strut' to Andy the cowboy in 'Cowboy Funk', by way of the casino where Spike and Jet meet Faye, the cathedral where Spike fights Vicious, the fridge in 'Toys in the Attic', Faye's flight to Callisto and the truth about Jet's arm. The hard levels go to the details: the first session TV Tokyo aired, Laughing Bull's name for Spike, Jet's favourite musician, the board game Ein plays, the real person behind Ed, and lines from 'Jupiter Jazz' and the final session.
Key Characters
Spike Spiegel is a 27-year-old bounty hunter born on Mars who lounges about the ship between jobs and throws himself head-first into the action once a bounty is on. Watanabe has said Spike was the first image he had of the series, and that he built the story around him. Spike left the Red Dragon Syndicate by faking his own death after falling for Julia, and he has never stopped living in that past; one of his eyes is artificial, and he tells Faye that one eye sees the past and the other the present. Jet Black, 36, was designed as his opposite: a bulky, hard-working former ISSP officer from Ganymede, called the 'Black Dog' for never letting a case go, who owns the Bebop, cooks for everyone, grows bonsai and lost his arm through a partner's betrayal. Faye Valentine woke from 54 years in cryogenic sleep with no memory and an enormous debt, and hides a more fragile side behind sarcasm and gambling. Ed, a hacker of about thirteen from Earth, is the show's main source of comedy, and Ein is the 'data dog' whose intelligence the humans mostly fail to notice. Against them stands Vicious, Spike's former partner, an ambitious and ruthless syndicate man who fights with a katana, and between Spike and Vicious stands Julia, who appears only in flashbacks until the final two sessions.
Available Quizzes
Cowboy Bebop Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Cowboy Bebop Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which member of the Bebop's crew matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 43 anime including Cowboy Bebop. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Spike Spiegel
Jet Black
Faye Valentine
Ed
Ein
Cowboy Bebop Fun Facts
- Hajime Yatate, the name credited as the series' creator, is not a real person. It is the pseudonym Sunrise uses for the collective work of its staff.
- The project began with Bandai's toy division as sponsor, hoping to sell spaceship toys. Watanabe recalled being told he could do whatever he wanted as long as there was a spaceship in it. Once Bandai saw early footage it pulled out, believing the show would never sell toys, and its sister company Bandai Visual took over the sponsorship.
- Spike's look is based on the actor Yusaku Matsuda as the detective Shunsaku Kudo in Tantei Monogatari. Watanabe wanted Spike to have a flaw and first planned an eyepatch, but the producers vetoed it, so Spike got an artificial eye instead.
- Ein and Ed are the only main characters with real-life models. Ein's design came from a friend's pet corgi, and character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto later got a corgi of his own to study its movements.
- The Swordfish II is named after the Fairey Swordfish, a British biplane torpedo-bomber that the mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane liked.
- Mad Pierrot, the killer in 'Pierrot le Fou', takes his name, Mad Pierrot Tongpu, from two tracks on Yellow Magic Orchestra's debut album: 'Mad Pierrot' and 'Tong Poo'.
Cowboy Bebop Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of Cowboy Bebop are there?
Twenty-six, which the series calls 'sessions'. TV Tokyo first broadcast 12 of them, plus a special called 'Mish-Mash Blues', between April and June 1998; the satellite channel Wowow then showed all 26 from October 1998 to April 1999. There is also one film, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001).
Is Cowboy Bebop finished?
Yes. The 26 sessions tell a complete story with a definite ending, which Watanabe planned early on and decided not to change. He has said he did not want to keep making sequels just for the sake of it, although when asked again in 2006 he answered 'someday … maybe, someday'. The only later addition to the anime is the 2001 film. A live-action series made for Netflix was released in November 2021 and cancelled the following month after one season of ten episodes.
What order should I watch Cowboy Bebop in?
Watch the 26 sessions in order. Most of them stand alone, but the story of Spike, Vicious and Julia runs through the series and comes to a head in the last two, 'The Real Folk Blues' parts 1 and 2. The film is set between sessions 22 and 23, so you can watch it at that point or after you finish the series. The 2021 live-action series is a separate adaptation of the anime and the film, not a continuation.
Where can I watch Cowboy Bebop?
In North America the anime is licensed by Crunchyroll (it was released there by Funimation before that), in the UK by Anime Limited and in Australia by Madman Entertainment. Netflix streamed all 26 sessions worldwide from October 2021, but the series left Netflix in the United States and Canada in October 2023. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services.
What is Cowboy Bebop about?
It follows a crew of bounty hunters in 2071 aboard the spaceship Bebop: Spike Spiegel, a former syndicate hitman; Jet Black, an ex-police officer; Faye Valentine, an amnesiac con artist; Ed, a young hacker; and Ein, a highly intelligent corgi. They chase criminals across a colonised Solar System, usually end up broke, and keep running into their own pasts, above all Spike's history with his old partner Vicious and Julia, the woman they both loved.
