Review: Cowboy Bebop

“Cowboy Bebop – the work that will become a genre in itself.”

Recently my wife and I watched Shinichirō Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop. I convinced her to watch it after stating it was directed by the same man as Samurai Champloo, which is an anime we both loved. (No review for that one yet, it has been a while since I watched it.) So on my days off, we watched several episodes at a time until we finally finished the series.

The anime follows Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter (called a “cowboy”) who is a former member of the Red Dragon Syndicate. As Shinichirō did with Samurai Champloo, the focus is more on the characters rather than any sort of ongoing plot. The crew aboard the Bebop consists of the owner and former ISSP Jet Black, a mysterious woman who can’t remember her past known as Faye Valentine, a data dog known as Ein, and a red-haired girl known as Ed. Each episode sees our crew either chasing the next bounty, scraping for money, or revisiting their past.