Cowboy Bebop

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
Details & Synopsis
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.
Alt Title カウボーイビバップ
Studio Sunrise
Network TV Tokyo / WOWOW
Aired 1998 - 1999
Episodes 26
Genre Action, Sci-Fi, Neo-Noir, Western
Status Completed
Search Go to ep Filters
Bebop Adventures (21) Red Dragon Syndicate (5)
Bebop Adventures 21 eps 16 canon 5 good filler 📷 21
001 Asteroid Blues Aired Apr 3, 1998 canon 📷 136
Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, two broke bounty hunters scraping by on the spaceship Bebop, track a smuggler dealing a dangerous combat drug called "Red Eye" on the Tijuana asteroid colony. A tragic romance unfolds as Spike confronts the desperate fugitive.
002 Stray Dog Strut Aired Apr 10, 1998 canon 📷 125
The crew chases a bounty on a seemingly normal Welsh Corgi named Ein, only to discover the dog is a highly valuable, genetically engineered data dog stolen from a research facility. Ein ends up joining the perpetually starving crew.
003 Honky Tonk Women Aired Apr 17, 1998 canon 📷 138
Spike and Jet cross paths with Faye Valentine, a deeply in-debt, smooth-talking gambler working at a space casino. After a chaotic hostage situation involving a casino chip embedded with a microchip, Faye forces her way onto the Bebop.
Lore Session 3
004 Gateway Shuffle Aired Apr 24, 1998 canon 📷 127
Faye is forced to work with the Bebop crew when an eco-terrorist group threatens to infect a heavily populated hyperspace gateway with a virus that turns humans into apes.
006 Sympathy for the Devil Aired May 8, 1998 canon 📷 132
Spike encounters a seemingly immortal child prodigy playing the harmonica. The investigation reveals a tragic anomaly caused by the astral gate accident years ago, forcing Spike to hunt down a phantom who cannot age.
007 Heavy Metal Queen Aired May 15, 1998 good-filler 📷 136
The crew tracks a bounty through a network of asteroid miners. They team up with VT, a tough-as-nails, heavy metal-loving space trucker who has a strict rule against associating with bounty hunters.
008 Waltz for Venus Aired May 22, 1998 canon 📷 141
While hunting a bounty on Venus, Spike is approached by a young man named Roco who begs him for martial arts lessons. Roco is caught up in a syndicate war trying to secure a rare plant to cure his sister's blindness, leading to a heartbreaking shootout.
009 Jamming with Edward Aired May 29, 1998 canon 📷 141
The crew travels to a ruined Earth to track down a legendary hacker known as "Radical Edward" who is supposedly causing orbital lasers to carve images into the planet's surface. They discover Ed is actually a wildly eccentric, barefoot teenage girl.
Lore Session 9
010 Ganymede Elegy Aired Jun 5, 1998 canon 📷 143
Jet returns to his home satellite of Ganymede and is forced to confront Alisa, the woman who left him years ago without a word. The tension spikes when Jet learns her new boyfriend is the exact bounty he is hunting.
011 Toys in the Attic Aired Jun 12, 1998 good-filler 📷 127
A brilliant homage to *Alien*. A mysterious, highly venomous blob monster begins systematically hunting the crew through the dark corridors of the Bebop. The culprit turns out to be something Spike left in the fridge a year ago.
Lore Session 11
014 Bohemian Rhapsody Aired Jul 3, 1998 canon 📷 133
The crew hunts the mastermind behind a string of hyperspace gate toll robberies. The trail leads them to Chessmaster Hex, a brilliant but senile programmer who helped design the gate system decades ago.
015 My Funny Valentine Aired Jul 10, 1998 canon 📷 136
Faye's mysterious past is partially revealed. She tells the story of how she woke up from cryogenic sleep with massive debt and severe amnesia, only to be manipulated by a con man who broke her heart and left her holding the bag.
016 Black Dog Serenade Aired Jul 17, 1998 canon 📷 119
Jet's past as an ISSP officer comes back to haunt him when a prison ship is hijacked by the man who cost Jet his left arm. He teams up with his old partner, Fad, to finish the job, but uncovers a deep betrayal.
017 Mushroom Samba Aired Jul 24, 1998 good-filler 📷 131
With the rest of the crew incapacitated, it's up to Ed and Ein to track down a bounty hunter dealing highly hallucinogenic mushrooms on a desert planet. A wildly stylized, blaxploitation-inspired fever dream of an episode.
018 Speak Like a Child Aired Jul 31, 1998 canon 📷 127
A mysterious, obsolete Betamax tape arrives addressed to Faye. Spike and Jet go on a massive, city-wide quest through the ruins of Earth to find a working VCR, ultimately revealing a heartbreaking message from Faye's teenage self.
019 Wild Horses Aired Aug 7, 1998 canon 📷 134
Spike's Swordfish II breaks down, forcing him to visit his old mechanic, Doohan. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew tangles with a group of space pirates using computer viruses to disable ships, leaving Spike to attempt a reckless atmospheric reentry.
020 Pierrot le Fou Aired Aug 14, 1998 good-filler 📷 133
Spike inadvertently witnesses an assassination and becomes the target of Mad Pierrot, a genetically enhanced, heavily armed super-soldier whose mind has regressed to that of a homicidal child. A terrifying, masterfully animated horror episode.
021 Boogie Woogie Feng Shui Aired Aug 21, 1998 canon 📷 153
Jet receives a cryptic message from an old friend, leading him to protect the man's teenage daughter, Meifa. They use a hyper-advanced form of Feng Shui to locate a mysterious artifact hidden within the solar system.
022 Cowboy Funk Aired Aug 28, 1998 good-filler 📷 155
Spike's attempt to catch a bomber is repeatedly thwarted by "Cowboy Andy," an insanely wealthy, completely oblivious rival bounty hunter who rides a robot horse and acts exactly like Spike. Pure, comedic gold.
023 Brain Scratch Aired Sep 4, 1998 canon 📷 151
Faye goes undercover to infiltrate SCRATCH, a massive digital cult that encourages its members to abandon their physical bodies and upload their consciousness to the internet. The crew must pull her out before her mind is wiped.
024 Hard Luck Woman Aired Sep 11, 1998 canon 📷 154
Faye travels to Earth to find the ruins of her childhood home, while Ed reconnects with her absentee father, who is obsessed with mapping the meteor strikes. Realizing they need to find their own paths, Ed and Ein leave the Bebop for good.
Red Dragon Syndicate 5 eps 5 canon 📷 5
005 Ballad of Fallen Angels Aired May 1, 1998 canon 📷 125
Spike's bloody, buried past catches up with him when a Red Dragon Syndicate boss is assassinated. Ignoring Jet's warnings, Spike walks into a deadly trap at an abandoned cathedral to face his former partner and bitter rival, Vicious.
012 Jupiter Jazz (Part 1) Aired Jun 19, 1998 canon 📷 150
Faye empties the ship's safe and flees to Callisto. Spike abandons the crew to follow a rumor that Julia-the woman from his past-has been spotted there. Meanwhile, Vicious conducts a massive drug deal on the freezing moon.
013 Jupiter Jazz (Part 2) Aired Jun 26, 1998 canon 📷 184
Spike clashes with Vicious in the snow. Gren, an ex-soldier betrayed by Vicious during the Titan War, seeks his own revenge, culminating in a tragic, three-way shootout set to a heartbreaking jazz soundtrack.
025 The Real Folk Blues (Part 1) Aired Sep 18, 1998 canon 📷 181
The Red Dragon Syndicate launches a massive purge, targeting former members-including Spike. Spike is finally reunited with Julia, the woman he has been searching for, but Vicious orchestrates a violent coup to take over the syndicate.
026 The Real Folk Blues (Part 2) Aired Sep 25, 1998 canon 📷 178
Following Julia's tragic death, Spike shares one last meal with Jet before heavily arming himself and storming the Red Dragon headquarters alone. He slaughters his way to the top floor for a final, legendary duel with Vicious. Bang.
Legend
canon Episode adapts events from the source manga.
mixed Adapts source material but adds anime-original scenes.
good-filler Anime-original episode generally well-received by fans.
filler Anime-original episode not based on the source manga.
📷 Number of user-uploaded screencaps available for this episode.
SS

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
Spike Spiegel vs. Asimov Solensan Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Abdul Hakim Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Vicious (Cathedral Showdown) Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Wen (The Immortal Child) Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Gren & Vicious Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Pierrot Le Fou (Mad Pierrot) Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Cowboy Andy Spike Spiegel Combat Ledger Spike Spiegel vs. Vincent Volaju 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 Ballad of Fallen Angels Makes Vicious More Real Than Spike's New Life Past, Memory & Moving On 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 Whatever Happens, Happens Is Not the Same as Moving On 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 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 Speak Like a Child Gives Faye Something Money Cannot Recover Session Guide The Real Folk Blues Ends the Story Spike Has Been Living in All Along Session Guide Spike on the Bebop: A Man Performing Detachment The Bebop Crew Spike and Jet Rarely Say What Their Friendship Is The Bebop Crew
JB

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.
FV
EW

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.
EI

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.
VI

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.
JU

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.
LB

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.

The Bebop Crew

The Bebop Is a Home Nobody Agrees to Call Home

SPOILER!
Jet's ship begins as a workplace for two broke bounty hunters. Ein, Faye and Ed arrive through circumstances nobody planned.

Nobody gives a speech declaring the crew a family.
Why it matters
Cowboy Bebop lets belonging happen through repetition: eating together, arguing over money, waiting for somebody to come back and noticing when a seat is empty.

The Crew Is Usually Broke Because the Bounties Are Structurally a Joke

SPOILER!
The Bebop crew spends enormous effort chasing rewards that are revoked, destroyed, claimed by somebody else or swallowed by the cost of the chase.

The existing Bounty Hunt Ledger tracks that running failure.
Why it matters
Being bounty hunters gives the series forward motion without requiring success. The job keeps everybody moving while ensuring money never becomes the thing that solves their actual problems.

Two Men Who Left Old Lives Differently

Spike on the Bebop: A Man Performing Detachment

SPOILER!
Spike behaves as though very little can surprise or frighten him. He jokes under pressure, takes impossible risks and treats tomorrow as somebody else's problem.

The Red Dragon episodes reveal the limit of that performance.
Why it matters
Spike is capable of building a new life with the Bebop. His tragedy is that he never fully decides that the new life is more real than the one he lost.

Jet on the Bebop: The Person Who Keeps the Place Running

SPOILER!
Jet owns the ship, manages practical decisions and repeatedly becomes the person waiting when somebody else disappears.

Ganymede Elegy and Black Dog Serenade show that Jet also has a past he had to leave.
Why it matters
Jet is not free of regret. He is simply the crew member most capable of carrying regret without making it the only future available to him.

Spike and Jet Rarely Say What Their Friendship Is

SPOILER!
Spike and Jet communicate through food, arguments, work and the assumption that the other person will still be there afterward.

Their final meal matters because it uses the same ordinary language their friendship has always used.
Why it matters
Cowboy Bebop does not need either man to define the relationship out loud. The routine does the work.

Faye Joins Before She Knows Where Else She Could Go

Faye Before the Tape: Never Owe Anyone Enough to Need Them

SPOILER!
Faye's debt and amnesia leave her with no reliable past and very little reason to trust promises about the future.

She steals from the crew, leaves when convenient and keeps returning.
Why it matters
Her selfishness and her attachment grow at the same time. The Bebop becomes important to her before she is willing to behave as though it is.

Faye After the Tape: Proof Is Not the Same as Recovery

SPOILER!
The videotape proves that Faye had a younger self who expected a future.

Later, reaching the ruins connected to that life gives her a location but not a restored identity.
Why it matters
Faye spends the series believing that remembering will tell her where she belongs. What she eventually finds is evidence that belonging cannot simply be excavated.

The Two Least Burdened Crew Members Know When to Leave

Ed Treats the Bebop as a Place to Visit, Not a Place to Be Saved

SPOILER!
Ed joins the ship because she wants to and leaves when another path opens.

Her departure is unusually healthy by Cowboy Bebop standards.
Why it matters
Ed can care about the crew without requiring the crew to become permanent. That makes her exit a useful contrast with characters who confuse attachment with something that must never change.

Ein Leaves With Ed

SPOILER!
Ein spends much of the series being smarter and more aware than the crew expects. When Ed leaves after finding her father, Ein follows her.
Why it matters
The choice turns a running comic partnership into one of the show's cleanest goodbyes. The Bebop loses two members at once without betrayal, death or a dramatic argument.

Hard Luck Woman Changes the Bebop Before the Finale Does

SPOILER!
Ed and Ein leave. Faye returns after confronting the ruins of her past. Spike and Jet remain.
What changed
Before the Red Dragon purge begins, the show's accidental family has already started dissolving. The finale happens after the Bebop stops feeling permanent.

The Crew Rarely Says Goodbye Properly

SPOILER!
People leave the Bebop through impulsive exits, unfinished conversations and decisions made somewhere else.
Why it matters
The awkwardness is consistent with the show. These characters are much better at living beside one another than explaining what they mean to one another.
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