Fall 1998 Anime

In 2071, bounty hunters Spike Spiegel and Jet Black travel the solar system in their ship, the Bebop. Cowboy Bebop is a 26-episode series from Sunrise, directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, and it mixes space western, film noir and jazz into something entirely its own. Humanity has left a ruined Earth behind for colonies on Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter, and work is scarce between the planets. Spike and Jet chase bounties to keep the ship fuelled and themselves fed, and along the way their crew grows: the con artist Faye Valentine, the child hacker Edward and a genetically engineered corgi named Ein. Each episode, called a 'session', is a self-contained job, but a darker story runs underneath: Spike's past in the Red Dragon crime syndicate, and his unfinished business with his old partner Vicious and the woman they both loved. First aired in Japan in 1998–99, Bebop became one of the most respected anime ever made, famous for Yoko Kanno's jazz score and an ending people still talk about.