As fortune would have it, I recently started thinking about Cowboy Bebop- one of my personal favorite Anime series of all time. Oddly enough, this was the exact same time that it started airing on [adult swim] (Quote- if the [] makes us seem pretentious, it’s because we are.) pretty late at night. Better yet, my father and I recently got Dish Network with DVR, so I can record every instance of Cowboy Bebop and never miss a beat.

Cowboy Bebop, like Lupin the Third, is a series of episodes related by one thing- the same characters show up in almost all the episodes. I say almost because Faye is rather flaky. Cowboy Bebop is centered around a group of four bounty hunters: Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, and Edward. Spike is a smooth-talking ex-syndicate (Syndicate: sort of like the mafia) member with a dark past. His story makes up the “storyline” of the show- He is chasing after Julia, a woman he met through the syndicate. He is impeded and haunted by Vicious- a syndicate man and an excellent hired blade. Jet is an Ex-ISSP officer. ISSP is the police of the era, and it is rife with corruption from the Syndicate. Faye is a woman with a cloudy past and an addiction to gambling. She was badly hurt in a car accident fifty years in the past, and was put in cryostasis until technology could heal her. Unfortunately, she was left with memory loss and a bill she couldn’t pay in a million years. This leaves her as a woman who runs away at the drop of a hat and is tricky and suspicious in every way. Edward is actually a very young, and very tomboyish girl. She’s an interesting character and an incredibly effective hacker. Their fifth unofficial member is a super-smart Welsh Corgi named Ein. The way these characters act and interact and just generally exist, along with an excellent music track, makes Bebop an incredibly entertaining series.

As always, feel free to leave comments. Until next time…