Explainer | Cowboy Bebop: all you need to know about the influential Japanese anime series ahead of Netflix’s live-action adaptation
- Set in 2071, Cowboy Bebop follows a ragtag gang of eccentric bounty hunters on dangerous missions. Its style influenced Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy
- The 1998 anime debuted in the United States in 2001, where it garnered a cult following and served as a gateway to the genre for an entire generation
Cowboy Bebop remains one of the most imaginative and influential anime series ever to grace the small screen, featuring genre-bending storylines, an oddball cast of characters and a wildly eclectic soundtrack.
The 1998 anime, written by Keiko Nobumoto and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe under the collective pseudonym Hajime Watate, comprises just 26 episodes, although it also spawned a feature-length movie, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which was released in 2001.
That was the year the show debuted in the United States, where it garnered a cult following and served as a gateway to the genre for an entire generation of fans.
Netflix will release its live-action adaptation on November 19. The success of the live-action Cowboy Bebop, with so much potent material stuffed into a relatively short, self-contained series, will be determined as much by what Netflix and showrunner André Nemec leave out as by what makes it to the screen.
Ahead of its release, here’s everything you need to know about the original show and what made it unique.
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What is Cowboy Bebop about?
Set in the year 2071 – after Earth has become uninhabitable and its population has scattered across the solar system – Cowboy Bebop follows a ragtag gang of eccentric bounty hunters on a series of dangerous missions.
The show draws from the sci-fi and western genres, as they travel from one planet to the next in their rust-bucket ship the Bebop, chasing down violent criminals and living hand to mouth from the bounties they earn or, just as often, let slip through their fingers. Over the course of the series, the crew goes up against everyone from space pirates and terrorists to feng shui masters and cult leaders to make a fast buck.
There is also a strong film noir influence from gumshoe detective stories. Characters deliver hard-boiled narration as they allude to troubled backstories, which are slowly dragged into the light as they encounter pivotal figures from the past.
The show is dazzling to behold. With the Earth’s population now strewn across the solar system, each colony they visit blends the familiar with the otherworldly, from Japanese or Middle Eastern to the Wild West.
The tone is predominantly lighthearted, but Cowboy Bebop is peppered with bursts of graphic violence and frequently broaches weighty philosophical and existential themes – not least, ideas of identity, loneliness and our place in the universe. Even in zero gravity, the inevitability of their inescapable fate weighs heavily on them all.
Who are the major characters?
1. Spike Spiegel
The titular space cowboy, Spike is the show’s central protagonist. Hailing from Mars, he was a member of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate who fled his life of crime and, nursing a broken heart, approaches the galaxy with a healthy dose of cynicism and resignation.
A superb marksman, devotee of Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do style of kung fu, and daredevil pilot, Spike has one artificial eye and sports a garish blue suit and a shock of bright green hair. The show’s central narrative arc slowly pieces together Spike’s previous life and his ongoing rivalry with former fellow gang member-turned-nemesis Vicious.
2. Jet Black
Jet, the owner of the Bebop, is also running from a shady past. He used to be a police officer known as Black Dog on the Jovian moon of Ganymede but, unlike Spike, Jet works hard and gets stuff done.
When the show begins, Spike and Jet (who has a robotic arm) are alone on the Bebop, but it doesn’t take long before they adopt other members into their unconventional family. The series delves into the reasons behind Jet’s world-weary demeanour and drastic change in career.
3. Faye Valentine
Beautiful, precocious and untrustworthy, Faye Valentine is introduced as one of Spike and Jet’s bounty heads. Once she has cleared her name (but not her debt), she refuses to leave.
Faye, who frequently finds herself the target of unwanted advances from unsavoury characters, has arguably the show’s most fascinating history, which is pieced together over the course of the series.
Part femme fatale, part manic pixie dream girl, Faye upsets the lackadaisical ambience of the Bebop in the best possible way.
4. Radical Edward
Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (Ed for short) doesn’t appear until almost halfway through the series. Once on the scene, she becomes a permanent fixture.
The hyperactive 13-year-old, who grew up alone on the rubbish tip that is Earth, is a prodigious hacker and is hugely intelligent but has almost no interpersonal skills. Inevitably, she teases out a few latent parental traits in her veteran crew members.
5. Ein
Ein is a super intelligent Pembroke Welsh corgi created in a secret lab and proves the sought-after McGuffin during one of the gang’s earliest missions. Spike ultimately adopts Ein, who displays a level of intelligence equal to that of her crewmates, and who provides essential support.
Cowboy Bebop the anime series is streaming on Netflix. The live-action series will start streaming on Netflix on November 19.
