100 Fun Facts About Cowboy Bebop

In Cowboy Bebop, what disaster ruined Earth?

Gate accident: it irradiated Earth and damaged the Moon about fifty years before the story, so humanity fled to other worlds through the very gates that had caused the disaster.

Cowboy Bebop calls each of its 26 episodes by which musical term?

Sessions: there are only 26 because Watanabe planned the ending from the start, fearing a hit would be stretched out for decades like Star Trek and keep him tied to it.

Which crime organization was Spike Spiegel a hitman for before he faked his death?

The Red Dragon Syndicate kills members who try to leave, so a staged death was Spike's only way out; his old partner Vicious later seizes control of it in a coup.

In Cowboy Bebop, what does ISSP, the force that licenses bounty hunters, stand for?

Inter Solar System Police: as crime boomed across the colonies, it set up a bounty scheme that pays registered hunters, nicknamed cowboys, to bring fugitives in.

What breed of dog is Ein?

Pembroke Welsh Corgi: the scriptwriter asked for one in the show, so designer Toshihiro Kawamoto drew Ein from a friend's dog, then got a corgi of his own as a motion model.

How did Faye Valentine end up living decades out of her own time?

Frozen in cryogenic sleep after an accident, Faye was thawed decades later with no memory and a medical bill so large it left her deep in debt.

Which of Jet Black's body parts is cybernetic?

His left arm: Jet lost the original when his own police partner betrayed him, and although it could have been regrown he chose a metal one as a reminder.

Which of Spike's body parts is artificial, a flaw Watanabe insisted on giving him?

His right eye: Watanabe wanted his heroes flawed and first planned to give Spike an eyepatch, but the producers refused to air a series whose lead wore one.

Jet Black is a former cop from which moon?

Ganymede: there Jet was the 'Black Dog', the cop who never let go once he bit, until his own partner's betrayal and a corrupt force drove him to quit and hunt bounties.

What is the name of Spike's personal ship, a converted racer?

Swordfish II: its designer named it after the Fairey Swordfish, a British biplane torpedo bomber he liked, and in the story an old mechanic friend armed the racer for Spike.

What is Faye Valentine's ship called?

Red Tail: held prisoner on the Bebop in her first episode, Faye breaks out and flies off in it, and when her crooked boss fires missiles at her she turns them back on his own ship.

In Cowboy Bebop, the Bebop itself is a converted version of what kind of vessel?

An interplanetary fishing trawler: it was built to catch fish and carry them refrigerated to other worlds, until Jet bought it second-hand and fitted bigger engines for bounty hunting.

Spike's fighting style is modelled on which martial arts star?

Bruce Lee: Spike practises Lee's own art, Jeet Kune Do, and when a young thug begs for fighting lessons in 'Waltz for Venus' he passes on Lee's advice to be like water.

Which Israeli-made pistol is Spike's handgun of choice throughout Cowboy Bebop?

Jericho 941: the director and his designers skipped common guns as not 'very interesting', so each hero carries a distinct real pistol; the Walther P99 is Jet's.

What skill does Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, better known as Radical Ed, bring to the Bebop crew?

Hacking: Radical Ed tracked the Bebop online and invited herself aboard, and the grand name is one she made up, since her father knows her as Françoise.

Cowboy Bebop ends on the words "You're gonna carry that weight", a line from which band's song?

The Beatles: 'Carry That Weight' comes from Abbey Road, and Watanabe said he used the line hoping fans would carry the series with them once it was over.

In Cowboy Bebop, what kind of animal is usually perched on Vicious's shoulder?

A black, cormorant-like bird: when the syndicate's elders chain Vicious up for execution, it flies in carrying an explosive he had hidden inside it, and the blast sets him free.

When Spike planned to leave the syndicate, how did Vicious try to get rid of him?

Ordered his lover to kill him: Vicious told her they would both die if she refused, but she disobeyed, went into hiding and lived on the run.

In Cowboy Bebop's finale, what does Spike see when he looks up at the sky after killing Vicious?

A vision of Julia: he then walks down the stairs, points a finger like a gun at the surviving gangsters, says 'Bang' and collapses, and Watanabe has never confirmed whether he dies.

Which classic anime did Watanabe cite as his main inspiration for Cowboy Bebop?

Lupin III: Watanabe wanted a show for adults, not just teenage boys, so he took as his model the caper series about a roguish jewel thief and his cool gang.

Whose song "Space Cowboy" gave co-writer Keiko Nobumoto the "Cowboy" in Cowboy Bebop?

Jamiroquai: the staff spent a long time debating what to put in front of 'Bebop', and Nobumoto said the band's song had made 'space' and 'cowboy' compatible terms in her mind.

Which company's toy division was the original sponsor of Cowboy Bebop, before it pulled out?

Bandai's toy arm wanted to sell model ships and told Watanabe he could do whatever he liked 'so long as there's a spaceship in it', then quit after early footage convinced it the show would never sell toys.

Which two real cities were the models for urban settings in the Cowboy Bebop TV series?

New York and Hong Kong: Watanabe agreed the TV show's cities were modelled on them, which is why he gave the movie an Arabic look instead, a world he called alien to him and little used in the series.

Which planet is Cowboy Bebop's most common setting, because the others proved "unexpectedly difficult to use"?

Mars: the setting producer said every world's quirks limited the stories (a dramatic rooftop scene, for one, couldn't happen on Venus), so the staff kept falling back on the most developed planet.

What is the name of the band Yoko Kanno formed to perform the Cowboy Bebop music?

Seatbelts: Kanno kept delivering more music than she was asked for ('If I order ten, she sends twenty,' Watanabe said), and her extra tracks inspired scenes he hadn't planned.

What is the title of Cowboy Bebop's big-band opening theme?

"Tank!": Canadian figure skater Kevin Reynolds, a 2014 Olympian, skated to it at the 2016 national championships dressed as Spike Spiegel.

Who sings "The Real Folk Blues", Cowboy Bebop's ending theme?

Mai Yamane sang the original; in 2020 the composer, her band and more than 40 guests, two of the English voice cast among them, re-recorded it as a pay-what-you-want single for COVID-19 relief.

Who voices Spike Spiegel in the original Japanese version of Cowboy Bebop?

Koichi Yamadera plays the cool hero and the crew's dog too: he is also credited as the voice of Ein.

Which American voice actor plays Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop's English dub?

Steve Blum, billed on the dub as David Lucas, got into voice work from a film studio's mailroom: his boss needed a deep voice for an anime dub, and his was the deepest in the room.

Which voice actress plays Faye Valentine in the original Japanese version of Cowboy Bebop?

Megumi Hayashibara qualified as a nurse while starting out in voice work, and Animage readers voted her top voice actor in both years Cowboy Bebop was in the running.

In Cowboy Bebop, why is Ein, the crew's pet, worth a fortune?

He is a data dog: a research organisation developed him, and a thief stole him to sell, since the right buyer would pay an astronomical price for a dog with his abilities.

Which country's MTV aired Cowboy Bebop in 1999, almost two years before it reached American television?

Italy: MTV Italy launched its Anime Night block with the show on October 21, 1999, while American viewers had to wait until September 2001.

Cowboy Bebop was the first anime shown on which Cartoon Network block on September 2, 2001?

Adult Swim put Bebop on its very first night, but days later the September 11 attacks led the network to hold back several episodes until a later run.

What is the Japanese subtitle of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)?

Knockin' on Heaven's Door was dropped in the West because it is also the title of a Bob Dylan song; rather than invent a new subtitle, the team simply called it The Movie.

In Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, which terrorist plans to release deadly nanomachines at a Halloween parade?

Vincent Volaju was a soldier the army used to test the nanomachines on Titan; he survived with his memory wiped, and in the end the woman he once loved is the one who shoots him.

How large is the bounty put on the terrorist in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie?

300 million Woolongs: the government posts it after a tanker-truck blast spreads a mystery pathogen days before Halloween, and the cash-starved crew drops everything to chase it.

Which country did Watanabe visit to research the Arabic look of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie?

Morocco: Watanabe wanted a world that felt alien to him and had barely appeared in the series, and the trip gave the film's city its 'Moroccan Street' quarter.

Which studio, founded by former Sunrise staff, co-produced Cowboy Bebop: The Movie?

Bones was set up in October 1998 by three of the series' own staff, its producer and character designer among them, and the Bebop movie became one of the new studio's first jobs.

Which Hollywood star was attached to play Spike in a live-action Cowboy Bebop film announced in 2008?

Keanu Reeves said he hoped to play Spike for 20th Century Fox, and the anime's director and writer signed on as associate producers, but the film was never made.

Who played Spike Spiegel in Netflix's 2021 live-action Cowboy Bebop?

John Cho hurt his knee in a freak accident on the last take of a routine, well-rehearsed scene, and the New Zealand shoot shut down for months while he had surgery.

Who played Jet Black in Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop?

Mustafa Shakir's Jet has something the anime's never did: a young daughter, Kimmie Black, written in for the Netflix version.

What did Netflix do with its live-action Cowboy Bebop less than a month after the November 2021 premiere?

Cancelled it: Netflix pulled the plug on December 9, 2021, under three weeks after release, leaving the story on a cliffhanger.

Which TV series was Watanabe's next as director after Cowboy Bebop?

Samurai Champloo (2004) traded Bebop's jazz and spaceships for hip-hop and Edo-period swordsmen, and Watanabe said that with no toy sponsor to please he had the same free rein as before.

In a 2004 Newtype USA readers' poll of the top 25 anime, Cowboy Bebop finished second behind which series?

Neon Genesis Evangelion took the top spot: Newtype USA ran the three-month open ballot to mark its second anniversary and hand-counted more than 11,700 readers' votes.

Which online shooter added Cowboy Bebop character skins in a March 2024 crossover?

Overwatch 2 dressed its cowboy Cassidy as Spike and Ashe as Faye, and gave every player a free Ein skin for Wrecking Ball.

What are the names of the hosts of Big Shot, Cowboy Bebop's TV show for bounty hunters?

Punch and Judy: after Big Shot is cancelled, Punch turns up once more without his cowboy costume, a scene the screenwriter, who loved the character, wrote herself although the director didn't want it.

When Faye Valentine first appears in Cowboy Bebop, she is called by the name of which Old West figure?

Poker Alice was a real frontier card player; Watanabe said he borrowed her name because her predicament was like Faye's, who debuts in a casino, working off her debts.

Which hobby does Jet Black pursue aboard the Bebop?

Growing bonsai trees is the gentle side of a gruff ex-cop who also cooks for a permanently broke crew: his speciality is beef with green peppers, just without the beef.

Under what collective pseudonym are Cowboy Bebop's core creative team credited?

Hajime Yatate is nobody: it is the house name Sunrise gives the collective work of its animation staff, which is why the same 'creator' is also credited on the studio's Gundam shows.

Which satellite network aired the full Cowboy Bebop series in Japan from October 1998 to April 1999?

Wowow gave the series its first complete run, months after TV Tokyo had shown only twelve episodes and a recap special; the official guide calls Bebop 'the show that almost wasn't'.

Cartoon Network held back three Cowboy Bebop episodes during the anime's first American run after which event?

The September 11 attacks came nine days after the anime's American premiere, and sessions 6, 8 and 22 stayed off air until a later run.

The venomous blob in the Cowboy Bebop session Toys in the Attic grew from which forgotten food?

A lobster that Spike hid in a spare fridge and forgot for over a year mutated into the creature. Ed alone escapes its bite, and eats it in her sleep.

A message from Faye Valentine's teenage self reaches the Bebop on which long-obsolete home video format?

A Betamax tape sends Spike and Jet hunting for a machine to play it: they wreck one at an antiques shop and steal the wrong kind before a matching player turns up in the post.

The terrorist in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie plans to release his deadly virus during a parade for which holiday?

Halloween supplies the disguise: giant jack-o'-lantern balloons drifting over the parade, each one packed with the lethal machines.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie lost the Online Film Critics Society's 2003 animated film award to which Pixar hit?

Finding Nemo took the 2003 prize. The anime had reached American cinemas only that April, more than eighteen months after it opened in Japan.

Which American filmmaker cited Cowboy Bebop as a visual influence on Brick, his 2005 high-school noir debut?

Rian Johnson named the anime alongside Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns as the models for how his first feature should look.

In the Cowboy Bebop session Jamming with Edward, who is really lasering giant drawings onto Earth's surface?

A lonely satellite AI made the drawings on its own, so the bounty on a supposed hacker is withdrawn and the crew gains Ed instead of a reward.

Shinichirō Watanabe says he gave up on Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop after its opening scene, set where?

A casino was all the anime's director saw: he said the footage was clearly not his show, turned it off, and felt the original's value had only risen.

Where do Spike Spiegel and Vicious fight their first on-screen duel, in the session Ballad of Fallen Angels?

A cathedral frames the fight, which ends with Spike thrown from a high window as memories of his old life rush back.

The Cowboy Bebop sessions Honky Tonk Women and Sympathy for the Devil take their titles from songs by which band?

The Rolling Stones also lend a third title, Wild Horses; most of the show's sessions are named after songs or musical styles.

The eco-terrorist Space Warriors of Cowboy Bebop threaten a moon with a virus that turns humans into what?

Apes are what the virus, nicknamed Monkey Business, makes of people, and the group's leader Twinkle Maria Murdoch is caught by a broken vial of her own weapon.

The mastermind behind a string of toll-booth robberies in Cowboy Bebop sends each recruit a piece from which game?

Chess is the old programmer's passion: he planned the scheme fifty years earlier, then grew senile and forgot it, and the crew leave him to a last online game with Ed.

In Cowboy Bebop's backstory, a disaster involving which technology made Earth almost uninhabitable decades earlier?

A hyperspace gateway failed roughly fifty years before the story begins, and humanity resettled on the rocky planets and moons beyond.

The bomber Spike chases in the Cowboy Bebop session Cowboy Funk hides his explosives inside which toys?

Teddy bears carry the charges that bring down high-rises in his protest against human excess, a motive he never gets to explain until the very end.

In the Cowboy Bebop session Mushroom Samba, the mushrooms a dealer trades for his freedom turn out to be which kind?

Shiitake, fit only for the dinner table, are all Ed and Ein get for letting the dealer go at the end of a chaotic train chase.

In Cowboy Bebop, what did Alisa leave behind with her farewell note when she walked out on Jet Black?

A pocket watch, long broken, stays with Jet until he finally throws it away on leaving his home moon, accepting her point that time does not stand still.

In the Cowboy Bebop session Waltz for Venus, Rocco steals a rare plant to cure his sister Stella of what?

Blindness came with Stella's Venus sickness, and though Rocco dies in the shootout, seeds hidden in her music box still pay for the operation.

Which instrument does Gren, the ex-soldier Faye Valentine meets in the two-part Jupiter Jazz, play for a living?

Saxophone was the career Gren wanted after the war; instead he was jailed as a spy on the testimony of Vicious, the comrade he had admired.

Gren's dying wish in Cowboy Bebop is for Spike to tow his crippled ship out toward which moon?

Titan was the battlefield where Gren had served beside Vicious, and he asks to drift back toward it instead of dying in the snow.

Mei-Fa, who helps Jet Black trace her missing father in Cowboy Bebop, is an expert in which practice?

Feng shui is Mei-Fa's trade, and she enlists Jet to track down a sun stone, in fact a chunk of Moon rock, that can lead them to her stranded father.

Where does the grinning assassin Mad Pierrot invite Spike Spiegel for their final showdown in Cowboy Bebop?

An amusement park called Spaceland hosts the duel, which ends when the wounded killer is trampled by a parade of giant animatronics.

The Cowboy Bebop assassin Mad Pierrot Tongpu takes his name from two songs by which Japanese band?

Yellow Magic Orchestra put both Mad Pierrot and Tong Poo on their debut album, and the anime stitched the two titles into one killer's name.

Cowboy Bebop's three grumbling old men, Antônio, Carlos and Jobim, are named after a musician from which country?

Brazil produced Antônio Carlos Jobim, the bossa nova composer whose name the film's credits split between the three old-timers.

Canadian Kevin Reynolds dressed as Spike Spiegel to compete to Cowboy Bebop's opening theme in which sport?

Figure skating at Canada's 2016 national championships saw Reynolds perform his short program to the big-band number in full costume.

Spike Spiegel's look was based on which Japanese actor's role in the detective drama Tantei Monogatari?

Yūsaku Matsuda's television detective gave the designer Spike's hairstyle and appearance, though Spike's voice actor chose not to copy Matsuda's distinctive way of speaking.

Shinichirō Watanabe gave Cowboy Bebop a firm ending to avoid being tied for years to a show like which franchise?

Star Trek was his example of a series that keeps its makers busy for years; he planned the finale early and kept it even though some staff wanted room for a sequel.

Before Cowboy Bebop, Shinichirō Watanabe made his debut co-directing which anime about rival test pilots?

Macross Plus also used the same screenwriter and the same composer, so a trio at the heart of the later hit had already worked together.

Cowboy Bebop director Shinichirō Watanabe made a 2017 anime short set in the world of which science fiction film?

Blade Runner Black Out 2022 was his short for the franchise, and he went on to serve as creative producer of its anime series Black Lotus.

Cowboy Bebop writer Keiko Nobumoto co-wrote which 2003 anime film about three homeless people who rescue a baby?

Tokyo Godfathers was her second invitation from director Satoshi Kon: she had been too busy to accept his earlier offer to script Perfect Blue.

Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop was filmed at 185 locations around a single city in which country?

New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, was chosen because its urban grit suited the show's look, and 150 locals joined the art and construction teams.

Filming of Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop halted for about eight months after its lead actor injured what?

His knee was hurt in October 2019, and the writers used the long break to add characters, such as Gren, whom they had been saving for later.

Which actress played Faye Valentine in Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop, in a redesigned, more practical costume?

Daniella Pineda worked with the costume designer on an outfit that could hide stunt pads, which the anime's skimpy original had no room for.

Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop earned a 2022 Emmy nomination for which element of the show?

Its main title design recreated the anime's opening credits in live action and kept the original theme music.

Which voice actress plays Faye Valentine opposite Beau Billingslea's Jet Black in Cowboy Bebop's English dub?

Wendee Lee voiced Faye in both the series and the film, part of an English cast often singled out as one of the finest dubs in anime.

Jet Black named his ship after a style of jazz and is especially fond of which musician in Cowboy Bebop?

Charlie Parker was a leading figure in bebop, the style the ship is named for, and Jet rounds out his tastes with Goethe and home cooking.

Which weapon does Vicious favour in Cowboy Bebop, wielding it even against enemies armed with guns?

A katana is his trademark, yet flashbacks to his days as Spike's partner show him firing a pistol as the two fight back to back.

What name does Radical Edward give the computer she balances on her head while walking in Cowboy Bebop?

Tomato is also the name of a timid boy Ed befriended at the orphanage in the manga, a fellow computer whiz.

When Edward finally tracks down her father on Earth in Cowboy Bebop, what work is he devoted to?

Mapping meteorite strikes matters more to him than his child: he races off after the next impact before Ed can answer his offer to stay.

In the Cowboy Bebop session Wild Horses, Spike is rescued by a restored example of which real NASA space shuttle?

Columbia, refurbished by an old mechanic, catches Spike's stricken racer in its cargo bay; the session was pulled from American reruns for a time after the real shuttle was lost.

Which Japanese science fiction prize named Cowboy Bebop its Best Media of the Year in 2000?

The Seiun Award is voted on by members of Japan's national science fiction convention, much as the Hugo is, and its name means nebula.

Which Sega crime game series modelled its character Shun Akiyama on Spike Spiegel and hired the same voice actor?

Yakuza 4 introduced Akiyama as an easy-going contrast to its lead, Kazuma Kiryu, and its director named Spike's aloof manner as the model.

In Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, teenage hacker Lee Sampson plays a version of which vintage arcade game in a car?

Pac-Man suits a boy obsessed with 20th-century games, who greets a guard's death and a lost game life with the same shrug.

How does Faye Valentine help spread the vaccine across the city at the climax of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie?

By making it rain, with hijacked weather controls, she washes down the cure that a squad of elderly pilots is scattering from antique planes.

Under Cowboy Bebop's bounty rules, registered hunters collect their reward only if the target is what?

Brought in alive is the rule of the contract scheme, which the authorities set up to cope with rising crime across the colonies.

The Cowboy Bebop session Pierrot le Fou shares its title with a 1965 film by which French New Wave director?

Jean-Luc Godard's film follows a bored husband fleeing Paris for the Mediterranean; the anime attaches the name to a grinning, near-indestructible assassin.

Cowboy Bebop's first session sends Spike and Jet to an asteroid colony named after which Mexican city?

Tijuana is where the pair corner a drug thief and his girlfriend, a hunt that ends with both fugitives dead and no bounty collected.

In the Cowboy Bebop session Sympathy for the Devil, what does Spike turn into a bullet to kill an ageless boy?

A ring's gemstone, formed in the same blast that stopped the boy ageing decades earlier, is the one thing that can end his unnaturally long life.

In Cowboy Bebop, what do people bet money on guessing about the tough-talking space trucker known as V.T.?

Her full name, Victoria Terpsichore, ties her to a legendary bounty hunter husband; Spike works it out and turns down the pot.

Dr. Londes, the cult leader in the Cowboy Bebop session Brain Scratch, is really the creation of whom?

A teenager on life support, a hacker in a vegetative state, invented the guru through his machines to coax followers into giving up their bodies as he had.

A famous statue in Faye Valentine's childhood memories hints that she grew up in which Asian city?

Singapore's lion-headed landmark appears in scenes of her youth, alongside a mansion that points to a very wealthy family.