After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 16: Black Dog Serenade

This is one of the more violent and bloody episodes. It opens on a prison ship full of corpses. One prisoner celebrates with champagne while another seems responsible for the deaths. Jet gets a call from someone named Fat. Faye notices his cigarette has burned to his fingers, but he doesn’t feel it. His prosthetic arm needs to be repaired. The ship is for death row inmates on the way to the prison on Pluto. They’ve taken the pilot hostage, but one of the prisoners shoots him. Udai Taxim, an assassin, kills the hotheaded prisoner. Blood floats in zero g.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 14: Bohemian Rhapsody

Usually, when someone goes through an astral gate, the toll is withdrawn from their bank account. However, twenty different criminals hacked the gates to withdraw a person’s entire bank account instead. The Gate Corporation has put out a huge bounty for whomever was behind the scheme. Spike, Jet, and Faye capture all the criminals responsible for the gate attacks, but not the mastermind, so they don’t get the bounty. However, each get a clue: a white chess piece.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 12: Jupiter Jazz Part 1

We open on a Native American shaman sitting outside his teepee on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons. It’s an arctic area. A star falls, indicating someone has died somewhere on the planet.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 10: Ganymede Elegy

A bank robber named Baker Panchorero is tied up on the Bebop. Ein starts barking, so he kicks a can and hits Ein. Ed then drops out of a duct and bites his ear! Ed’s personality was patterned on that of a cat, and it really shows sometimes. The crew actually gets paid for their bounty. One of the rare times this happens in the show.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 8: Waltz for Venus

The flight attendant announces that Venus has been terraformed, but the floating cloud-like plants used to terraform the planet can cause Venus sickness. Inside the airplane-like spacecraft, we see a baby floating in zero g. Hijackers named Huey, Dewey, and Louie take over the plane. Spike doesn’t put his hands behind his head at the hijacker’s command. We find out he’s wearing a blindfold with eyes on it to look like he’s awake. He punches a hijacker while stretching after a yawn, dodges by leaning forward, then headbutts seemingly by accident. When another hijacker charges him, he flips him over, then apologizes. Faye sprays another hijacker with mist to knock her out. I think this is the first time we see them actually catch a bounty. I guess it’s bound to happen eventually.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 6: Sympathy for the Devil

Spike dreams that he’s on an operating table. Is this a premonition or part of his back story? He wakes up in a club listening to a kid playing the blues on a harmonica. On the Bebop, Faye opens a fridge which is empty except for one can of dog food. Ein whines to be fed. Faye opens the can… and eats it herself! At one point, Jet says betrayal comes easily to women, but men live by codes of honor, so he’s a bit misogynistic.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 4: Gateway Shuffle

Faye is out of fuel, adrift in orbit around Jupiter. There are food wrappers floating around her, so she’s a bit of a slob. She comes across a shipwreck and finds a mysterious package…

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 2: Stray Dog Strut

Spike and Jet watch a TV show for bounty hunters called Big Shot. The hosts, Punch and Judy, are dressed in old west outfits and tell bounty hunters about criminals with bounties on their heads. The bounty this episode is Abdul Hakim, an animal thief and a good fighter. He’s had plastic surgery, so no one knows what he looks like now. Abdul bears a resemblance to Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s character in the Bruce Lee movie Game of Death and one of the fight scenes is lifted from this movie. Spike, of course, is a Bruce Lee stand-in for most of the series. So while last episode was based on a Western, this episode is based on a kung fu movie.

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After learning that Cowboy Bebop is getting a live-action remake, I decided to revisit the much-beloved anime series from the 90s (although not aired in the U.S. until the early 2000s). Many people think of it as the best anime series ever, and with good reason. My episode reviews will contain spoilers, so be sure to watch the series before you read this.

Session 1: Asteroid Blues

The opening scene shows Spike chain smoking, waiting for someone who doesn’t show. He drops a rose in the street that he presumably got for a woman. He ends up in a shootout in a cathedral. He smiles as he’s shot by several gunmen. We’re left to wonder if this is a flashback or a flashforward as the opening credits begin to play.

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