azz agers, flower children, lost generation, beatniks, rockers, punks, nerds, hackers, lovers, generation X - whatever the designation, there have always been outlaws in our society who live in pursuit of autonomy. At times they are revered for their roles as pioneers, challenging the unknown; other times people consider them lawless desperadoes and a dangerous presence. Yet, really, it is only their exuberant music and an autonomy founded to express opinions different from those of other thats set them apart from the rest of the society.

The year 2071 AD. That future is now. Driven out of their terrestrial eden, humanity chose the stars as their final frontier. With the section-by-section collapse of the former nations a mixed jumble of races and peoples came. They spread to the stars, taking with them the now confused concepts of freedom, violence, illegality and love, where new rules and a new

generation of outlaws came into being. People referred to them as Cowboy Bebops...

 

Shinichirô Watanabe created a new anime series based around Bounty Hunters in the near future. He wanted to create a series that was based on the music that was played in the episodes, he wanted to create a series that was almost based more on style and flair than anything else. That series was Cowboy Bebop.

Of the 26 episodes he created, it's debut release only showed 12. A 13th episode was created from parts of the remaining 14 (that were mostly too violent for broadcast television). Eventually a satellite network picked up the series and showed all 26 in their original format. The show was a huge hit. Eventually a movie was made that adds a bit of extra story between episodes 22 and 23 (I haven't seen it yet, it is supposed to release to theatres in the US in early 2003). At any rate, the characters he created were all very detailed and personal. They all had haunted backgrounds with ghosts that would pop up every so often to haunt them. The series was about a bounty hunting team, but it was rarely actually about bounty hunting, and in fact for being one of the best teams of "cowboys" in the solar system, they spend a lot of time poor.

At any rate, the series concentrates more on the characters, their relationships (both past and present) and their problems. The setting is open and expansive while still vaguely familiar as it is set in our known solar system. The near future makes most of the imagined technology believable and conceivable. There are a thousand stories to tell in that world, and that's where this begins...