By Alison L. Roberts

The crew of the Bebop, looking a little more dumbfounded than usual. (Left to right: Jet, Faye, Spike and Ein. Hey — Where's Ed?)

"There's no black and white. . ."

It is 2071 A.D., and a near-Earth disaster of catastrophic proportions has sped mankind's emigration to planets and moons throughout the solar system. Special "gates" drastically decrease the travel time between the distant outposts, many of which are full-fledged cities. With such a far-flung human population, bounty hunters, known as "cowboys," are often the only reason criminals are apprehended.

Bandai's v10 U.S. cover. (VHS)

Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are two of these future-cowboys. The unlikely partners travel through the solar system aboard Jet's ship, the "Bebop." Their days are spent constantly searching for their next bounty — the next meal ticket. Along the way, they pick up an entourage including fellow bounty hunter Faye Valentine, unconventional hacker Ed and even a mascot, a Welsh corgi named Ein.

Each episodic installment of Cowboy Bebop focuses on a new bounty or challenge the unconventional crew faces during their wanderings. There is not an obvious, ongoing storyline that is carried into each of the series' 26 episodes, which are referred to as "sessions." Almost every session could stand alone on its own merits, and, similar to its diverse musical score, Cowboy Bebop runs the gamut from comedy and action-adventure to horror and drama. But pay attention: each episode does feature important observations about each character and clues to his or her respective motivations.

Spike with Julia, a mysterious woman from his past.

With very few exceptions, the characters don't wear "white hats" or "black hats." They are adults, and they have pasts. Some of these pasts are fraught with mistakes and bad judgment. However, these flaws ultimately make the Bebop's crew very human, allowing the audience to root for them. This subtle character development, aided by excellent performances from both the Japanese and English-speaking voice actors, comes very much into play as the series reaches its climactic ending.

"The work becomes a new genre itself, will be called. . . Cowboy Bebop."

When all is said and done, Cowboy Bebop is a heady cocktail of all the things that can potentially make anime great. It presents its substance with a style uniquely its own, imbuing the entire work with a distinctive resonance that is unlikely to be duplicated. It is anime that combines maturity with its entertainment value. Cowboy Bebop is a benchmark against which 21st-century anime will be measured. . . for years to come.