All Cowboy Bepop Seasons & Episodes in Order
In 1998, the world saw the premiere of Hajime Yatate’s Cowboy Bebop anime series. The anime has since achieved cult status around the world, despite finishing its run in 1998. A tie-in movie was released in 2001 and today, 20 years later, no further Cowboy Bebop anime work has been released. Speaking of, how many seasons and episodes of Cowboy Bebop are there exactly?
The Cowboy Bebop anime series has just one season and 26 episodes, which aired from April 3, 1998, to June 26, 1998. Three years later, on September 1, 2001, a tie-in movie was also released, titled Cowboy Bebop: The Movie.
The rest of this article is going to bring you the overall and complete structure of the Cowboy Bebop anime series, excluding the movie. You’re going to find out why it has just one season and 26 episodes, why it was canceled so early, and whether there’ll be another season of the show.
How Many Seasons Does Cowboy Bebop Have?
Airing from April 3, 1998, to June 26, 1998, Cowboy Bebop is, with a two-month run, one of the shortest anime series among the major works that are globally famous. Unfortunately, Cowboy Bebop only has one season.
How Many Episodes Does Cowboy Bebop Have?
As for the episode count, the only season of Cowboy Bebop is comprised of just 26 episodes, which we are going to present here:
| # | Episode | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Asteroid Blues” | Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, a crew of the Bebop go on the hunt for a drug dealer for whom they pay a reward of 2.5 million urons (the single international currency). This trafficker is Asimov, who has stolen all the Bloody Eye from the gang to which he belonged and for which he is being persecuted; in order to sell it and go live on Mars with his girlfriend Katarina. |
| 2 | “Stray Dog Strut” | Abdul Hakim, a man with a bounty of 8 million urons, steals a suitcase from a research center with content that will make him rich. When they learn of his reward, Spike and Jet go on his trail. But are not the only ones. The research center team will do the same to seize the contents of the said suitcase, which will end up being part of the Bebop crew. |
| 3 | “Honky Tonk Women” | Faye Valentine appears, a gamer and bounty hunter who takes advantage of any opportunity to earn money, although she is also in search and capture for her large gambling debts. Her fate intersects with that of the Bebop crew, as she steals a casino chip with a very strange and coveted encryption key on the black market. |
| 4 | “Gateway Shuffle” | We continue with Faye Valentine, who has been trapped in space without fuel. Unfortunately, the first to find it is the Bebop, who have lost their reward due to the meddling of an environmentalist terrorist gang: the Space Warriors, fanatical protectors of the Ganymede sea mouse and possessors of a secret weapon. |
| 5 | “Ballad of Fallen Angels” | First episode where something of Spike’s past is known. One of the leaders of the Red Dragon organization has been killed. Vicius, a former member of the same organization, is the culprit. As soon as he sees the news, Spike leaves Jet’s ship to fix his affairs without telling him what is happening. Faye for her part, who is already part of the Bebop crew, decides to investigate at her own risk. Who is the mysterious Vicius and what link does he have to Spike? |
| 6 | “Sympathy for the Devil” | Following a prey in a jazz pub, Spike comes across a strange story. An old invalid in a wheelchair, a prodigious boy playing the harmonica and the dam, Giraffe, gives him a strange ring before he dies. What does this mean? And why doesn’t the conversation that Spike hears between them seem to have to do with reality? |
| 7 | “Heavy Metal Queen” | Always following a clue, the Bebop crew look for prey, but this time they only know that it has a dragon tattoo. Their inquiries lead them to meet V. T., a space “truck driver” nicknamed the Queen of Heavy Metal. |
| 8 | “Waltz for Venus” | Spike and Faye avoid a hijacking inside a plane to collect the reward for the hijackers. But after seeing Spike in action, a boy named Rocko, who carries a strange plant, decides to have him as a teacher and wants him to teach him martial arts. |
| 9 | “Jamming with Edward” | A series of strange drawings on the surface of the Earth; They are identical to the Nazca Lines, they make the government put a reward for whoever made them and they suspect a famous hacker who lives on that planet: Ed. Of course, the Bebop crew are on his trail. |
| 10 | “Ganymede Elegy” | This time it’s Jet’s memories that come to the fore. His old job at ISSP and the name of the woman he worked with: Alisa. To which he is going to visit Ganymede. All mixed up with a chase and this woman’s new life. |
| 11 | “Toys in the Attic” (“Heavy Rock of the Dark Night”) | This chapter takes place entirely inside the Bebop ship. Something is making the occupants of it sick and leaves strange marks on them. Spike is the only one who is not infected and decides to eliminate whatever is attacking his companions. |
| 12 | “Jupiter Jazz (Part 1)” | Vicius appears again, to whom his leaders of the Order of the Red Dragon, send to the planet Callisto along with Lin, Spike’s former disciple. On the other hand, Ed looks for information and finds in Callisto someone named Julia, before which Spike also travels towards the planet. Faye, for her part, is already there and has met someone special. |
| 13 | “Jupiter Jazz (Part 2)” | It’s Spike’s second showdown with Vicius, but this time Lin is in the middle. Meanwhile, Glen, the man with the nickname Julia, tells Faye that she served with Vicius on a planet called Titan and is now his contact. Spike’s memories are known once again, related to Vicious and Julia. Spike will try to stop Vicous from running away again. |
| 14 | “Bohemian Rhapsody” | The Bebop has money problems again and a manual on how to be a good thief is circulating on the web. No one knows who the brain is or how to find it and all they have is a chess piece, which Ed will track around the web. |
| 15 | “My Funny Valentine” | This time, Faye’s past is told and how she got so far. Her memory is damaged and she remembers nothing of all the years of her life prior to her hibernation. |
| 16 | “Black Dog Serenade” | Going on the hunt for a murderer, Jet’s former partner asks for his help. It is discovered how Jet lost his arm and why. |
| 17 | “Mushroom Samba” | Ed and Ein decide to go on the trail of a mushroom dealer and give the Bebop crew a taste of these mushrooms … with a terrible result. |
| 18 | “Speak Like a Child” | Faye receives a strange package from an anonymous sender. But Ed explains to the Bebop crew that he can only be seen with a video in BETA format, something already obsolete at the time. When Faye gets to see the video, she doesn’t know what to do. |
| 19 | “Wild Horses” | Spike goes to repair his ship, the Swording, leaving the others alone, who face dangerous hackers and escape unscathed. This time they will have Spike and his repaired ship to capture them. |
| 20 | “Pierrot le Fou” (“Requiem for a Clown”) | Spike is faced with a strange man who is not scared of anything and has an uncanny ability to get out of dangerous situations unscathed. Can Spike emerge unscathed from this madman out of a lab? |
| 21 | “Boogie Woogie Feng Shui” | Jet goes to see Pao, an old friend and discovers that he is already dead. But his daughter, an interpreter of the feng shui table, tells him that before he died, her father hid a treasure and the compass will take them there. Although the two of them are not the only ones looking for it. |
| 22 | “Cowboy Funk” | Spike manages to catch his prey, an explosives-making terrorist, but before he manages to deliver it, a “real cowboy”, as he calls himself, cuts him off, mistaking him for the terrorist. After this, Spike will meet him again and again without rest. |
| 23 | “Brain Scratch” | A strange sect of fanatics is expanding throughout the universe and not even Ed is able to find its leader. For this, Faye infiltrates among the cultists, but falls into the clutches of her. |
| 24 | “Hard Luck Woman” | Faye sees the video they sent her once more and decides to look for the place from where it was recorded, so she ends up going to Earth with Ed. The little girl and Spike meet Ed’s father, who left her in an orphanage in the city. Land. |
| 25 | “The Real Folk Blues (Part 1)” | Vicius tries to assassinate the three Red Dragon chiefs, but the organization sets a trap for him and stops him. Spike meets Shin, Lin’s brother, who asks for his help to free Vicious because Julia has asked him to. The memories of Spike and Julia herself, who knows Faye, come out. Spike’s story is finally known. |
| 26 | “The Real Folk Blues (Part 2)” | Faye has gone for her memories, Ed went in search of his father and took Ein. Spike heads for the last showdown with Vicious, now the leader of the Red Dragon. On the other hand, Jet is alone in his ship, as at the beginning of everything. |
Why Was Cowboy Bebop Canceled Sso Early?
The question might be misleading as, as far as we understand, Cowboy Bebop wasn’t canceled at all. Namely, Watanabe, the series’ director, has stated that he had always had a definitive ending in mind and that the whole show (despite a few standalone episodes) led to the final confrontation between Spike and Vicious.
Watanabe never wanted the show to become like Star Trek and since the show wasn’t really kid-friendly (thereby also not being toy friendly), the studio didn’t really push for more content.
Sure, there could’ve been some more episodes, but it seems that 26 episodes were the designated count from the very start. This means that the show wasn’t actually canceled, but that it just ended its run.
Will There Be a Cowboy Bebop Season 2?
It’s been more than 20 years since the anime aired in Japan and there has been no continuation, sans the 2001 movie. With a live-action series on the way, we’re not really hopeful that Yatate is going to come back to his most famous work.
This is why we don’t think that the anime will ever receive a second season, and will remain one of those short-term gems that have captivated fans despite its short run.
