Every time a new season starts I swear to myself that I will stay calm and not watch everything and somehow, every time a new season starts, I end up watching half of the airing shows. It’s a curse! Sadly, most of them end up being less interesting than Cowboy Bebop.

This anime tells the story of the crew of the spaceship Bebop who also happen to be bounty hunters. At the beginning it’s just Spike and Jet but as the show progress the crew gets new additions and we discover more about the past of our characters.

Cowboy Bebop is structured around series of small arcs, often no longer than a single episode, which is both very good, it keeps you from being bored quickly, but also very hard to pull off because there’s literally nothing that keeps you from watching the next episode. Thankfully, this anime did it rather well, because there have been a little something tying it all together. As such you feel like watching the next episode because you want to know how this little rivalry will end.

The little arcs were not bad at all though, quite entertaining even. It always focused on catching a criminal, and these criminals were always pretty colorful and fun to watch. Sometimes you might even get a bonus like some insight on the characters or even a new character or some kind of interesting information on something. The rare person to be nice in Sunrise’s staff worked on this anime it would seem. That’s a thing I really liked in Cowboy Bebop: the fact that there was always something interesting to find in every episode, even if the main story of the anime isn’t linear.

But to be really honest with you what makes Cowboy Bebop absolutely awesome was its characters. Everyone is special and endearing in their own way. So much that I have troubles telling who my favorite was. It probably is Fay Valentine. She’s one of the characters who evolved the most throughout the series, as when she first appeared I didn’t really like her, well, I didn’t hate her either, but she wasn’t a character I felt interested in. But, flying in the Bebop she changed a lot. I really liked seeing her more vulnerable sides and her past, it is really interesting, especially for a character that acts so tough all the time.

Spike as well is a bit like that, I really appreciated to see his softer side. Jet as well, I never would have guessed that his favorite thing to do in his free time was tending to his bonsai. As for Ed, I have a soft spot for hackers in anime so obviously I loved Ed, who, while being the kind of character I usually find incredibly annoying, managed to become quite cute and endearing despite everything.

The addition of Ein, very cute and very smart little dog was also a very good idea, it brought some character development for everyone else, it’s always interesting to see how people treat animals, even if it’s just in anime. I found it quite cute that they finally didn’t sell him, nor did they even take advantage of his abilities and treated Ein like an actual part of their crew. It was really adorable.

Reviewing Cowboy Bebop is like a paradox, you could talk for hours about how awesome this show was (that’s what I did on twitter while I was watching it) but when faced to the terrific blank page, it’s like your brain goes mute. Let me tell you a secret, reviewing Cowboy Bebop is hard. It has no continuous plot thick enough to critique (I’m not saying that the plot we got wasn’t thick, it’s just put there in such a way that it doesn’t seem to be), while at the same time, every information is too important for me to tell you anything about it.

The same goes for the characters. I wish I could go on and on about why they are as awesome as they are, but their character development is important to the plot and I don’t want to spoil. In a way, all of this means that Cowboy Bebop has been carefully crafted, everything matters, and I guess that’s a good sign. Good job Sunrise!

Now though, I can’t say the animation is good because it’s starting to get a little old, but I loved the character design, I really did, it changes a bit from your usual anime style. And I loved Jet’s voice.

In short, Cowboy Bebop is awesome, go watch Cowboy Bebop.