Date generale

Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ, Kaubōi Bibappu?) is a Japanese anime series created by Sunrise and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. It follows the adventures of four misfortuned bounty hunters travelling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071.

Cowboy Bebop was a commercial success both in Japan and worldwide, especially the United States. It was later expanded into a motion picture, two manga series, and video games. Sony Pictures released the Cowboy Bebop movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door to theaters worldwide, and followed up with an international DVD release. Two Cowboy Bebop manga series were created based on the anime; as well as two video games, one each for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles.

Cowboy Bebop is strongly influenced by American music, especially the jazz movements of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and the early rock era of the 1950s, 1960's and 1970's. Many of its action sequences, from space battles to hand-to-hand martial arts combat, are set and timed to music. Episodes are called Sessions (in reference to musicians playing a "jam session"), and titles are often borrowed from album or song names (such as Sympathy for the Devil), or make use of a genre name (Mushroom Samba), and indicate the episode's musical theme.

Cowboy Bebop was almost not on Japanese broadcast television due to its depictions of violence. It was first sent to TV Tokyo, one of the main broadcasters of anime in Japan. However, at the time, TV Tokyo was focusing on violence and sexuality in anime after the notoriously controversial broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion between 1995-1996. The show had an aborted first run from April 3, 1998 until June 19, 1998 on TV Tokyo, broadcasting only episodes 2, 3, 7-15 and 18. There are rumors that the network purposely tried to "sabotage" the series (perhaps due to the climate in the aftermath of Evangelion), but there is evidence to suggest the time slot after April 23 was already booked, leaving little room for the new series. In fact, the episode XX is said to have been protested by staff for the treatment of the show. Later that year, the series was shown in its entirety from October 23rd until April 23, 1999, on the satellite network WOWOW. With the broadcast slot fiasco, the production schedule was disrupted to the extent that the last episode was delivered to WOWOW on the day of its broadcast. The full series has also been broadcasted across Japan by the anime television network, Animax, who has also aired the series via its respective networks across Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. Cowboy Bebop was popular enough that the movie, Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira (Knockin' on Heaven's Door), was commissioned and released in Japan in 2001, and later released in the United States as Cowboy Bebop: The Movie in 2003.

In 2001, Cowboy Bebop became the first anime title to be shown as part of the U.S. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. It was successful enough to be broadcasted regularly until present. The success of Cowboy Bebop paved the way for Adult Swim's later mature anime, including InuYasha, Lupin the Third, Trigun, Blue Gender, Fullmetal Alchemist, FLCL, Witch Hunter Robin, Samurai Champloo, Wolf's Rain, even Evangelion itself, which had made the original Japanese TV-run so infamous in the first place with its graphic violence and psychodrama-oriented content.

* In the United Kingdom, Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast in 2003 as one of the highlights of the ill-fated 'cartoon network for adults', CNX.
* In Australia Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast in 2002 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and began broadcasting on ABC2, a digital free-to-air network, on January 2, 2007.
* In France Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during summer 2000 on Canal+.
* In Germany Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 2003-2004 on MTV.
* In Poland, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast several times by Hyper and TVP Kultura.
* In Israel, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 2001-2002 on Bip's late-night anime block.
* In Spain, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast during 1999 in Buzz and the summer of 2006 on Cuatro's late-night show Cuatroesfera.
* In Canada, Cowboy Bebop is set to finally make its debut on December 24, 2006 on the young adult-oriented specialty station, Razer
* In Italy, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast after november 1999 on MTV.
* In Singapore, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast on Arts Central at the 11pm time slot, and had several scenes cut for violence and other graphic content.
* In Portugal, Cowboy Bebop was broadcast on SIC Radical in 2001.

Bandai released a Cowboy Bebop shoot 'em up video game in Japan for the PlayStation in 1998. A PlayStation 2 Cowboy Bebop video game was released in Japan, and the English version had been set for release in North America during the first quarter of 2006. However, as of June 2006, there has been no release date set for the American release.

_________________
Om mare este cel care nu ºi-a pierdut inima de copil