I have to admit that I’m absolutely, completely and madly in love with the characters in the anime series Cowboy Bebop. My only defense, is that it’s really hard not to be, as the series, is based on the adventures of a group of bounty hunters, who travel around in their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071.
Thematically, the anime series is based on the American music culture, and focuses in on the early jazz movements.

A bunch of jazzy bounty hunters, in space, in the future? Who couldn’t love that?

I’d have to say, however, that my absolute favorite Cowboy Bebop anime characters are Punch and Judy. These Cowboy Bebop anime character names and the loose concept of the TV show in which they appear, named Big Shot, are most likely a tongue-in-cheek reference to the British style puppet-show, Punch and Judy.

They’re a couple of characters who play over the top cowboys, and are just plain weird. Judy, is quite effective in her role as a “dumb blond”, as she’s always dancing around, and wiggling her hips. Punch fakes different accents, and is always using sayings you’d only hear in the old West.

Aside from Punch and Judy, I’m also a fan of the Cowboy Bebop anime characters referred to as The Three Old Men. Throughout the Cowboy Bebop anime series and the movie, three rude, foul-mouthed, crotchety old men sometimes show up. They appear as both speaking characters and sometimes lurking in the background during scenes.

The Cowboy Bebop anime characters called The Three Old Men make various claims about what they did before becoming old-timers, in their good old days. They claim to remember bounty hunting, building the stargates, farming, piloting planes in a war, digging ditches and crop-dusting.

It seems that the The Three Old Men are on relatively good speaking terms with the main characters the Cowboy Bebop anime series. This, however, seems weird, because even though you see them enough, and they run into the main Cowboy Bebop anime characters quite often, nobody really ever pays attention to them. It could be that they’re just annoyed with all their stories, but the main point is that they’re really just here to amuse the viewers. Just to put it into perspective, it’s never even really been mentioned by the main Cowboy Bebop anime characters that they have ever even seen The Three Old Men before.

Other Cowboy Bebop anime characters include Bruce Lee inspired Spike Spiegel, a 27-year-old bounty hunter, born on Mars, and Jet Black who is known on his home satellite as the “Black Dog” for his tenacity as he is very hard working, and can do it all. Jet Black is a 36-year-old former cop from Ganymede and acts as a contrasting character to Spike Spiegel during the Cowboy Bebop anime series.

Vicious is a Cowboy Bebop anime character who is just as he sounds - ruthless, bloodthirsty, cunning and ambitious and willing to do anything to get himself in a position of power. He is a member of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate in Tharsism, and is generally not the kind of person you want to be on the bad side of.

Faye Valentine, a female Cowboy Bebop anime character, is a 23 year old woman in 2071, that was actually born in 1994 and was frozen sometime before the “gate incident”, in which an explosion cracked the moon and sent debris falling to the Earth. Julia is another female Cowboy Bebop anime character that is a beautiful and mysterious woman who has a history with both Spike Spiegel and Vicious.

With the musically stylish theme of this anime series, and such an infinitely interesting cast of characters all with their own style, Cowboy Bebop ranks as one the “coolest” anime programs ever produced.