The Cowboy Bebop series was an animated show (geared towards primarily a mature audience), was a show about 5 crew members, who were on a constant spin-cycle mission to go after high price criminals for a bounty ransom. You can basically refer to them as "round-up bandits", something like Dog The Bounty Hunter, except with an added twist.
They were doing this out in space.
They would take a bounty job, and after catching their man or woman, or even sometimes a item of EXTREME value, they would get paid for their risky efforts in a currency known as woolons (if pronounced right, I have to find the correct actual way to spell that), one woolons is equivalent to an American dollar's value.
The character base was an unusual one as well..
Character Bio: Black, Jet:
6'2"
D.O.B. 12-3-2035
Age: 36
Known Origin: Ganymede (Jupiter's moon)
Jet Black - isn't one known for friendly condolences, he's basically a businessman tied into the world of bounty hunting. He did have a career as an ISSP officer, but was let go do to bad judgement when going after he purses a VERY PROMINENT member of a lord drug cartel named Udai Taxim, and Black's close friend Fad, decides to back him up in the pursuit of Taxim.
They eventually get separated, and Jet manages to get himself cornered into a laid out trap orchestrated by fugitive he set out for in the chase. He is blinded by a VERY bright spotlight, and a shot rang out clipping his entire left arm. Black got EXTREMELY lucky, as the authorities reach him before the cartel gang can finish him off permanently.
Jet left the ISSP after dealing with long time issues of corruption in the police organization itself, and the other reason was partially due to the fact that he would visit a close friend after completing his work shift, a lady named Alisa was who he turned to for advice, and she gives him a reason to keep going strong in his field profession.
With all of that now behind him, he decides to purchase a rather gigantic fishing ship named the "bebop", and now pursues a new found career choice as a ruthless bounty hunter.
Jet is tall and muscular in build, and is broad shouldered. He has a scar above his right eye (with that he has some type of metal fixture underneath it as well) he's bald on top of his head leaving hair surrounding only the sides and back of his head. He also has sideburns that venture down each side his cheeks that forms a beard. His left arm is a robotic appendage, it's believe he can gather extra strength when he uses the arm to push or pull against a person or object, but the bionic factor is tuned down to a degree, so he does not possess any type of superhuman strength, maybe just like in a Olympic competition where you see power lifters who can lift more weight than the average individual.
He takes a liking to his favorite "flight suit" which he usually wears most of the time, but he will change into his best dress threads when taking trips to nightclubs or casinos when he hunting to for bounties. The scar on his face may imply that he has been in some fights as a cop and bounty hunter.
The scar is directly over his eye, but the eye itself is apparently unharmed. The bebop crew tends to look towards him for guidance, they see him in a "fatherly figure," in their viewpoint perspective.
Fighting wise, I picture him as the "old school bruiser type".
Character Bio: Spiegel, Spike:
6'1"
D.O.B. 6-27-2044
Age: 27
Known Origin: Mars
Spike is known chiefly as a member of the syndicate assassination organization "Red Dragon", he would eventually betrayed the organization which result him constantly being on the run while always looking over his shoulder. His arch rival named Vicious, were at one point friends who alongside each other during Spike's time employed under the reign of the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate leader Mao Yenrai, who headed the entire organization.
Eventually Spike and Vicious would fall out over Julia (a high prominent female assassin who fell in love with Spiegel, but was later forced to kill him by an order given from Vicious himself), and she was forced to also show affection toward Spike's one-time friend Vicious, both were seen as the organization's top assassins, and were also deemed each others worst enemy.
Julia was forced to comply going after Spike, due to the fact that she was compromised by Vicious unbeknownst to him, it was perceived that Vicious tangled with Julia in brief companionship (Vicious was deemed as very oppressive, where as Julia was the polar opposite -- very submissive.)
Another thing to consider was the fact that Vicious wanted to become the "head honcho, of the entire Red Dragon Syndicate.
He believed that he only MAJOR threat was his former acquaintance Spike, he was thinking that Spike would probably want the same thing that he wanted, ad that was to be the guy calling all f the shots.
Vicious however was quite deluded in his way of thinking, Spike didn't seem to be interested much in becoming top dog of the organization.
So even if the current leader Mao Yenrai was to approach Spiegel, it wouldn't matter much to him because it's something that he wouldn't ask for in the first place unlike Vicious who felt differently in becoming the one to proceed Yenrai.
In appearance, he's tall and lean, and has dark messy green-tinted hair and brown eyes, which one of them is later revealed to be artificial and lighter than the other.
His choice of weapons is a Jericho 941 - handgun piece, and he learned the art of Jeet Kune Do, a style Bruce Lee is MOST noted for in its creation.
In a flashback in Session 6 it's revealed that his fully-functioning right eye was surgically replaced by a cybernetic one (although Spike himself may not have conscious recollection of the procedure since he claims to have lost his natural eye in an "accident"). He makes it clear in a particular episode that he doesn't care for pets, children, and women -- with attitudes.
Spike is usually dressed in a blue leisure suit, with a yellow shirt and the boots he wears appear to be same color as his suit. He also occasionally wears a long brown trench coat. He is often seen with a cigarette between his lips, even if it's raining or there's clearly a 'No Smoking' sign means little to him, because through and through he's just a hard-habit breaking chain smoker who has to have a smoke when ever possible.
His choice of vehicle he uses when going on the pursuit for a hefty bounty is called the "Swordfish 2".
Character Bio Valentine:
5'6"
D.O.B. 8-14-1994
Age: 24 arguably due to the cryogenic factor, 77 years in actual time of existence
Known Origin: Earth
Faye Valentine is MUCH of an enigma like Spike, and she was also a victim of circumstance, as shes was involved in an horrific accident that claimed the lives of her parents, leaves her for dead (she suffered from critical injuries from the spacecraft trip they were aboard) as the only option to save her was taken into account for her to be frozen cyrogenically, until a proper cure can be issued to her in order to save her life later on in the near future. The problem however was that the cyrogenetic facility known as "Cold Sleep", was damaged due to the destruction of the Moon, which broke into massive pieces and formed around Earth like an asteroid belt, and plummeted the surface.
At this point Faye was still in a cryogenic sleep, and her information was damaged (most of her personal info was destroyed EXCEPT for her first name). Now how she managed to survive all that LOL, only God could tell you that one, and she had an added problem, but same time an expected gift -- well if one would call it as such. The gift part of it wasn't so bad, however it does depend on your mental psyche in terms of handling the fact that you haven't aged a day since you were frozen stiff.
Similar situations can be compared to other characters such as Nina Williams from the Tekken series (the same went for her crazy rival destructive ass sister Anna LOL), and who could forget the situation that got Detective John Spartan thrown into the "freezer", along with his rival Simon Phoenix in the movie Demolition Man. It took Spartan a while to adjust to his new environment, a list of do's & don't s, and the fact that he learns about his wife perishing in a major earthquake which destroyed most of the state of California in the process (and the cherry on top was a daughter he didn't even know he had, now lives in the same timeline as he does now.)
YEAH THAT'S PRETTY DAMN HEAVY.
Faye was emotionally scarred from losing her parents (because the mind tends to generate past memories whether good or bad), and she realized she was all alone in a strange new time and place. The REALLY BAD situation she was facing, was that HUGE ASS bill for her 54 year stay at the Cold Sleep facility. She knows it's just NO WAY IN HELL she could ever pay off such a debt, and she gets an UNEXPECTED added prize from a lawyer named Whitney Hagas Matsumoto, who tried to help her with her medical expenses at Cold Sleep, but sacrifices his own life to save hers (I forget why he did this), so in default all of his debts piled upon her already hefty expenses. Creditors eventually came knocking to collect on her outstanding debts she owed, but Faye WAS NOT GOING TO OPEN THAT CAN OF WORMS!! LOL.
It was apparent at that point that she should just abandon Earth, and start over from where she is now (which she basically did when she takes on the persona "Poker Face Alice".)
And that's where the REAL fun started when she briefly meets both Jet and Spike, who were in search for her as they saw her profile on a popular the bounty hunter show.
(the name of the show is called "BIG SHOT" they watch the briefly 5- minute daily program to get leads on bounty heads on the run like her.)
Spike and Jet also had an extra added stake before they made the decision to go after Faye, for the 6,000,000 woolon bounty which was placed on her head -- it was made known that a SPECIALpoker chip was worth A LOT OF WOOLONS, and the reason for that was because the chip is really an encrypted microchip on the inside of the chip's shell, and it's capable of breaking any digital encryption (and if that's the case, I'm thinking that chip can help to decipher pass codes to things such as safes, bank accounts, ship flight codes -- you know in case someone wants to hijack your ride the easy way LOL, etc..) Faye gets away from the first encounter between her, Spike, and Jet, but they managed to capture her shortly afterwords, and at that point, she realizes that she should comply in exchange to finding a place to call home (on the bebop), Jet wasn't too crazy about the idea at first, but he recognized her abilities and contribution toward the art of bounty hunting, thus becoming partners with Spike and Jet.
To give you an idea of her lost past life, comes a recorded message created on an old Betamax Videotape. It was to be delivered ten years in the future as a time capsule created and buried by her younger self. Her personality at the time seemed shy but very positive. One thing to note about her previous persona, was that it was the polar opposite, when compared to the current one she had adopted after she escapes the "Cold Sleep" facility.
Faye is quite the "looker, an old-school term that points out her natural beauty. Physically she is very endowed or (or blessed with a gorgeous body shape -- slender, tall, and curvy), and she has an interesting choice of hairstyle color (she sports a bob cut style with purple tinted hair), and her choice of outfit (consists of yellow hot shorts, white boots, nude thigh high stockings, a skimpy undershirt with an red overcoat worn loosely, and her overall look is rather highly PROVOCATIVE.)
She's materialistic, and can handle herself pretty well in a street fight (she did this in one of the episodes as she faced down a group of thugs in a back alley way, who tried to take advantage of her thinking she was nothing more than a mere defenseless girl, BOY WERE THEY WRONG!! LOL).
Judging from her younger self seen on the Betamax Video Cassette above in the previous paragraph, she could be possibly identified as Asian. However she never confirmed her nationality to any of the crew.
Her flying vehicle she uses when going to collect a bounty is called the "Red Tail". (Which you'll see shortly after watching episode 20 towards the end when she goes to Spike's aid.)
Character Bio Radical Ed:
5'1"
D.O.B. 1-1-2058
Age: 13
Known Origin: Earth
No matter how you dice it, at first glance Ed just looks like an "EXTREMELY" weird ass kid, and for as long as I could remember, I always thought the character was based on the life of an eccentric genius teenage boy. However, that wasn't the case one bit, he was actually a teenage girl which through me for a completely loop, LOL. So I guess that was the premises for the character, Ed's character I believe was meant to keep you unbalanced due to her EXTREME weird behavior, and outrageous antics unknown to man LOL.
Given the fact that Edward was truly a "radically odd" individual with the capably of a computer science genius, and she does act VERY goofy at times, but can be the central character in a couple of the Bebop Episodes, where she turns out to be the unlikely hero to save the day, and bail the rest of the Bebop Crew out of trouble (matter of fact she did that in this episode when Spike went head to head to confront Mad Pierrot Le Fou, when Jet needed that key information about his weakness. Jet asked Ed to hack into the ISSP site system, and pull the data files on Le Fou, after a few tries she manages to snag the videos / confidential info of his background when he was at ISSP.)"
She grew up an orphan after her Father abandoned her, and went back to his ship to head out to sea after FINALLY meeting her for the first time YEARS LATER, and he DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT SHE WAS HIS DAUGHTER - AND NOT HIS SON?! But yet, she seemed unaffected by all of this and still holds him dear in her heart anyway..
It's like I said, Ed's logic is on a level of its own LOL.
Most kids, or young adults MORE IN LIKELY would abandon the parent, if the parent abandon them first.
Ed is the brains of the Bebop Crew, you can guarantee when all options have been exhausted, and when sh_t is about to hit the fan, then Ed is your guy um.. I mean girl LOL, to turn to for an off the wall solution ONLY SHE CAN MAKE HAPPEN.
Ed was almost missed over as a crew member on the Bebop, she asked Faye to promise to make her an honorable crew member (despite the fact that Faye was NOT digging the offer), Faye and the rest of the Bebop Crew had NO CHOICE but to comply with Ed's wish (due to the fact that they were chasing a AI remote hacker, which was sabotaging the functionality of their software programming, and in turn causing strife and chaos on LITERALLY on the face of the Earth.) Ed knew that Faye would back-step on her word to take her aboard their ship, so she runs a program jamming Bebop's controls, and the only way to resolve the issue is to grant her permission to come aboard as an ACTUAL member.
In a sense, Jet truly recognizes her powerful talent when she's jamming away on the computer board keys, tinkering with complex computer programs, or even helping them to track down enemies using her rather uncanny hacking skills. And she does all of this with a RAGAMUFFIN makeshift CPU, held together by out-of-date spare parts and shabby cardboard infra-structuring.
Ed appears skinny and is a copper toned teenage girl with tufts of bright red hair. She's always wearing a loose sleeveless white T-shirt, compression shorts, and never wears footwear of any kind. Once she attempted to wear socks in Mushroom Samba but she immediately lost her balance, suggesting she may have never even worn shoes. The large green goggles on her head (sometimes they hang just below her neck when she doesn't have them on ) or dangling from her neck. The goggles hook up to her computer and allow her to "net dive".
Ed is a true enigma in terms of determining whether or not she's a she, or a he. In ACTUAL, Ed is a girl, but the character was often portrayed as VERY tom-boyish, which tends to throw off viewers who watched the anime show particularly when it was on Adult Swim back in the 2000's.
Another interesting fact about the compression shorts she wears is that they are used by individuals who practice workouts in chilly to cold environments in the gym, and they also can be utilized to deter the ill affects of back pain, they help to protect the groin region area. They're often suggested to those who suffer from a form of back pain called sciatica. The sciatic nerve runs along the outer thigh and can be irritated during exercise. Many sufferers find relief from sciatic nerve pain while wearing these shorts under their normal workout gear.
Character Ein:
D.O.B. ???
Age: ???
Known Origin: Earth?? Not sure..
Ein seems like he's just your ordinary dog, but don't let that fool you. This dog can do some pretty off the wall things in terms of understanding "SPECIFIC" types of information, and Ein got lucky as he recognize his chance for escape when his previous criminal owner by the name of Abdul Hakim, faced off against Spike, and this was due to a suggested bounty head to go after he saw on the Big Shot program that placed Hakim with a whooping $8,000,000 woolon price tag for his capture.
Hakim of course was known as the guy who kidnapped Ein, and again the reason for such trouble to kidnap this dog was because he was a data dog, placed on the high-priority list of those who were willing to get their greedy hands on the K-9 at any cost. The same goes for anyone else that owned the K-9, they too had to have had some knowledge of the dog's deductive thinking and logistic strategies which lead me to believe that they too had sinister intentions to make some serious Cold hard Cash off of him.
Spike believes that the bounty reward was a huge one in theory, but Ein's REAL worth over-exceeded the bounty reward greatly. So if anyone who was the actual owner of this special K-9 breed, knew that they could become rich LITERALLY overnight if they were to sell the dog in a high-prominent auction event.
It's stated that an illegal research facility had possession of Ein before Abdul made his attempt to steal it from them, I'm thinking the illegal research done on Ein at the given time was to probe his mind, and see how the dog actually formulates calculated decisions, Abdul had to be briefed about the dog's potential capabilities, after all Ein can go as far as to "point out" any criminal urges humans may harbor, so in a sense he can predict one's MOST IMMEDIATE action before he / she even makes it!
DAMN, can you say.. Ein hey little buddy um, could you bark to me the predicted winning lottery numbers for next week? There's a life-time supply of meaty bone treats in it for ya! :D
"IT'S NUMBER CRUNCHING TIME!"
A mysterious figure appears casting his massive shadow against the side of a tall building.
Down the alley way, he focuses his true intention which is to confront a mob boss who has seen his face, thus knows of his true identity which DOES NOT sit well with Pierrot one bit. To make it right, he presses forward to speak to the boss' men, and the big boss himself and says the following..
"Hello Gentlemen.."
(At this time, Spike is leaving the Billiards Hall after just playing game a game of pool with a competitor he defeats. He pulls out a cigar, as he proceeds down a darkened alley way.)
At the other end of that alley way you have Mad Pierrot (ACTING A DAMN FOOL -- blasting away a group of individuals with his brassy-gold shotgun walking cane) doing what he does best, which is snuffing out any witnesses who've seen his face and knows exactly who he is.
(Unfortunately.. Spike comes to the end of the alley way, only to confront Pierrot right after he had just got done performing his handy work. And quickly finds himself in an unexpected gun fight as Pierrot takes up his trust rusty "shottyG cane", blasting away at him.)
Spike evades Pierrot's rapid gunfire session which is now directed at him. Spike takes cover behind a couple of trash cans, then quickly pitches a trash bag to the side out into the open to draw Pierrot's attention away -- he fires two shots immediately and watches the bullets bounce off of a force field shield of sorts that Pierrot sports as a measure of protection.
(Weird thing is that Pierrot smiles and bursts into a short stitch of laughter as he floats toward Spike to do battle up close and personal.)
[HE FIRES]
Spike bursts into full running sprint
Left behind is a massive explosion, and a semi-satisfied Mad Pierrot who knows Spike had somehow got away.
Well.. For the moment anyway.
(Mad Pierrot floats away after creaming yet another mob boss and his ace top notch bodyguards LOL. He continues on screaming LOUDLY with unconstrained INSANE laughter.)
He starts shooting at Spike with his shotG cane.
Spike Surely Hates Amusement Theme Parks After All Of This, Especially After He Got Done Taking On The Super Powered Crazy Man Who Was Seeking For His Demise.
I also thought about another issue that this episode never addressed..
Who in the h-ll is going to help Faye tow her Dragon Tail flyer ship back to the bebop ship?
Just saying you know.. LOL.
So Until Then..
http://cowboybebop.wikia.com/wiki/Jupiter_Jazz_%28Part_1%29 (Faye's snaps on a group of thugs in battle!)
http://www.animefreak.tv/anime-watch/cowboy-bebop-episode-20 (Mad Pierrot Le Fou) -- NOTE: when playing anime episodes on the animefreak.tv site, remember to click on the "CLOSE & CONTINUE", then you want to click on the play arrow icon to load up the video, it may prompt you to watch a game advertisement before it goes to the featured video. Repeat this process if the video fails to load up.