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Samurai Champloo (2004)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Start here if you miss the way Cowboy Bebop makes a soundtrack part of the storytelling. Director Shinichiro Watanabe gives a restless trio a reason to cross Edo-era Japan, and Nujabes and the other soundtrack artists give the detours their own hip-hop rhythm. The long search leaves room for an episode to be funny, rough, or sad on its own terms.
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Outlaw Star (1998)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Try this for another 1998 space adventure about taking a job without knowing where it will leave you. Gene and Jim wind up with a stolen ship and a passenger drawn into the mystery surrounding it. The crew chases a bigger prize than the Bebop usually does, but you still get the pleasure of watching temporary partners learn to fly together.
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Space Dandy (2014)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Pick this if you like being surprised by what kind of story the crew gets into after the opening credits. Dandy makes a living hunting undocumented aliens with a robot and a catlike alien, but the target can send you into anything from a race to a story about a lonely dog. The comedy is louder and the episode-to-episode swings are wilder.
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TRIGUN (1998)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Choose the 1998 series for dusty towns, a bounty that follows a gunman everywhere, and comedy that leaves room for old grief. Vash meets suspicion with jokes and an insistence on avoiding bloodshed. You get another show that takes its time letting the man behind the reputation come into focus.
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Black Lagoon (2006)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Watch this for another crew that takes jobs for the money and finds out how ugly the work can get. The Lagoon Company’s boat and its new recruit Rock give you a way into a Southeast Asian port built around smuggling. Expect rougher violence than on the Bebop and just as much friction between people sharing a ride.
More about Black Lagoon6
TRIGUN STAMPEDE (2023)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Try the 2023 series if the wandering gunman appealed to you and you want a new version of Vash. The reporter Meryl follows a man who avoids killing even with a bounty on his head. This take uses computer animation and brings the story of Vash’s brother forward earlier than the 1998 series.
More about TRIGUN STAMPEDE7
Michiko & Hatchin (2008)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Pick this for a road trip where two people with every reason to distrust each other have to keep moving together. Michiko breaks out of prison and takes Hatchin through a fictional South American country to look for the girl’s father. The soundtrack by Alexandre Kassin gives the getaway a pulse of its own.
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Lazarus (2025)
7.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Choose this if you want to hear what Watanabe does with jazz and electronic music after Bebop. Kamasi Washington, Bonobo, and Floating Points each contribute to the score as a team of agents hunts the creator of a widely used drug. A shared deadline holds the chase together more tightly than the Bebop’s odd jobs.
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Baccano! (2007)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Reach for this if you like crime stories that seem to belong to different shows until they collide. Two comic thieves, rival gangsters, and an alchemist’s work cross paths in a story that keeps circling a transcontinental train. The swing in the opening suits the Prohibition-era setting and the way the cast ricochets around it.
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Great Pretender (2020)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Try this for jobs that play like self-contained capers while you learn how the team fits together. Makoto thinks he’s a top con artist until Laurent gets the better of him. Follow them from city to city if you want style and sharp banter with less gunfire.
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Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (2012)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Watch this if you miss the cases where a con artist like Faye has an agenda the rest of the crew can barely see. The story follows thief Fujiko Mine through stylish jobs and the people she draws into them. The rough ink lines and shadows make it a particularly good fit for the noir side of Bebop.
More about Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine12
Lupin the 3rd (1971)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Lupin the 3rd Part II
Choose the red-jacket run from 1977 for heists that come with new settings, schemes, and combinations of old partners. The globe-trotting jobs have a much lighter touch, but you can see a kinship in the way Lupin’s crew bickers, improvises, and keeps pulling off another job.
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CAROLE & TUESDAY (2019)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Follow the music here if you’d happily spend more time on Watanabe’s version of Mars. Two young women write and perform their own songs in a world accustomed to AI-made music. You get another bond formed between outsiders, this time by figuring out how to sound good together.
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Kids on the Slope (2012)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Start here if you want more of the jazz itself. A classically trained pianist and a classmate who plays drums find a common language in basement sessions. Watanabe and composer Yoko Kanno let you hear how playing together can convey the feeling two people struggle to say out loud.
More about Kids on the Slope15
MEGALOBOX (2018)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Choose this for the part of Bebop that makes worn-out rooms and a bad paycheck feel as important as the next fight. Junk Dog scrapes by fixing mechanized boxing matches with his coach. The first season sets its fights against hip-hop and gives you an underdog who’s running out of reasons to keep taking the money.
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Cannon Busters (2019)
6.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Pick this for a strange traveling party, frontier towns, and an outlaw who can’t stay dead. A friendship droid, a repair robot, and Philly the Kid hit the road in a car that can transform. You get a space-Western sensibility filtered through fantasy and comedy.
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Space Cobra (1982)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Try the 1982 TV series for a swing at an earlier style of roguish space adventure. A pirate with a forgotten past gets back on the road with his android partner, Lady Armaroid. You’ll recognize the confidence with which a solo outlaw bluffs his way through trouble.
More about Space Cobra18
Dirty Pair (1985)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Pick the 1985 series if you want the episode where a straightforward job makes the biggest mess possible. Kei and Yuri are paid to solve problems as Trouble Consultants, and their clients have good reason to fear the collateral damage. You get a lighter, brisker version of workaday adventure in space.
More about Dirty Pair19
Coyote Ragtime Show (2006)
6.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Try this for wanted space travelers and a crew held together by past debts. An outlaw called Mister breaks out of custody and helps the daughter of a late pirate hunt for hidden treasure. Instead of moving from bounty to bounty, you spend the series chasing one score before other crews get there.
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Planetes (2003)
8.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Watch this if you like the idea of making rent and doing unglamorous work in orbit. The crew’s assignments are to collect dangerous debris, which gives you a different kind of workplace trouble each time they leave the station. The setting takes its physics and labor politics more seriously than Bebop’s frontier does.
More about Planetes21
Last Exile (2003)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Try this if you miss a crew trying to earn a living in a machine that really looks lived in. Young couriers Claus and Lavie take an unusual delivery and get drawn into a wider conflict. Its skies are full of airships, with the thrill of flying a small craft through a world built for bigger ones.
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