- Cowboy Bebop has been ranked as the greatest anime of the 1990s by Collider, despite not being a hit in Japan and only half of it airing on Japanese terrestrial television.
- The series follows four broke bounty hunters and a dog drifting across the solar system in the year 2071, with its episodes working as self-contained short films and featuring a jazz score by Yoko Kanno.
- Originally facing challenges with airing due to mature content, Cowboy Bebop became the first anime shown on Adult Swim in the US, helping to establish the late-night block as a gateway to anime for American viewers.
A new ranking of the greatest anime of the 1990s lists a 1998 series at No. 1, and it’s not the one most casual viewers would name. American audiences had to wait three years before the series made its way to the US, when it finally debuted on cable television after midnight. It wasn’t exactly a hit in Japan, either. Half of it never made it onto Japanese terrestrial television at all.
What Was Just Ranked the No. 1 Anime of the ’90s?
The top spot went to a series about four broke bounty hunters and a dog, drifting across the solar system in the year 2071. Collider <a href="https://collider.com/90s-anime-shows-true-masterpieces/" rel="nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>named Cowboy Bebop the greatest anime of the 1990s. The show ran from 1998 to 1999, and it was the first series directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, who remains best known for the cult classic.
Spike Spiegel, a former syndicate hitman, and Jet Black, an ex-cop, chase criminals for money they almost never manage to keep. A con artist and a teenage hacker join the crew, and the past each of them is running from slowly catches up. Cowboy Bebop calls its episodes sessions, and most of them work as self-contained short films, swinging from slapstick to tragedy while the story of Spike’s old life tightens underneath. Yoko Kanno’s jazz score does as much narrative work as the dialogue.
Critics reached their verdict a long time ago. The series carries a perfect 100% Tomatometer score across 23 reviews, with a 95% Popcornmeter from audiences.
Why Was It Adult Swim’s First Space Western?
The start was rougher. TV Tokyo aired only 12 of the 26 episodes plus a special before dropping the show, a decision driven by its mature content rather than its ratings. The full run went out later on the satellite channel Wowow. The project had nearly died earlier, too. Bandai’s toy division backed it on the condition that it feature spaceships, then withdrew once it saw what Watanabe was making. The gritty, lived-in spacecraft weren’t exactly what the toy division had in mind for selling merchandise. Fortunately, a different arm of Bandai stepped in.
American viewers finally met the crew on September 2, 2001, at midnight, when Cartoon Network launched a late-night block for adults rather than kids. It was the first anime ever shown on Adult Swim. It also arrived with an English dub widely regarded as one of the best in the medium. At 1 a.m., that meant American viewers could follow the action without having to read subtitles.
Bounty hunters, gunfights and drifters running from their pasts give the series its unmistakable Wild West feel, even in the middle of space. That’s why Cowboy Bebop is still categorized as a space Western rather than straight science fiction.
That midnight slot helped turn Adult Swim into a gateway to anime for American viewers over the next two decades. And the show that opened the block, Cowboy Bebop, is now being dubbed the best anime of its decade.
This story was originally published byMen’s Journalon Sep 12, 2026, where it first appeared in theEntertainmentsection. Add Men’s Journal as aPreferred
