Cowboy Bebop is a Japanese science-fiction anime[12] television series animated by Sunrise featuring a production team led by director ShinichirÅ Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno. The twenty-six episodes ("sessions") of the series are set in the year 2071, and follow the lives of a bounty hunter crew traveling in their spaceship called the Bebop. Although it covers a wide range of genres throughout its run, Cowboy Bebop draws most heavily from science fiction, western and noir films, and its most recurring thematic focal points include adult existential ennui, loneliness and the difficulties of trying to escape one's past.