Shinichirō Watanabe caught lightning in a bottle with his beloved, anachronistic genre-mashup, Cowboy Bebop. Part space opera, part neo-noir Western, Cowboy Bebop introduced a fantastical, dystopian world inhabited by characters who remain unmoored to their realities, yearning for an impossible future while shouldering the weight of the past. But when Watanabe made Cowboy Bebop: The Movie as an extension of his acclaimed series, the meandering 2.5-hour adventure nestled between the events of episodes 22 and 23 was deemed forgettable compared to the timelessness of the original.
