“Evangelion had effectively broken the mold for prime-time TV, and there was a scramble to make some kind of follow-up that did something different,” Clements explains. “Cowboy Bebop went for a sci-fi future without giant robots” — again, defying the conventions of science fiction anime at the time.

Over at Entertainment Weekly, I am one of the talking heads in Tyler Aquilina’s introduction to the Cowboy Bebop anime and its long history with the American mainstream.