Cowboy Bebop Complete Sessions Collection (Amazon.com Exclusive)
Each of the snazzy 25-minute installments from the most popular Japanese animated TV series of 1998 is a satisfying adventure tale about a futuristic hipster bounty hunter. This is an elegant action-comedy anime, with smoothly integrated CGI space-flight elements, gorgeous graphics, blues harmonica and sax riffs on the                 soundtrack, and a no-sweat post-Tarantino attitude. Despite occasional eruptions of gun-fu Asian-action violence, and some intimations of heavy-duty drug use (in the                 first of 26 episodes, one especially noxious narcotic is administered as an aerosol spray straight onto the user's eyeballs), the tone is surprisingly convivial. None of the                 generic tough elements are grim or mean-spirited. Lanky antihero Spike Spiegel is a planet-hopping freelance hunter with an ex-cop sidekick named Jet, a loopy                 fellow hunter named Faye, a teenage computer hack, and a genetically enhanced Welsh corgi assistant in tow. The emphasis is on clever twists of plot in an episodic                 short-story format with as many wisecracks as punches being thrown. Unrated (suitable for ages 13 and older): violence, nudity, profanity, alcohol and tobacco use, occasional ethnic stereotypes.--David Chute