Skip to content
TVTitles

Cowboy Bebop

1998–1999TV TokyoWOWOWAnimation

Rate it

A jazz record given ninety seconds of animation. Silhouettes and hard-edged colour panels cut on the beat of a big band, borrowing the grammar of 1960s film titles so completely that the show it opens looks like a rediscovery rather than a debut.

One opening sequence is catalogued for Cowboy Bebop, covering season 1.

It arrived on TV Tokyo in 1998, when Serial Experiments Lain and Trigun were also on the network.

1 sequence145th most looked up of 409 in the 1990sIMDb ↗
XFacebookPinterest

The opening titles

Season 1

One sequence for all twenty-six episodes. Yoko Kanno's 'Tank!' arrives before any image does, and the titles are cut to the horns rather than the horns scored to the titles — which is why the split screens land where they do.

More animation opening titles from the 1990s

Still from the opening titles of One Piece1 sequence

One Piece

1999–Fuji TVAnimation

The longest-running opening rotation in television — more than twenty distinct sequences over a quarter of a century, each announcing a new arc.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of South Park2 sequences

South Park

1997–Comedy CentralAnimation

A banjo, a cut-paper Colorado town and four boys at a bus stop — re-recorded and re-animated repeatedly across nearly thirty years while staying recognisably the same twenty-nine seconds.

  • Season 1
  • Season 15
Still from the opening titles of SpongeBob SquarePants1 sequence

SpongeBob SquarePants

1999–NickelodeonAnimation

A sea shanty led by a painted pirate head, in call and response with children — one of the most universally known pieces of television music written this century.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Family Guy2 sequences

Family Guy

1999–FoxAnimation

A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.

  • Season 1
  • Season 10
Still from the opening titles of King of the Hill2 sequences

King of the Hill

1997–FoxAnimation

Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.

  • Season 1
  • Season 14
Still from the opening titles of Neon Genesis Evangelion1 sequence

Neon Genesis Evangelion

1995–1996TV TokyoAnimation

Ninety seconds cut faster than the eye resolves, with whole frames of text and diagram flashed for one frame each. Yoko Takahashi's theme is bright, major-key J-pop laid over imagery that is doing nothing of the kind, and the mismatch is the point rather than an accident.

  • Season 1