As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- You can't talk about the awesomeness of this series without first mentioning its iconic intro sequence
, which has been homaged and parodied several times by other works. Even the live-action version wisely decided that this was one element that had to be included as part of the adaptation. And as part of a collaboration with Overwatch 2, a trailer that recreates the opening shot by shot! - Spike has many such moments:
- In the 5th episode, where Vicious killed Spike's one-time Mentor and took teammate Faye hostage. One of the mooks stands behind Faye with a gun to her head, telling Spike to drop his gun. Spike doesn't even hesitate, and without bothering to reply he puts a bullet right in the middle of the mook's forehead while the mook is in the middle of threatening him.
- "Pierrot le Fou." The whole episode. An all out Immune to Bullets Super Villain in a fairly realistic show vs. ordinary badass Spike. They have a fight. Spike wins. Spike's the man.
- Spike wins through a combination of non-stop determination, and the villain's psychological and technological weaknesses. Spike has a fake eye that gives him the appearance of heterochromia: one of the people that supervised Pierrot's torturous engineering carried a cat with the same condition, and this brings on a sudden Villainous BSoD. This gives Spike a chance to hurl a knife, which is his final, last-ditch, die-fighting effort against a superhuman who's been thrashing him and has him at gun's point. Unluckily for Pierrot, the mad scientists that designed his bullet-shield didn't account for something relatively slow-moving: and luckily for Spike, it's a One-Hit KO.
- And of course, everyone remembers the final scene. "Bang".
- Pretty much all of Spike's martial arts fight scenes are awesome, but the best is definitely in Jupiter Jazz, Pt. 1 when he beats up half a dozen mooks on Callisto. The fight choreography is amazing. When they piss him off by calling him "Vicious," first he punches a huge dent in a nearby metal pipe, then he takes a flying leap into the center of the group. Not only do they outnumber him, but they all have weapons in the form of some sort of industrial tool. He handily mops the floor with them, but the best part is that there is no Mook Chivalry. They all attack at once, and he is able to avoid blows from behind him by dodging and weaving in between the members of the group.
- In Cowboy Funk when Spike and Andy are both trapped inside an elevator that Teddy Bomber has rigged and the two both out-gambiting each other by rigging the escape controls, thus giving Teddy Bomber the advantage, Andy clearly starts to panic. Spike however, keeps his calm and notices an escape hatch for the two to climb through.
- Ed and Ein also have their day, chasing down a mushroom smuggler. Although admittedly this is after Ed has tricked the rest of the crew into eating some of the bad mushrooms and getting completely spaced out on them.
- Ein gets another one in Brain Scratch by subtly implying what a Data Dog can really do.
- Doohan's surprise launch of a re-built space shuttle Columbia is even more impressive considering this is his only appearance.
- The episode Toys in the Attic features the most awesome failure to light a cigarette in the history of mankind. Spike's facial expressions through said failure just make it more awesome.
- The refrigerator in this episode deserves its own place here for having an entire ecosystem inside it.
- The whole episode could be considered one; from Faye cheating Jet out of all of his clothing in a game of dice, to Spike cooking with a flamethrower, to the lobster scene and beyond; for an episode that's out of the norm for Bebop, it's amazing how well everything works.
- ... and then there's the ending, which is too awesome for words.
- Well, except for a few:
"... and what was the real lesson?
Don't leave things in the fridge."
- Faye holding a gun to a perp's head in Waltz For Venus. Specifically, the gun on her spaceship.
- Earlier she shows off her Improbable Aiming Skills by shooting the gun out of the hands of half a dozen goons in a dimly lit Bad Guy Bar.
- Spike's showdown with Andy in Cowboy Funk definitely qualifies.
- The animation team should get one just for "Ask DNA". How many series put that much effort opening sequence to the movie? And it seems to have been rotoscoped, no less.
- When Spike calmly enters the enemy's base, while they're all searching like mad for him, drops a grenade, and kicks it at them.
- Ed vandalizing South America. That's right, the continent.
- Earlier that episode, she hacked into a ship's computer and controlled its flight to crash about a mile away. Nice character introduction.
- At the end, she hacks into the Bebop and lands it perfectly, just because she wants to join.
- The Movie has at least six:
- Spike and Jet defusing a hostage situation in a gas station robbery.
- Spike and Electra's method of escaping from a prison cell.
- Spike's aerial chase where he shakes off three other ships, crashes in the middle of a traffic jam on a bridge, then hops out and yells "Taxi!"
- That scene has the best music in the movie and show. It's also combined with the longest, most stunt-filled aerial battle in Cowboy Bebop. Truly awesome stuff.
- The three old men taking to the skies in an antique biplane.
- Faye taking over the weather control dome to save the inhabitants of Mars from Vincent's terrorist attack.
"Me? I'm just a gun-totin' weather girl!" (fires her machine gun into the roof)- Spike's final showdown with Vincent.
- Vincent during the train fight. He performs the moment of all martial arts moves when he grabs Spike's ribcage bones with his fingers through his skin and slowly begins to twist it. Then he detonates a grenade in the palm of his own hand.
- Faye gets one when she shoots out the tires of the cars of the thugs chasing Julia. Seeing her take down car after car with little effort truly earns her Action Girl status.
- Rocco flipping a guy on his ass in the middle of a big gunfight using the skill that Spike taught him was pretty awesome. Especially considering the technique is all about keeping a calm mind and that particular situation was the exact opposite of calm. A shame that he dies literally immediately afterward.
- Vicious deserves major props for taking on a gun-wielding badass like Spike Spiegel with nothing but a katana. Just try arguing that having such skill with sword in a post-modern setting isn't cool.
- How about the fact that the show debuted on September 2, 2001, on the very day that adultswim did, and it's STILL BEING SHOWN TODAY, having recently celebrated it's 10TH ANNIVERSARY! Not too shabby for a 26 episode series!
- Even sixteen years since its initial debut, it's still being aired on various channels. It also recently had a Blu-Ray release for the movie and the entire series.
- Ed's dad. See this seemingly harmless, map making, kid forgetting ditz? Yeah. All those eggs did him good, as he's able to mop the floor with Spike and Jet, with surprisingly little effort.
- Jet coming to Spike's rescue with a construction vehicle in the first episode.
"I think it's about time we blow this scene, get everybody and the stuff together. OK, three, two, one, let's jam."
