These are excellent series, not just "animation" series. "Cowboy Bebop" easily reaches the pedestal of series such as "The Prisoner". Cowboy Bebop consists of stories about an oddball group of bounty hunters in, get this, action/sci-fi/western/detective/comedy genre. But the most amazing thing is that the creative team actually manages to balance all the genres well enough to avoid being absurd, in fact, well enough to be thoroughly enjoyable spectacle. The quality of each episode ranges from good to excellent. And even though the series borrows from easily identifiable sources such as 2001 Space Oddessey and The Good the Bad and The Ugly, it does it with enough finesse not to undermine itself. It really is ironic that the Japanese animators manage to pull off American pop culture references better than most American filmmakers can. But then again, good film-making/animations transcends all cultures. For those people who cannot get pass "Disney mentality" - that animation cannot be a vessel for "grown up" film-making... all I can tell you: Its your loss.