Character List

At the heart of the series is the crew who appear throughout it aboard the Bebop. Spike Spiegel, a former syndicate man turned bounty hunter, is skilled in martial arts, ship piloting, and gunplay, with an aloof streak and a stated dislike of kids, pets, and women with attitude, all three of which end up on his ship. Jet Black, an ex-ISSP officer and the vessel's captain, earns the nickname Black Dog for never letting a case go, and favors jazz records and bonsai. Faye Valentine wakes from more than fifty years in a coma buried in debt and drifts into hustling before joining the crew. Edward is an eccentric child hacking prodigy from Earth who speaks in the third person, while Ein is an enhanced data dog of unusual intelligence. Rounding out the leads are Vicious, Spike's sword-wielding rival in the Red Dragon syndicate, and Julia, the elusive woman tied to both men and to Spike's past.

A tier of supporting figures returns across more than one episode without carrying the plot. Gren is a Titan War veteran and saxophonist on Callisto drawn into the Red Eye drug trade. Punch and Judy host the western-styled bounty program Big Shot, feeding hunters the latest word on wanted criminals. The Three Old Men, a trio made up of Antonio, Carlos, and Jobim, wander the solar system and keep crossing paths with the Bebop crew without either party ever admitting it. Lin serves as Vicious's loyal partner in the Red Dragon and is brother to Shin. Annie, once tied to the same syndicate and a friend of Mao Yenrai, later keeps a newsstand on Mars, while Laughing Bull, whose roots trace to a Native American tribe on Earth, turns up on the asteroid Tijuana and later on Mars. Bob, a cop on Ganymede and an old colleague of Jet's, quietly slips him ISSP information on various bounties.

The largest group is the minor characters, most of whom surface for a single episode before their thread closes. Many are bounty heads: Asimov Solensan, wanted for dealing Red Eye on Tijuana, and his partner Katerina; Abdul Hakim, a pet thief who stole the data dog Ein; Morgan, worth eight million Woolongs; and Twinkle Maria Murdock, an eco-terrorist who struck Ganymede over its harvesting of the endangered Sea Rat. Others carry heavier backstory, such as Mao Yenrai, the Red Dragon capo and Spike's mentor who died trying to end the syndicate wars, and Wen, frozen ageless by an Astral Gate accident and driven to hold people hostage to guard his secret. The roster also gathers Rocco Bonnaro, who stole a Grey Ash plant to cure his sister's blindness; VT, a truck driver widowed by a legendary bounty hunter; Chessmaster Hex, a chess champion and Astral Gate designer bent on revenge; the syndicate brothers Shin and Lin; the con artist Whitney Hagas Matsumoto, who saddled Faye with his debts; Udai Taxim from Jet's past; and Mr. Appledelhi, Edward's father, a surveyor on an ever-shifting Earth.