Jet, Spike and Fay: an ex-cop, an ex-gangster, a woman with no past, or too much of a past, protagonists straight from the hey-day of film noir, with a plot to match.

Set in a solar system linked by warp-gates, the new frontier of space has a lot of aspects of the old frontier of the American west, with most of humanity being obliged to be frontiersmen thanks to an accident in the construction of the warp-gate system that made much of Earth uninhabitable. The protagonists, soon joined by a preternaturally skilled adolescent hacker who insists on calling herself 'Ed', and a 'data dog', a super-intelligent Welsh corgi which escaped from its experimental develpers, roam the solar-system as bounty hunters or 'cowboys' as they have come to be called, in a rickety spaceship, the 'Bebop', perpetually missing big bounties, and always short on cash.

In true film noir fashion, their pasts return to haunt them.

The music is great, the animation (alas, except for the main protagonist, Spike, who is unrealistically gangly) is beautifully done, and, of course, Fay Valentine is one of the classic anime babes, though very much a wannabe as a femme fatale.

The main parent warning on this one is violence, very intense in some episodes, and Fay does provide some 'fan service', but nothing really objectionable.

Ratings (out of 5, 1 being worst, 5 being best)