Spike Spiegel is a tall and lean 27-year-old bounty hunter born on Mars. Inspiration for Spike is found in martial artist Bruce Lee, who uses the martial arts style of Jeet Kune Do, as depicted in Session 8, "Waltz For Venus". He has fluffy, dark green hair (which is inspired by Yusaku Matsuda's) and reddish brown eyes, one of which is artificial and lighter than the other. He is usually dressed in a blue leisure suit, with a yellow shirt and Lupin III inspired boots. A flashback in Session 6 revealed it was his fully functioning right eye which was surgically replaced by the cybernetic one (although Spike himself may not have conscious recollection of the procedure since he claims to have lost his natural eye in an "accident"). One theory is that his natural eye may have been lost during the pre-series massacre in which he supposedly "died". The purpose of this cybernetic eye is never explicitly stated, though it apparently gives him exceptional hand-eye coordination - particularly with firearms (Spike's gun of choice is a Jericho 941, as seen throughout the series). In the first episode, when facing a bounty-head using Red Eye, Spike mocks him, calling his moves "too slow". At first, this seems like posturing on Spike's part, but even with his senses and reflexes accelerated to superhuman levels by the drug, the bounty cannot even touch Spike. Spike often has a bent cigarette between his lips, sometimes despite rain or "No Smoking" signs.
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By all appearances, Faye is a 23 year old young woman in 2071. However, she was actually born in 1994 and was cryogenically frozen sometime before the gate incident. Faye is confident, audacious, independent, and somewhat self-centered. She is attractive, with medium-length, dark purplish hair and a voluptuous body. She normally wears a revealing yellow outfit complete with suspenders and a red long-sleeve shirt worn only through the sleeves. She is also quite lazy, but takes time to care for her appearance. She enjoys gambling, and often loses a great deal of money doing so. Faye is a very competent bounty hunter, being skilled in flying and both hand-to-hand and firearm combat.

In truth, Faye's indomitable exterior hides a more fragile interior. Faye awoke from her cryogenic sleep with total amnesia in a mysterious world that she didn't understand, surrounded by people who were all-too-willing to take advantage of her naiveté, contributing to the hardening of her personality. Throughout the series, she is saddled with a huge debt that was pushed onto her as a result of a scam perpetrated against her immediately after being wakened. The surname "Valentine" was merely a name given to her by the doctor who woke her; the circumstances of her accident, her previous life, and even her real name all remain a mystery, and are only gradually revealed as the series progresses. It has been hinted that she came from Singapore on Earth, and was the daughter of a very wealthy family, as the city's famous Merlion Statue features prominently in scenes of her childhood, and that memories and a film from her childhood showed her living in a large mansion. In an early episode she states that she is descended from Roma people, but she may well have been lying.


Faye drawing her Glock 30 (compact in .45ACP).Throughout the series, some believe it is hinted that Faye may be in love with Spike Spiegel. Though this is never stated, her attraction may be implied by her interactions with him (Pierrot Le Fou, My Funny Valentine, Speak like a Child, The Real Folk Blues) as well as her fascination with Julia (Jupiter Jazz, The Real Folk Blues). Though he comes to see her as a companion, Spike does not seem to have romantic feelings for Faye, as could be evidenced by his decision to seek and face Vicious in The Real Folk Blues, a decision which upsets Faye to the point where she fires her pistol into the ceiling five times as Spike leaves. However in an interview Watanabe stated "Sometimes I'm asked the question, 'What does Spike think of Faye?' I think that actually he likes her quite a bit. But he's not a very straightforward person so he makes sure he doesn't show it."
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Jet, known on his home satellite as the "Black Dog" for his tenacity, is a 36-year-old former cop from Ganymede (a Jovian satellite) and acts as Spike's foil during the series. Physically, Jet is very tall with a muscular build. He wears a beard with no mustache, and is completely bald save for the back of his head. Spike acts lazy and uninterested, whereas Jet is hard working and a jack-of-all-trades. Jet was once an investigator in the Inter Solar System Police (ISSP) for many years until he lost his arm in an investigation that went awry when his corrupt partner (and friend at the time) betrayed him. His arm was replaced with a cybernetic limb (later revealed to be by choice, as biological replacements were possible, he wanted the fake arm as a reminder of what happened), yet his loss of limb coupled with the general corruption of the police force prompted Jet to quit the ISSP in disgust and become a freelance bounty hunter. Jet also considers himself something of a renaissance man: he cultivates bonsai trees, cooks, enjoys jazz/blues music (he named his ship the bebop a type of jazz), especially Charlie Parker, and even has interest in Goethe. As a character, Jet is the quintessential oyaji or "dad" even though he often wishes people would view him as a more brotherly figure (so as not to seem old).

Jet is skilled with handguns, typically carrying a pre-2004 Walther P99, as well as the use of the netgun. He is good with hand to hand combat as well. Unlike Spike, Jet tends to use more raw muscle than technique. He is also a great mechanic and pilot. Aside from the converted interplanetary fishing trawler vessel Bebop, Jet flies a smaller ship called Hammerhead. The Hammerhead appears to be a modified (Jet added larger engines and fuel tanks) salvage-craft that uses a mechanical arm equipped with a harpoon as its main weapon, which is somewhat analogous to his own mechanical arm. Both the Hammerhead and the Bebop are able to land on water, and have a fishing theme, most likely because Ganymede's surface is mostly covered with water (it is later revealed that the Bebop was originally a fishing ship that Jet "customized" with larger engines).

During the series, it is revealed that Jet once lived with a woman named Alisa, who left him because he was too controlling. Later they meet up again when Alisa's new boyfriend Rhint is wanted for murder. Jet then ends up in a situation somewhat similar to that of Vicious, where he must hunt down a woman who broke his heart, and her lover.

In a later episode, another Vicious/Spike parallel is set up when Jet finds out that it was his old partner Fad who betrayed him (though in Jet's case, there was no love affair involved). Fad arranged for Jet's death in a setup, but he survived with only a missing arm and a scar on his face. It is worth noting that Jet managed to face the demons of his past and let them go, in contrast to Spike, who was (apparently) killed when he confronted his. This is likely due to the contrast in the two approaches to the past. While Spike hid and fled from his past, Jet tracked it down and confronted it.

A possibly related note: Jet Black is also the name of the drummer in long-running English band The Stranglers and his nickname is in reference to the Led Zeppelin song "Black Dog". Jet also bears a remarkable resemblance to Daisuke Jigen from Lupin III.
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The self-invented personal name of an elite netdiver from Earth, hacker "Radical Edward" is a very strange, somewhat androgynous, teenage girl assumed to be around 13 years in age. Ed could be considered a "free spirit"; she is fond of silly exclamations and childish rhymes, easily distracted, and the show's primary source of physical humor. It is presumed she has a personality disorder similar to Asperger syndrome or ADHD but this is never specified. Over the course of the show she rarely walks anywhere, preferring to run, crawl, flip, roll, walk on her hands, or even just saunter. She prefers always walking barefoot wherever she goes.

In the English version, she almost always refers to herself in the third person. Not much is known about her origins, only that she spent some of her earlier childhood in an orphanage after being left there by her father, a man named Appledelhi Siniz Hesap Lütfen (he calls Ed "Françoise", and may be of Turkish origin as his name means "excuse me, check please" in Turkish). In the manga it is revealed that she was a friend of a timid young boy in the orphanage known simply as "Tomato" (which also happens to be the brand name scrawled in katakana on his PC) who, like Ed, knew a great deal about computers and the net, and it's probably safe to assume that his friendship with Ed helped turn her into the genius-hacker she is today. Ed's primary use to the Bebop crew is as a hacker; she is widely known to be a whiz kid behind a computer (with the possible exception of Ein the data dog). Ed's computer of choice is a carry-along Tomato desktop, an homage to the portable flatpanel-outfitted Apple IIc from the 80s, and when traveling by foot she will balance it on her head much like Indian women do with baskets. Ed has a strong rapport with Jet, who acts as a surrogate father, and Faye, who acts as something of a big sister (much to Faye's chagrin). Ed also seems to be the only person who can understand Ein.

In the last episodes of the series Ed and Ein decide to stay on Earth, presumably because Ed finally meets her father. The episode in which this occurs is "Hard Luck Woman".

Originally, Ed's character was based on a description of the series' music director ("a little weird, catlike, but a genius at creating music") and was originally going to be a dark-skinned boy. It was changed to even the gender ratio on the Bebop, which was, with Ed as a boy, three guys and one girl. This original character design appears in session 5, stealing a clearly adult magazine from Annie's bookstore by smuggling it under his shirt.
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Asuka Langley Soryu is the Second Child and the pilot of Unit 02. She is of mixed German and Japanese descent, but her nationality is American. Asuka is brash, egotistical, and often verbally abusive, and has a very high opinion of her appearance and her considerable skill as an Eva pilot.
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D is a dhampir, the half-breed child of a vampire father and human mother, therefore he makes the ideal vampire hunter. He is renowned for his consummate skill and unearthly grace, but feared and despised for his mixed lineage: born of both races but belonging to neither. Often underestimated by his opponents, D has surprising power and resourcefulness, possessing most of the strengths and only mild levels of vampiric weaknesses. Unlike most dhampirs, D is able to live as a "normal" human, though marked by his unearthly beauty and powerful aura, and thus rarely accepted by humans. His only notable weaknesses are that he is, while not unfeeling, emotionally remote. He is also (far more rarely than other dhampirs) randomly susceptible to sun-sickness, a severe type of sunstroke, about once every five years. Otherwise, D does not suffer from vampiric weaknesses usual to dhampirs, possessing an imposing supernatural aura to his opponents and godlike reflexes surpassing even vampires.<center>

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Reiko Himezono is a teenage “zombie shop”, or a "...necromancer-for-hire employed by bereaved families to resurrect departed loved ones for a short time so that the dead may impart their final truths to the living.”

An enforcer, kills Zankan because of the Technos Taboo.
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Kusanagi is a very effective leader and is able to use her wits and cybernetic body in bringing criminals to justice. Kusanagi is often contemplative and brooding, whilst her counterpart Batou is more extroverted and lively. She usually wields an M-23 submachine gun that bears a striking resemblance to a P90 - though with the magazine mounted vertically on the underside instead of horizontally as is the case with the P-90.<center>

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Light Yagami, also known as Kira and the second L, is the protagonist (and anti-villain) of Death Note. He is an extremely intelligent, but bored, young man who finds Ryuk's Death Note by sheer chance.
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Revy (Rebecca) does most of the fighting for the Lagoon Company. Revy is a Chinese-American born and raised in Chinatown, Manhattan near Mott Street, spending most of her youth as a thief and murderess. She honed her skills with firearms by shooting at cans, and her first murder involved shooting a man while using a pillow. Revy is very competitive, easily bored, and quick to anger. While being extremely attractive, she also has many personality traits that most would see as highly undesirable. She is undiplomatic, believing in the use of brute force and coercion to get her way.

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Jin is a mild-mannered ronin who carries himself in the conventionally stoic manner of a samurai of the Tokugawa era. Using his waist-strung daish?, he fights in the traditional kenjutsu style of a samurai trained in a prominent, sanctioned dojo. Jin wears glasses, an available but uncommon accessory in Edo era Japan. Spectacles -- called "Dutch glass merchandise" ("Oranda gyoku shinajina" in Japanese) at the time -- were imported from Holland early in the Tokugawa period and became more widely available as the 17th century progressed.<center>

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Second in command and field leader of the Pumpkin Scissors. An inexperienced soldier of noble origin who graduated in the academy just before the ceasefire (the ceasefire was announced literally in the middle of the graduation ceremony for the class of officers she was in at military academy); Alice's hot-tempered and reckless demeanor tends to sometimes put her and her subordinates in danger. She has a strong sense of duty and justice and tries to live up to her family's military traditions, contrary to her father and sisters' belief that she must assume a more feminine behavior. While she is the current heir to her family, she will likely lose this position once her younger brother comes of age.
Contrary to her subordinates who always engage in combat with firearms, Alice's weapon of choice is a short-sword with her family crest engraved on it, but in some occasions she shows her true skills in battle when brandishing her special weapon, a long double-bladed cavalry sword called Mahne. Another curious trait of hers is that sometimes she feels chills on her neck when something very good or very bad is about to happen. Alice is engaged to another noble, Lionel Taylor, who apparently supports her ideals. However, there are apparently are some feelings between her and Randel Oland as hinted throughout the series but particularly in episode 22. <center>

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Mugen (??) was born in a penal colony on the Ryukyu Islands, which in the Edo period was a separate kingdom with close ties to the Satsuma domain of Japan. His name means without limitation, as the components of it are the characters for "without" and "limitation." Incidentally, he writes his name using the infinity symbol (?), a pun on his name, 'Mugen,' which is a homophone of the Japanese word for 'eternity'. His Japanese is quite rough and "Yanki"; and he is illiterate.

The exact date of his birth is unknown, and much of his past is shrouded in mystery. It also appears that he may be of Ainu origin. The blue tattoos on his wrists and ankles indicate that he was once in prison. The circumstances of his imprisonment are unclear at first, but it is later verified that he was to be executed for engaging in piracy.

Rude, lewd, vulgar, and nihilistic, Mugen is somewhat of an antihero.

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