"YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT."
Cowboy Bebop doesn't have a plot. It has a mood, and that mood is "cigarette in a rainy spaceport at 3am while a trumpet solo destroys you." Watanabe made the definitive statement that style and substance aren't opposites — they're the same thing when executed perfectly.
Spike Spiegel and his unlikely crew of bounty hunters drift through a solar system full of crime, grief, and unforgettable music. Each episode is a short story. The arc is about whether any of them can stop running from who they were before.