Long before he directed Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe kicked off his career at Sunrise as a production manager on 1985’s Blue Comet SPT Layzner. From there, he worked on numerous Sunrise projects, including production work on City Hunter and unit direction on Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. Then, in 1994, Watanabe directed Macross Plus—his first collaboration with composer Yoko Kanno and screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto. This initial jam session soon erupted into the director’s best known work, the aforementioned Cowboy Bebop. Ever since his jazzy classic went out with a bang, Watanabe’s gone a little more free-form with fan-favorites such as Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, and Kids on the Slope.