Editing Cowboy Bebop (section)

===Development===
The project had initially originated with [[Bandai]]'s toy division as a sponsor, with the goal of [[Toyetic|selling spacecraft toys]]. Watanabe recalled his only instruction was "So long as there's a spaceship in it, you can do whatever you want." But upon viewing early footage, it became clear that Watanabe's vision for the series did not match Bandai's. Believing the series would never sell toy merchandise, Bandai pulled out of the project, leaving it in [[development hell]] until sister company [[Bandai Visual]] stepped in to sponsor it. Since there was no need to merchandise toys with the property any more, Watanabe had free rein in the development of the series.<ref name="WatanabePanel" /> Watanabe wanted to design not just a space adventure series for adolescent boys but a program that would also appeal to sophisticated adults.<ref name="AWNcowboy" /> During the making of ''Bebop'', Watanabe often attempted to rally the animation staff by telling them that the show would be something memorable up to three decades later. While some of them were doubtful of that at the time, Watanabe many years later expressed his happiness to have been proven right in retrospect. He joked that if Bandai Visual had not intervened then "you might be seeing me working the supermarket checkout counter right now."<ref name="WatanabePanel" />

The city locations were generally inspired by the cities of [[New York City|New York]] and [[Hong Kong]].<ref name="WatanabeInterview1">{{Cite web|title=The Director's Voice: Shinichiro Watanabe Interview|url=http://www.cowboybebop.org/english/door/interview/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030307023145/http://www.cowboybebop.org/english/door/interview/index.html|archive-date=March 7, 2003|access-date=January 6, 2015|publisher=Cowboy Bebop: The Movie website (English)}}</ref> The atmospheres of the planets and the ethnic groups in ''Cowboy Bebop'' mostly originated from Watanabe's ideas, with some collaboration from set designers [[Isamu Imakake]], [[Shoji Kawamori]], and [[Dai Satō]]. The animation staff established the particular planet atmospheres early in the production of the series before working on the ethnic groups. It was Watanabe who wanted to have several groups of ethnic diversity appear in the series. Mars was the planet most often used in ''Cowboy Bebop''{{'s}} storylines, with Satoshi Toba, the cultural and setting producer, explaining that the other planets "were unexpectedly difficult to use". He stated that each planet in the series had unique features, and the producers had to take into account the characteristics of each planet in the story. For the final episode, Toba explained that it was not possible for the staff to have the dramatic rooftop scene occur on [[Venus]], so the staff "ended up normally falling back to Mars".<ref name="AnimeGuide4p64">{{Cite book|last=[[Newtype]]|title=Cowboy Bebop Anime Guide Volume 4|date=May 21, 2002|publisher=[[Tokyopop]]|isbn=1-931514-08-9|page=64}}</ref> In creating the backstory, Watanabe envisioned a world that was "multinational rather than stateless". In spite of certain American influences in the series, he stipulated that the country had been destroyed decades prior to the story, later saying the notion of the United States as the center of the world repelled him.<ref>{{Cite book|title=カウボーイビバップ Extra Session|trans-title=Cowboy Bebop Extra Session|language=ja|date=January 28, 2005|publisher=Bandai Visual|pages=22–23}}</ref>

The guns on the show were chosen by Watanabe, and in discussion with set designer Isamu Imakake and mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane. Setting producer Satoshi Toba said, "They talked about how they didn't want common guns, because that wouldn't be very interesting, and so they decided on these guns."<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/CowboyBebopAnimeGuide2 |title=Cowboy Bebop Anime Guide 2 |pages=79 |language=English}}</ref>