Cowboy Bebop (1998)

Wow there's a lotta Lupin in this huh. Speaking of, I feel like it might've worked better with the pacing of Lupin III Part V, with stretches of episodes dealing with the over-arching plotlines split by sets of more self-contained tales (or weaving the bigger plots into smaller ones like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). Their approach here only really works for Jet, since the story of his life is less grandiose, more granular, and he's more willing to deal with his past each time it resurfaces in the now. Ed's ending—her whole story, really—comes out of nowhere, and both Spike and Faye's stories are very on-or-off, all-or-nothing, full melancholy/tragedy or full comedy. This all gives the series a weird tempo toward the finale. Even so, this is the best space western noir comedy ever, and still solid-to-fantastic in each of those categories.