Shinichirō Watanabe is a Japanese anime television and film director, best known for directing the critically acclaimed and commercially successful anime series Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy. Considered an auteur of Japanese animation by film and television critics, Watanabe's work is characterized by evocative uses of music, mature themes, and the incorporation of multiple genres.

Cowboy Bebop is a Japanese neo-noir space Western anime television series which aired on TV Tokyo and Wowow from 1998 to 1999. It was created and animated by Sunrise, led by a production team of director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno, who are collectively billed as Hajime Yatate.