3,2,1 Lets Jam... Cowboy Bebop hits US Blu-ray in December

Cowboy Bebop is one of the most beloved anime series of the 90's- scratch that, one of the most beloved anime series full stop. That's in the west, at least, because Bebop is one of those rare anime that performed better overseas than in Japan itself, with the US being perhaps its biggest market. Thanks to being in near constant rotation on Adult Swim for some time it's even got a following outside anime fandom. All of which makes it all the more bizarre the series has been MIA Stateside for some time.

Originally distributed by Bandai Entertainment, the series went out-of-print when the distributor shut up shop. It was eventually picked up by Funimation, who have been pretty quiet on release plans up until now. At last weekend's Otakon Funi finally announced the series will be released in December of this year.

The series will be available as a standard  DVD edition and (for the first time in North America) a shiny Blu-ray set. Annoyingly for completists though, it will also be available as two exclusive Combo (Blu-ray and DVD) special editions, from Funimation.com and Amazon. The two editions will have different content exclusive to each retailer- details to be announced.

Shinichiro Watanabe's anime classic is already available on Blu-ray and DVD both in the UK (via Anime Limited) and Australia (via Madman).


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