Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a 2001 Japanese anime science fiction action film, based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Sunrise and Hajime Yatate. Several staff from the original series returned to work on the film, including director Shinichirō Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer and animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto and composer Yoko Kanno. The Japanese and English voice casts also reprised their roles. Set between episodes 22 and 23 of the original series, the plot centers on a mysterious terrorist planning to exterminate the human population of Mars by releasing a virus, with the bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop working to capture the terrorist and prevent the attack.