The Real Reason Ein Was Created For Cowboy Bebop

Little known fact: Every single film and television series in history could be improved a hundred-fold with the addition of a corgi. Queen Elizabeth's favorite dog would fit right at home in Citizen Kane when a young Charles Foster Kane dances around in the snow. Can you imagine a corgi prancing around with him with its little stumpers barely making it over the snowfall?

What about Star Wars? Space corgis? The original trilogy practically rewrites itself. 

Fortunately, it appears as though some creatives understand the appeal of the short-legged dogs with various good boys showing up in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Infinity Train, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Of course, you can't talk about corgis in pop culture without bringing up the smartest corgi that's ever been — Ein from Cowboy Bebop. It may look and bark like a normal dog, but after genetic modifications, Ein's able to hack computers using his mind, making him a useful ally to his team of bounty hunters. No doubt the good boy played a big part in making Cowboy Bebop one of the best anime of all time.

The decision to make the group's dog a corgi was an inspired one, especially considering you would expect them to have something larger that looks more intimidating as they chase after criminals. But after a little digging, it's clear that it was a corgi or bust if a dog was going to end up in the series.

Director Shinichirō Watanabe played a huge role in making Cowboy Bebop the success it ultimately became. He led the charge in incorporating multiple genres into the anime as well as drawing from Western influences from jazz to Midnight Run to give the series a vibe that stands out more (via Animation World Network). All that plus a corgi? Cowboy Bebop was destined to become a hit.

In an interview with IGN, Watanabe reveals that making Ein a corgi wasn't his original idea. Luckily, there was a corgi lover among his team: "I had a very strong request from the scenario writer that she really loved corgis and we had to have a corgi. She told me there's no way of doing any other type of dogs, it had to be a corgi." That writer in question was Nobumoto Keiko, and after everyone was in agreement that a corgi had to go in the show, the task fell into the hands of animation director and character designer, Toshihiro Kawamoto. "I couldn't really think of a design, so I used a friend's dog. When I asked this friend about using his dog for the design, he helped out by providing a lot of videotapes and photos," he explained in an interview with EX:CLUSIVE. "So there is a real dog that looks exactly like Ein." 

Kawamoto apparently took a liking to the dogs. When asked if he has a dog, he responded, "A Welsh Corgi, in fact. I got him as a motion model for Ein." Fans of Cowboy Bebop can look forward to the real deal making it into the live-action Netflix series as it's been confirmed a real corgi will be playing Ein on the series. Hopefully, he's been trained to play one wicked game of Shōgi.