How many episodes of Cowboy Bebop are there?

The television series is 26 episodes long, each officially styled a session in keeping with the show's record album framing, from Asteroid Blues to the two part finale The Real Folk Blues. The count is exact and closed: Watanabe's team planned a single self contained series, and despite the show's later fame, no second season was ever produced in anime form.

The number that confuses catalogs is the special. During the original broadcast, a recap and interview compilation, often called Session #0, aired in place of a regular episode slot, and it has been included as an extra on Japanese and some Western releases ever since. It is not a 27th story episode: it is a making of and digest program, valuable as a period document of the staff discussing the show in 1998.

The broadcast history behind the numbers is covered in this Library's entry on the 12 episode first run: TV Tokyo aired only part of the series in spring 1998, and satellite channel WOWOW broadcast the complete 26 later that year, which became the canonical run. Every home video release in every region presents all 26 sessions in production order, so the truncated first run survives only as history.

Add the film and the count of story content settles: 26 sessions plus Knockin' on Heaven's Door, positioned between sessions 22 and 23. Home video extras add music videos built from series footage, cast interviews and, on Japanese releases, the Ein's Summer Vacation picture drama style shorts and other small bonuses that vary by edition.

Streaming and episode guides occasionally inflate the count by numbering the special or splitting the finale; ignore them. A Bebop set is complete at 26 sessions, one film and whatever extras its edition advertises, and any listing promising more is counting packaging, not episodes.