Time to have a look at an anime with a huge reputation for frequently being the best anime ever made. It's time for Cowboy Bebop.

Spike is a Bounty Hunter, he makes his living capturing wanted criminals for the pursuit of money in order to live on, he does this with a former cop and partner named Jet who owns the ship known as the Bebop. Later they are joined by a dog named Ein who possesses a unique brain packed with data, a thief named Faye Valentine who desperately seeks answers on her past and a genius eccentric hacker named Ed.
Each episode has a focus on a particular villain who is more often than not the target for the Bebop crew however occasionally between breather episodes we sometimes dive into the backgrounds of the characters themselves and discover the reasons behind their existence with the most depth saved for Spike as he attempts to keep a distance on the Syndicate he used to work for.
Cowboy Bebop is a perfect Sci-Fi show, it picks it's moments of drama, it chooses the right moments to be comical and its most serious moments can leave an everlasting impression. All the characters including episode characters are treated with respect in their design, not one character comes off as especially bad nor does anyone take too much away from the spectacle on screen, every little detail is done well and being only 26 episodes long, makes sure that it doesn't out stay it's welcome despite having the setup and potential to do more episodes, all rounded off with the perfect ending.
The dub voice acting is top notch from an era where it was starting to become more professional and I would go as far as saying that its far better in English than Japanese and has one of the best soundtracks in anime history.
There is one fatal flaw the show has but not so much when it was released in 1998 but more to do with the era were in now. It shows it's age. Well the anime is 18 years old at time of writing but much of it's content is not as well represented in this current era than it was then. Space Dandy is the closest relative of this show in the modern era which is done by the exact same director, yet there's no other current anime series in this genre other than Space Dandy who can capture the same feel as Cowboy Bebop.
Final Verdict: I often get skeptical when a show is frequently number 1 on any top ten list but with Cowboy Bebop I actually agree that it deserves it's popularity and is one of the most well respected anime of all time, only a hand full of others can claim the same kind of respect, it's only issue is that it's more or less forgotten in this current era through no fault of it's own.