The Romance of 1998: When You’re Sad, Eat More Boiled Eggs

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:18:00 GMT

What do people do when they’re sad

They eat boiled eggs

Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, genius hacker, thirteen-year-old brat, is probably the most easily forgotten character in Cowboy Bebop. Oh, and of course nobody remembers what the dog on the ship was called.

Cowboy Bebop is one of the shows anime snobs love to go on about most, right up there with Satoshi Kon, Evangelion and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, timeless forever.

Every review I read talks about Spike’s past: one eye looking at the present, the other left behind in the past. The pocket watch Jet was left with, the Ganymede he can’t go back to, and Faye’s frozen years she can never get back.

One who lives in the past, one who lets go of the past, one who searches for the past.

Ed is different, because she’s young and carefree. It’s the space age, after all: dumped in an orphanage, nobody looking out for her, and even the birth father she finally finds doesn’t care whether she’s a boy or a girl.

She’s a genius kid, too, with goggles on her head. When Faye took off in the ship meaning to leave her behind, Ed brought the Bebop back by remote control and got herself aboard this ship of bounty hunters. And with that, the three things Spike once said he hates — kids, animals, and women with attitude — were all on board.

How does a genius hacker find her dad? By using the best bounty hunters, of course. She posted a bounty of 50 million on her own father, and so Jet and Spike went and found him for her. In the end it turned out they had misread the bounty: all they got was 50 woolongs, and Jet and Spike still couldn’t afford the sukiyaki with real meat they had been dreaming of.

It’s a pity, and also not a pity: she found her father, but her father left again. So Ed didn’t come back to the ship, and the highest-IQ member of the whole cast, the dog, went with her.

The episode where she leaves ends with SEE YOU SPACE COWGIRL, SOMEDAY, SOMEWHERE! Only two episodes don’t end with See you, Cowboy. The other one is the finale, where the curtain comes down after Spike’s bang: YOU’RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT.

Faye stays behind in Singapore in that episode, too.

Only Jet and Spike are left on the ship, just like at the start. But this time, at last, they aren’t eating bell peppers and beef without the beef again. All they have is the boiled eggs that were meant for the whole crew.

Spike and Jet sit at the table with a huge pile of boiled eggs in front of them. They barely say a word, just cram them into their mouths, one after another, in big bites.

Eating boiled eggs (Session 24)

Really, Ed had to go, and that was already the best way to go. Everyone knows what happens after that. At least when you’re sad you can eat a few more boiled eggs, which beats bell peppers and beef without the beef.

People love to say Cowboy Bebop is a romance from 1998. And they’re right: jazz, smoke, guns, bounty hunters, suave and lonely men.

Jazz, smoke, guns (Session 1, opening credits)

“Found a job yet?”

“Don’t worry.”

“What about the girl you like?”

“She’s getting married.”

拉康的a

The Romance of 1998: When You’re Sad, Eat More Boiled Eggs