Cowboy Bebop mouse pads for the desk

This is the home of Padrift's Cowboy Bebop mouse pads and desk mats, original art inspired by Shinichirō Watanabe's space western, printed edge to edge on a 3 mm neoprene pad with a fabric top, a non-slip base and stitched edges. Sizes run from 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm), for the mouse, to 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm), for the keyboard and everything around it, with six steps in between, and production begins only when an order comes in.

All of the series is covered here: Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed and Ein, the Bebop and its ships, the planets and moons of 2071 and the music that holds the whole thing together.

Session zero

Cowboy Bebop is an anime by Sunrise, directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto and scored by Yoko Kanno with her band, the Seatbelts. Its 26 episodes, called sessions, first aired in Japan in 1998 and 1999, and a film, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, followed in 2001.

It is set in 2071, decades after an accident with a hyperspace gate shattered the Moon and made Earth a dangerous place to live. Humanity has spread across the solar system, to Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and law enforcement relies on bounty hunters, called cowboys. Spike Spiegel and Jet Black are two of them, chasing bounties from their ship, the Bebop, and rarely getting paid.

A desk that doesn't shout

Cowboy Bebop looks different from most anime on a desk. Its colors are muted and warm, rust, mustard, faded blue and smoky gray, painted on cels in the late 1990s, and its compositions lean on shadow, silhouettes and empty space. The result looks more like a jazz record sleeve or a film poster than typical gaming art.

That restraint is useful. A Cowboy Bebop design sits comfortably on a home-office desk, next to a wooden monitor stand or a lamp with a brass base, and it doesn't clash with a video call background. On a black gaming desk with warm white or amber lighting, it brings a little noir mood without any neon.

The Swordfish II

Spike's ship, the Swordfish II, is a small red single-seat fighter with a long, narrow nose. Red is the only strong color in much of the show, which makes the Swordfish the obvious accent for a desk: one red ship on a dark blue or gray background, matched by a red keycap or a red cable.

The ship's shape is long and pointed, so it suits the long sizes. On an M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm), or an L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), it can streak across the top of the mat from one end to the other, trailing exhaust, while your keyboard sits beneath its flight path.

The crew in color

Each member of the Bebop crew has a look as distinct as a costume, and each makes a different kind of desk.

• Spike Spiegel: blue suit, yellow shirt and a tangle of dark green hair, for a desk with navy or mustard accents.
• Jet Black: a bald former cop with a metal arm and a beard, for an earthy, practical desk in browns and grays.
• Faye Valentine: purple hair and a yellow outfit, for a bold desk with violet lighting.
• Ed: a hacker kid with red hair and goggles, for a playful setup in orange and white.
• Ein: a Welsh corgi, for any desk at all.

A crew lineup needs width, so choose XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm), or larger, and look for a design that puts the characters at one end and leaves open space for your keyboard.

Ein on a small pad

Ein, the Bebop's corgi, is a data dog: a research animal with an unusually capable brain, which mostly shows up when nobody is looking. He is also the easiest character in the series to put on a small pad. A corgi sitting with its ears up, or trotting with its short legs and fluffy back end, reads clearly in the top corner of an 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad and looks like a cute dog to everyone else.

Ed's desk

Ed, full name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, is the crew's hacker, a barefoot kid who can break into nearly any system from a laptop called Tomato. Ed works lying on the floor, upside down or sideways, goggles pushed up, humming nonsense, and somehow gets results the adults can't.

That makes Ed the patron of programmers' desks. An Ed design, bright orange and white with goggles and a glowing laptop, suits a coding setup with a mechanical keyboard and a couple of monitors. It is the most cheerful Cowboy Bebop art and the one that suits a desk used for actual computer work.

Tank! and the title sequence

The opening, set to the big-band track "Tank!", is a design lesson in itself: flat blocks of color, silhouettes, sliding text and sharp cuts, closer to 1960s jazz album covers and title designs than to anime. It is one of the reasons the series looks so stylish decades later.

Designs inspired by it use the same language: two or three flat colors, a silhouette of Spike, a ship or a gun, and bold type. They work well on a desk mat because flat color doesn't get busy under a keyboard, and the silhouettes stay readable at any size. They suit a desk with a strong color scheme, black and mustard, navy and orange, or white and red.

The Bebop as home

The Bebop itself is an old, converted fishing vessel turned into a spaceship, and it feels lived-in: a cramped kitchen where Jet cooks whatever they can afford, a lounge with a worn couch and the bonsai trees Jet tends between jobs. It is the crew's home, and it gives the series a warm, domestic side.

A Bebop interior design suits a wooden desk with a few plants, warm lighting and a coffee mug. A view of the ship from outside, drifting against a planet, suits an XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm), where the planet can fill the part of the mat beyond the keyboard.

Big Shot and the bounty board

The crew finds work through Big Shot, a cheesy TV show where two hosts in cowboy costumes announce the latest bounties, and through the old-fashioned bounty notices they chase across the system. The show is a running joke, cheerful, loud and rarely much help.

A Big Shot-inspired design, a retro TV screen with a bounty announcement, or a wall of wanted notices with prices in woolongs, the series' currency, makes a fun, slightly kitsch desk mat. On the 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm) size, a single wanted notice sits well beside a laptop.

Around the solar system

Cowboy Bebop moves around a lot, and each location has its own colors.

• Mars: where much of the action happens, crowded cities of neon, dust and rusty reds, for a warm-toned desk.
• Venus: hazy, golden skies, for soft warm lighting.
• The moons of Jupiter: icy, quiet towns under pale skies, as in the snowbound two-part "Jupiter Jazz" sessions, for a white or pale blue desk.
• Earth: scarred by falling debris from the shattered Moon, for a dusty, sun-bleached palette.

Spike and Vicious

Behind the jokes and bounties, Spike carries a past with the Red Dragon Syndicate, a criminal organization on Mars, and with Vicious, his former partner, a silver-haired swordsman who becomes his deadliest enemy. Their story runs underneath the series and comes to the surface in a handful of sessions, ending in the two-part finale.

Designs built around that story are the darkest Cowboy Bebop art: churches, stained glass, falling feathers and rain. They suit a black desk lit mostly by the monitor, with a single warm lamp.

See you, space cowboy

Most sessions end with a simple card: "See you space cowboy..." in plain white text on black. It is how the series signs off, and it is perfect for a small pad. White text on a black pad is a minimal design that suits any desk, and it is instantly recognizable to anyone who has watched even a single episode.

A late-night desk

Cowboy Bebop is a show for late at night, with its slow pacing, jazz and blues soundtrack and long quiet scenes. It suits a desk used after hours: coding, writing, studying or playing games with the lights low. A dark design with warm accents and a jazz playlist in your headphones makes a desk that feels like the Bebop's lounge.

Sizes for a Cowboy Bebop desk

Sizes vary by design, so check the product page of the one you like. For Cowboy Bebop art, the following setups make sense.

Setup	Size	Good for
Mouse only	S, 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm)	Ein or the end card
Laptop desk	TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm)	A single wanted notice
Compact keyboard	M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm)	The Swordfish II in flight
Keyboard and mouse	XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm)	The whole crew at one end
Deep desk	XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm)	The Bebop against a planet
The whole desk	4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm)	A title-sequence layout

Desks that are wide but shallow have two more options: L, 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm), and 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm).

Gifts for a space cowboy

A Cowboy Bebop pad suits someone who watched it late at night in the early 2000s, a jazz lover who doesn't usually watch anime, a corgi owner or a programmer who sees a bit of Ed in themselves. Choose Ein for a sure thing, the Swordfish for a red accent or the end card for a minimalist. A desk you've never seen is easiest to buy for with the 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm) size, which leaves room on any desktop.

After you order, the pad is printed in 1–3 business days and sent from Turkey; it normally arrives in the US 2–5 business days after it ships.

Keeping it clean

Bebop's muted tones hide marks well, but a pad that sees late-night snacks still needs care. Crumbs brush off easily, and a damp cloth deals with most smudges. For a full clean, wash the pad by hand in lukewarm water with a dash of mild soap, rinse it thoroughly, lean on a towel to push the water out and leave it flat until dry. Machine washing, tumble drying and ironing are all ruled out; looked after this way, the fade-resistant print keeps the Swordfish red.

A note on names

Cowboy Bebop and the names of its characters, ships and places appear here to credit the inspiration behind our designs. Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Sunrise or Bandai Namco Filmworks.