Shinichirou Watanabe is a Japanese anime director and producer best known for creating Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo—two series that basically defined his whole career and what he's about as a creator.

What really sets Watanabe apart is his thing for mashing genres together in ways that shouldn't work but somehow do. Cowboy Bebop is the perfect example: it's got classic western vibes, 1940s-50s film noir straight out of New York, jazz soaked throughout, and Hong Kong action cinema all crammed into a space opera. It sounds chaotic on paper, but it works. He kept that same experimental approach with Samurai Champloo, which blends Okinawan culture, hip-hop, modern-day Japan, and samurai sword fighting into one weird, wonderful package.