A woman without a past, running from creditors and herself—Faye Valentine brings cunning, recklessness, and unexpected vulnerability to the Bebop's dysfunctional crew.
Full Name: Faye Valentine
Age: 23 (chronologically 77 after 54 years cryogenic freezing)
Birthday: August 14th
Role: Bounty Hunter, Bebop Crew
Specialty: Deception, gambling, survival
Burden: 300 million woolong debt
First Appears: Session 3: Honky Tonk Women
Voice: Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese)
A woman with a shadowy past she cannot remember, Faye spends many early episodes running from those in pursuit of her. She ends up as part of the Bebop's crew following her somewhat unsuccessful escape from a casino. Somewhat disdainfully, she allies with the ship's crew but prefers to further her own ends rather than helping her "friends"—often seeking bounties alone in hopes of claiming the entire reward. Cunning and resourceful, she tricks others for profit without apparent remorse.
What Faye doesn't reveal—and cannot fully access—is that she awakened from cryogenic sleep with complete amnesia and crushing debt from 54 years of medical bills. Her sharp edges and selfish behavior mask profound loneliness and a desperate search for identity. Throughout the series, glimpses of her vulnerability emerge, particularly when confronting Spike's self-destructive choices in Session 26.
Unlike Spike and Jet, who run from pasts they remember all too well, Faye runs from a past she's forgotten entirely. Her journey throughout Cowboy Bebop explores whether identity comes from memory or from the choices we make in the present—a question with no easy answers.
Faye's story arc centers on recovering fragments of her past while building something resembling a future. Her evolution from purely self-interested survivor to someone who cares deeply about the Bebop crew—even if she can't articulate it—provides emotional weight to the series' exploration of found family.
Faye's character finds perfect expression in Yoko Kanno's blues-inflected compositions, particularly in episodes exploring her fractured memories and uncertain future. The melancholic piano themes underscore her isolation.
"The past is the past and the future is the future. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. I am who I am and you are who you are."