Shinichiro Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎) is a Japanese director and writer for the famed anime series, Cowboy Bebop. Noted for using high doses of classic cowboy and 1940/50's New York and other personal influences in his creation, he also masterfully blends jazz, blues, bebop, funk and New Age music into every nook and cranny, particularly on Cowboy Bebop. He accomplishes this thanks to his brilliant collaboration with famed anime composer Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts.

His directorial debut was noteworthy too, as a co-director for the epic Macross Plus. After finishing his 27 television episode run of Cowboy Bebop, his solo-directorial debut came in 2001 with a theatrically-released movie from his afformentioned series. Until 2003, Watanabe would direct his first anime for (and from) Americans with "Kid's Story" and "A Detective Story" from The Animatrix, an anthology of animated shorts of back stories from the box office movie hit, The Matrix.