Cowboy Bebop Review: Netflix takes a classic anime down to a crazy cartoon

The original Cowboy bebop Anime was like a critically acclaimed band with a near-perfect career of defining hits, and the 2021 Cowboy bebop is a ska-funk cover band that plays through its hits. The actors of the new blockbuster series from Netflix dive into the material, and viewers can even feel a joy when they recognize an old favorite, which is reinterpreted with colorful enthusiasm. But this initial charm cannot hide the fact that the singer only seems to know half of the lyrics and the guitarist cannot carry the melody.

The core premise of Cowboy bebop remains more or less the same: The bounty hunters Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir) and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) whiz through the solar system in a converted fishing trawler called “Bebop” and hunt criminals for a living. While assassins or mafiosos are often on their heels, each of the crew members of the bebop escapes the trauma of their respective past or tries to reconcile with it. Whether in the shabby underbelly of Mars or in the sun-tanned bladder of New Tijuana, life quickly overwhelms them.

From its costumes and makeup, sets and music, this live-action incarnation is from Cowboy bebop boasts careful attention to the surface details of the original anime, to go one step further. Changes to the characters’ backstories make way for new arcs that offer interesting developments and dimensions that weren’t seen in the original. The show expands the character of Julia (Elene Satine), Spike’s former flame, in a way like the original Cowboy bebop never did what gave her a sense of history, presence, autonomy, and motivation other than simply being the object of affection from Spike or his longtime archenemy, Vicious. Still a ridiculous antagonist in the hands of Alex Hassell, Vicious is more impetuous, temperamental and devious than fully sociopathic. There is also greater attention paid to the motivations behind his conquest of power, which is not just for the sake of power itself. The decision to bring composer Yoko Kanno back to play the score for this new series shows how important her music was to the anime’s identity.

But the stark discrepancy between the exaggerated tone of the Netflix series and that of the original 26-episode anime (and the Interquel feature film) feels like a decision by showrunner-showrunner André Nemec to interpret the idea as a cartoon in live movies. Action instead of a simpler version of the. to create Cowboy bebop. The decision stumbles hardest on the show’s attempts at humor, be it terrifying puns about Jet’s black manhood or a character called “The Eunuch” who brags about the power of castrating and devouring your enemies’ testicles.

The original Cowboy bebop Anime, conceived and produced by screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, animation director Toshiro Kawamoto, lead animator Yutaka Nakamura, composer Yoko Kanno and director Shinichirō Watanabe was a work of pastiche. Science fiction western noir listened to influences as distant as Aerosmith, Bruce Lee, David Bowie and Jean-Luc Godard and created a cool melancholy punctuated by moments of action and lightness. Nemec’s series is more of a bricolage of the most notable scenes and moments from the original anime than a point-by-point restoration, but any reference inevitably leaves it overshadowed by its predecessor. The new series takes what was subtextual in the original anime and renders it as text, while drawing on a clearly bombastic, crude, and comically focused approach.

This is particularly evident in the bold, but ultimately lacking, manner in which the Bebop Writers are realigning the personalities of the male trio. Pinedas Faye Valentine seems much less self-confident. Rather than reinventing herself after loss and trauma, the amnesic woman seems trapped in the middle of this process of reinvention, all the while haunted by her mission to regain the past and identity that she has lost. The live-action Faye is more explicitly vulgar than implicitly grumpy, peppering her dialogue with profanity that feels more youthful than real, and overall seems more intent on maintaining a working relationship with Spike and Jet.

John Cho walks a fine line in his interpretation of Spike Spiegel, albeit one that is more visibly pursued and world-weary than happily resigned with his own metaphorical and literal “death”, à la Spike in the original series. Jet Black, the former cop turned bounty hunter who served as the unofficial father figure for the bebop crew’s dysfunctional family dynamics in the original anime, is literally a dad in the live-action series trying to mend his relationship with his estranged one Daughter and ex-wife after being in prison. These are not the group of idiosyncratic souls in the anime circling each other out of a shared sense of unspoken loss, but rather collaborative collaborators who shoot the shit and bowl together as they race across the stars for bounties. A subtle sense of boredom and brooding over the past, the quality that made the bebop crew feel multi-faceted, feels lost while the actors are tasked with determining their looks.

One of the most compelling aspects of the original Cowboy bebop is its unmistakable representation of the future. While humanity had colonized the planets of the solar system after a catastrophe that had made much of the earth’s surface uninhabitable, these colonies themselves resembled terrestrial places like New York, Hong Kong, Tijuana, and Marrakech. This decision by part of the production team infused the world of anime with a fascinating sense of anachronistic realism that allowed the show’s writers to riff on the noir and western genres while still existing in science fiction mode.

While the design of Netflix Cowboy bebop dutifully recreating several of the places seen in the anime, the sets themselves often feel more like caricatures than actual places where people gather and live. For a live-action production, the places the characters visit ironically feel flat and more superficial than they are in the anime. Like the sound, Netflix’s Bebop emulated by exaggeration and not enough to really explore and explore his universe. The scenes themselves feel disconnected from many contexts: the 10 episodes jump back and forth between so many different planets that it sometimes becomes difficult to remember exactly where these characters are at any given moment or bar. Even space travel is featured so sparingly throughout the series that the noticeable lack of aerial combat with Spike’s Swordfish II or Faye’s Red Tail spaceship itself can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity for the season.

Throughout season 1 of Netflix Cowboy bebop feels unmoved beyond the soundscape of Kanno and Co., who are returning to add several new and old pieces of music to the live-action series. But even that only highlights how committed the Netflix show is to the 1998 original – as is the live action Cowboy bebop tries to create his own identity and in relation to his characters and his universe Cowboy bebop Anime, the strongest parts of the show aren’t what it adds, but what, by and large, sets it apart from the original. It doesn’t have to be the anime, it can’t be; But the crucial element that the new series lacks, and that the original anime exuded in abundance, is trust in one’s own voice. With all the inspiration it took from other forms of art and music, 1998 Cowboy bebop felt curated into something very own. The new show just turns up the volume.

Sonically absurd, penetrated with neon and played over the top, the live action Cowboy bebop Series is an ambitious project in itself. The creative team has reiterated the personality-focused style and storytelling of Shinichirō Watanabe, trying to update that story for a global, binge-ready audience. But in the execution the decisions never find their own rhythm and fans of the anime are forced to deal with comparisons. Those who parted with the memories of the 1998 series may see something different in the lighthearted but overly violent interpretation of the material, but as a slip in the timeline of Cowboy bebopLegacy, Netflix’s first live-action series is a failure, as classy and interesting as ever. The truth could be that what works in animation often doesn’t work or just can’t work in live action without confidently making fun of yourself at your own expense. Cowboy bebop is new evidence.

Cowboy bebop Premiere on Netflix on November 19th.