Ever sat down and gave any real thought to the cyclical nature of fads, styles, and stories? If I had to choose an anime opener as emblematic of the 90's, there is only one true answer... and no, it's not the produced English dub opener of Dragon Ball Z. The answer to the question is "Tank!" by Seatbelts 3, 2, 1.
Oh... right. The known, and revered among anime fans, theme for the opener for late 90's genre-bending phenomenon Cowboy Bebop.
One-half space western, one-half neo-noir jazz pulp. Cowboy Bebop follows the episodic misadventures of Spike Siegel (a bounty hunter with a complicated past), his partner Jet Black (an ex cop with the titular Bebop ship), Faye Valentine (a loudmouth with a tragic dilemma), Edward (a gender bending super-genius with a knack for hacking), and Ein (a cute, genetically modified corgi) as they embark on a journey of self-discovery, absurdity, and tragedy.
Created by anime production studio Sunrise, Inc., Shinichirō Watanabe's (渡辺 信一郎) direction of the show is what has penetrated the minds and imagination of those that bore witness to it in the late 90's and early 2000's in the West. A student of cinema, Watanabe honed in on classical films and genres to create a cocktail of impossibilities that spawned a story about loneliness and existential dread. Be it the clear Bruce Lee homage via the series' protagonist Spike, or the Midnight Run/ John Woo neo-noir flair, the series adapts to every chapter and creates a blended kaleidoscope, celebrating the visual works that came before it. The scenes in outer space, with their grungy cyberpunk aesthetic, not to mention the visual language of the shots, endeavor the honor of passing on Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott's sci-fi body of work. Naturally, I had some trepidation upon hearing Netflix's announcement of a live-action series.
While this is no Dragonball: Evolution (and honestly, can anything truly be that bad in 2021...?) it approximates Robert Rodriguez's Alita: Battle Angel, attempting to fully realize an anime aesthetic into a more tangible and rusty world. Thankfully, unlike some 90's comic-book/anime adaptations, Netflix's Cowboy Bebop is not afraid of color. Part of the appeal of Japanese animation (and to a lesser degree, its manga counterpart) is the unabashed explosion of colors it often reproduces. It is fairly common for a character to have green or purple hair within the confines of animation, and be a perfectly normal (or even boring) human being. That characteristic is something that is not lost on the current iteration of Watanabe's work. Instead of opting for a more muted aesthetic (think of the original Bryan Singer X-Men), the team at Tomorrow Studios (also making a live-action One Piece adaptation, for those wondering about my interest in this particular body of work) fully committed to the absurdity and fashion of the world the characters reside in. Instead of going for black leather costumes approximating the characters' looks, they did the most rational thing a production design team would do. Bringing it to a modern audience that has accepted cosmic genocidal purple people eaters and walkin'-talkin'-sentient Seyba trees, complete with a POC cast.
The aesthetics are right, as is the heart of Tomorrow Studios' first attempt at trying to translate such a visually compelling anime like Cowboy Bebop. The main cast is astoundingly competent - the standout for me is Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black, but all the credit to the world should go to John Cho's pitch perfect performance as Spike "Fearless" Spiegel. The puzzling casting of Alex Hassell as the series' main antagonist (and former partner of Spike), "Vicious," is one that I will never wrap my head around, but suffice it to say that he neither fits the mold his character was made from, nor does he match the charisma required for such an iconic villain. While on the subject of "Vicious," the entire examination of his rise to power (something the anime left for the imagination of viewers to fill in the holes) alongside Julia ("Fearless'" love interest, and wife of "Vicious") is a notable change from the source material, but one that leaves more questions than answers by the time the first season wraps itself up by the tenth episode. This entire side-plot is utterly unnecessary and added nothing to the main mythos of Cowboy Bebop.
Since we mentioned the Netflix padding, as it were, the biggest criticism I will lay on this adaptation is the writing. Goddamn this writing. The last time I felt a tinge of embarrassment at a piece of media I was watching was when I saw a Twilight movie stone cold sober. If I knew I needed hard liquor (very on brand with this show) to get me through some of the dialogue and scriptwriting (I'm being generous using that last word) that is performed clumsily on screen, well. Part of the characterizations fall flat not because of the actors underperforming (in fact, overacting definitely rears its ugly head a few times, and always at the most inopportune of times) but rather because the material they are given (read: Netflix filler). One such instance is the subplot of Jet Black's failed marriage, along with his obsession with winning his daughter over with gifts (and always reminding us that the bounty money he gets will go to this particular endeavor). Jet's backstory of being an ISSP cop that was betrayed by his own partner (spoilers?) still resonates, so this added layer to him does nothing but complicate and infantilize him at times, making him seem more of a second fiddle character than a true co-protagonist as the original anime intended.
While fan-favorite Edward only graces us with their presence at the very end of the season, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about Faye Valentine. Longtime anime fans can remember the obsession of her iconic design plastered all over Sam Goody's and anime shops across the world, and while that design choice was updated to be more "battle ready" and less obtrusive as fan-service, her dialogue suffers from too many "gotcha" and "meme lord" lines. There's a degree of relatability to Faye (in both iterations) and her backstory is practically unchanged, with some minor embellishments for the sake of plotting and set piece grandiosity. This makes her seem insufferable for most of the season (true to form) and once she gets acclimated to the crew, it's a lot smoother. But the growing pains of the original are bestowed upon this adaptation as well. And, listen: Cowboy Bebop, as forward-thinking as it was in the 90s (with its very casual treatment of the LBGTQ community), was not an inherent masterpiece. There were some issues with its pacing and story structure. The Netflix adaptation required someone to fill in those holes, and while some were nice padding to the foundation, it results in a version that seems disjointed in what it wants to be.
A final observation is that one can't help to wonder if COVID-19 and filming some of this during the pandemic hurt its production values. Some of the sets are phenomenal, as are most visual effects (not you, Jet's Styrofoam hand), but "Sad Clown A-Go-Go" may be the biggest blunder of the Hollywood Zoom era, where having to go remote with a production can have a change in the entire dynamic between storytelling and shot composition. The composition on some of the "action" shots for the crew's battle with the fan favorite crazed assassin Pierrot LeFou is laughable (in a MST3K way) at best, and just plain sad to witness. I can't imagine someone watching those dailies and thinking they had that day "wrapped." No, ladies and gentlemen, that is *not* a wrap. It looked cheap and soulless, like countless IP adaptations that came from marketing studio execs that only saw dollar signs instead of the soul of a piece. However, as far as I'm concerned, Netflix/Tomorrow Studios succeeded in bringing us back to a strange time capsule of the 90s, one that was informed by its love for classical films, mystery, and the promise of tomorrow - it is, just like the original, a window into the time it emanates from. One can only hope that, like the aforementioned Singer adaptation of Marvel's X-Men that spawned the big Hollywood superhero film genre, this, too, can inspire an entire genre to take shape.
Not my favorite, but also not Dragon Ball: Evolution - so, that's a wrap I guess.
See you, Space Cowboy...
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