I'm self-aware enough to admit that I'm not capable of judging it fairly.
The problem I have is in the fundamental part of the execution: They changed the characters and then put them in the same situations. Because of this, I feel like I was all but forced to compare the two.
If they had kept the characters the same and then put them in new situations, I probably would've loved it. *Cowboys in Space* is something that has limitless potential for new ideas and they did nothing with it.
great point. the focus of any story remixing should’ve been on the bounty-of-the-week stuff. trying to give vicious and Julia more screen time was a massive mistake. and spike and especially Faye strayed a little too far from the source. from what I remember at least. kind of forgot that show fast
Vicious became an ineffective, whiny daddy-issue laden character.
Does the LA Julia's motivations work for you?
Even assuming she's supposed to be a scheming mastermind who intended to take over the syndicate from the start, her actions made no sense.
Assuming she's the same character as what she was in the original also doesn't work when she tries to kill Spike.
those two characters are barely characters in the og and that’s on purpose. they’re just supposed to represent spikes mysterious past that he can’t outrun nor can he let go of. they’re mostly intangible and only need to show up for the small fraction of episodes that advance the plot. adding more details and new storylines does not help them serve that purpose. at best it would’ve been a neutral addition, but then they made vicious pathetic and julia betrays spike?
the show isn’t about the plot, it’s about characters, specifically the crew of the bebop, and their character arcs. you get to know these characters over plenty of episodes that have nothing at all to do with vicious and Julia. I think the Netflix show just missed that fundamental aspect.
idk how much that made sense but I’m sure there more articulate posts on here about why the julia/vicious story was a problem. imo it may have been the primary reason for how badly the show was received (but there’s plenty others)
I dislike it and have many problems with the show but I'm not gonna rant to the extent I have before. My main problems are with character changes, primarily Vicious and Julia.
Honestly I can't imagine what they were thinking to this day. Perhaps they were delusional enough to think they could massively alter the story for the better, so shame on them.
They fundamentally didn’t understand the source material and, according to the few interviews with Watanabe, [they didn’t want to listen to anyone who warned them.](https://deadline.com/2023/01/cowboy-bebop-creator-couldnt-bear-watching-netflix-adaptation-of-work-1235243180/amp/)
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Same. Especially Vicious. I’d also go as far to say Gren was ruined too because his plotline was reduced to nothing.
However, my dad watched it without background or having seen the anime and thought it was decent. I think those folks are more likely to give it a fair shake.
What I will give it credit for is production quality. It’s something it really excelled at imo, from set pieces to cinematography and overall visuals/sound design.
It really was just the critical story beats and character changes that made it a poor adaptation.
They definitely ruined Gren. Jupiter Jazz 1 and 2 were amazing and there just wasn't a way to make them with the way they changed Gren. Such a tragic backstory and connection to Vicious totally thrown out the window.
Agree, The casting would have been salvageable with good writing. But the writing was absolutely horrific, like 8th grader reddit fan fiction terrible. Once people started calling it out, the lead person from the writers room responded by saying the show was an “improvement over the original.” Which added insult to injury. It’s sad because really it was only the writing that killed it, everything else was passable although sometimes corny looking.
haven't watched it and I don't think I ever will. just like the dragonball movie, other LA or most remakes.. I live by the principle of not having my childhood memories ruined by some greedy Corp trying to cash out on people's nostalgia..
I genuinely enjoyed it because I thought it was well cast. A different take on Faye was fine by me. I really did like John Cho and Mustafa Shakir as Spike and Jet. They seemed invested in the show. I also thought playing through the major story beats without going shot for shot was a good decision. There are obvious weak spots- Vicious and Julia are notable problem areas, particularly Vicious. His writing made him seem more of a cross between Snidely Whiplash and a brooding 16 year old. Overall, turn brain off a bit, don’t expect a remake of one of the greatest and most influential animes of all time, and just go for a ride with some space cowboys.
I kind of enjoyed where Faye’s actress went with the material, I just hated the material they gave her lol
I think my big issue is how much they fleshed out that took some of the mystique out of the series. It felt like all the mains in the OG had things that were hinted at, but left unspoken. The LA just kind of vomited at you what the new folks thought up to fill in those holes. I’m sympathetic to them kinda wanting to make it their own and go to newish places with the plot or whatever, but I do wish they had done a closer adaptation and saved some of that stuff for subsequent seasons.
It’s weird to me that in a world where media shoehorns mystery boxes into every orifice of IP that they possibly can, these folks took some of the best mystery boxes I’ve ever seen, and decided to not utilize them whatsoever. The only mystery box they left intact was people who saw the Ed teaser before watching the show wondering how the actual fuck it got to that point.
EDIT: I think I’m similarly minded on the enjoyability if the LA as a whole, it was just disappointing with context. I do wish we would have gotten another season or two to see if it got turned around.
Agreed on the front of taking mystery away being a big negative. It feels like the writers wanted some original content to also help pad it. Maybe it would’ve been better if they actually condensed it to 1 solid season start to finish instead of planning a cliffhanger heading to season 2.
Absolutely!
No one:
The writers of the Cowboy Bebop Live Action: “Let’s keep a lot of people’s favorite character until Season 2 and just have more of ***Faye’s mom*** or something. GILFs are big in the 2010’s, right?”
The pacing definitely didn’t feel good, I don’t know if it’s the fact there was a cliffhanger or what the cliffhanger actually was that was worse though. Felt like the wrong thing to hang, ya know?
It was terrible. But honestly an Anime like Bebop going to live action is very hard to pull off. A character named “Vicious”. Well in a cartoon you can get away with the bad guy basically being named “Evil bad guy.”
But it doesn’t work in a show trying to be serious. So you have to come up with things like “it was all a code name.”
A character like Ed. Well Ed basically had low tier toon force powers. It’s very difficult to bring something like that into live action. Is she still going to be capable of impossible feats? Thing like staying straight as a board when caught by her dad? It wouldn’t work at all in live action.
I say it could work. I mean it's been done before (with varying degrees of success) and all it takes it's a good script, memorable characters, good direction and unlimited budget. Marvel pulled off a whole decade of box office success and cultural impact working with the very definition of toony characters and bad guys called abomination, Mysterio, and of course Thanos (immortal). I hate those movies but most people seem to like them to a point of fanaticism and all of those movies achieved impressive technical feats. This series? It just flopped, but it can be done. I know you didn't say that it couldn't be done, just hard so I'm not actually disagreeing with you, btw. I just think that it was terrible for other reasons.
Marvel never took itself that seriously though. DC was the one who tried to make a dark, super serious, universe.
The problem is Bebop does have humor; but it’s a very serious show. The Anime dealt with very adult situations and topics. Buuuut; because it’s a cartoon, it also could get away with some rather cartoonish things. Those don’t translate well to live action
Honestly of all anime it should've been relatively easy to remake in live action. Bebop was grounded 95% of the time. Apparently the One Piece live action is killing it and all the characters have toon powers.
That’s exactly my point. One Piece established the rules of its universe very well: the fruit can give you toon force powers. Cool, then you can make that live action like you can make a marvel movie.
The problem for Bebop is it’s an incredibly serious show with very serious themes. Ed kinda just breaks the rules because well…..she’s Ed
This conversation has been had a gazillion times here, so there are a lot of threads about why people did or did not like the show. You are not alone.
I'm someone who both has been a fan of the original for nearly 25 years and liked the overall package of the Netflix one. It might not have nailed every re-interpretation it tried, but I respect if for at least trying them. With some time to listen to the constructive feedback out there and to find more a voice, a season 2 would have probably been legit good.
There's some bits that are not that great but overall i really enjoyed it, it felt like an alternative universe for the characters and i liked how they changed the story. The casting for Jet was absolutely perfect, and it had so many fun moments, I'm glad i gave it a shot
It was very obvious throughout the whole run that the writers/producers didn't have the slightest understanding of their source materials and what they delivered is nothing short of a butchery.
I've thought a lot about this and it turns out a lot of my criticisms of the live action are also my criticisms of the anime.
My main issue with the anime is that they never bothered selling the idea that Spike and Vicious used to be best friends. A lot more could be done with even 5 total minutes of the two of them back in the day.
The live action tries it, but fumbles. In trying to humanize Vicious, they end up neutering him. In the anime, Vicious works as a villain because he's a force of nature, only ever stymied when colliding with Spike. The live action screws up his storyline because any mistakes he makes should have been made BEFORE the present day. His character development should be complete by the start of the show.
Basically, both versions mishandle Vicious in different ways.
The chemistry of the main characters in the live action is flawless, though. I just wish the writing was better.
I personally also enjoyed it very much. I like the casting other than vicious. I enjoyed the humor and the visual style of the show. Only thing I truly dislike was vicious character. Felt out of place but I’m sadden there’s no season 2 to give it more time to develop.
The culture and sensibilities of the original version don't really apply to society today.
Loner/bad guy with a heart of gold? Terry Moore did it in Strangers in Paradise with Katchoo and David.
Sleeper did the Faye Valentine thing, Jet is basically Nick Fury, etc. Ed got misrepresented, but that might have been fixed in Season 2.
Vicious and Julia though? Yeah, that was pretty off-key. I guess they wanted to make Julia a 'strong female character' instead of a tragic love angle.
I liked the LA, but it definitely pales in comparison to the anime.
BUT
The effects were pretty spot-on. Good to see the Bebop and Swordfish come to CGI life!
I was pointing out that, since the anime came out a LONG time ago, the culture has shifted.
But the archetypes still exist - David is basically Spike. Katchoo is Faye (sort of).
Nick Fury in Avengers is Jet Black is Nick Fury (the Samuel Jackson version at least).
The idea of someone waking up with a huge debt has been done both by Woody Allen in Sleeper, and Fry in Futurama (although I think Fry went back in time and deposited a penny and compound interest made him rich).
Even the idea of that kind of debt is an anachronism. Wouldn't there have been some mechanism to arrange for payment? Otherwise, why not just pull her plug?
The anime is classic. I don't think the LA was as bad as everyone made it out to be. It deserved a second season to get its footing. The CGI was decent, the stories that followed the basic good episodes were action packed. It was fun.
It wasn't the anime. But that should not condemn it outright.
So Nick Fury existed before Cowboy bebop was written by decades, his introduction (as a white man) was in 1963. Sure, Jet could possibly have been based on him, but neither were originally black, and Fury was retconned into the Marvel version of Samuel L Jackson in the comics before he was cast in the films.
Be that as it may, these archetypes being used in other media (before and after the anime and LA) has no bearing on changes or shifts in culture.
As a show, it entertained me and I don't regret watching it, because it didn't change my opinion and love for the anime.
It was not a good adaption. It was a fine show
My biggest issue were the changes they made to Spike, Faye, and Jet's pasts. They made absolutely no sense. Vicious and Julia were terrible lol, it felt like a mockery of their characters. They didn't need to do that over sexualized humor.
The main 3 were well cast, but I missed Ed so much! Also, the visuals were everything!
I really try to be positive with this stuff but If I’m being honest I’d rather eat a bowl of nails than ever watch any of it again. Every aspect of it was really just terrible
It’s not terrible but not good.
I would have liked if the just focused on the main crew of Spike/Faye/Jet. Especially to get why they become the beloved crew.
I think LA are just trying to condense too much into the episodes.
I thought it was pretty good, though I’ll say most people’s criticisms are valid. I went in with no expectations and ended up having a good time watching it. Nothing beats OG bebop though
The issue was, fans had been wanting a faithful remake. Not adjusting characters to change their established core values or even make them do actions that didn't fit the character we had established as fans.
Like what The Last of Us became.
It was perfect! Characters that stuck to their paradigm, a storyline that didn't lose its essence. Even if the minutia of the story changed, You didn't have characters like Joel, or Bill or even Ellie having a drastic character shift for the sake of a show.
I couldn't agree more. The last of us TV show took amazing source material and actually improved it without altering its essential essence. It's the gold standard of adaptation, a standard that the cowboy bebop la completely failed to reach in any substantive way, despite the fact that there were a few clever things they managed to stumble backwards into. It's clear in bebops case that the creators had their own story they wanted to tell, and had very little/no interest in making a faithful adaptation.
Fans often want faithful adaptations but, in practice, that is impossible. There are things each medium does that others cannot replicate.
Does that mean this adaptation was good? No, it was passable at best, but fans always expect too much from adaptations and are always left feeling disappointed and/or robbed. Rarely is that actually what happened, adaptations like The Last Airbender are rarer than fans would have you believe.
It was a great show. I enjoyed it. I could have watched another 3 or 4 seasons of it. But unfortunately a large number of fake fans destroyed it for the rest of us by having a massive toddler tantrum online and causing the show to be cancelled. Real Bebop fans will keep enjoying it and rewatching it and keep wishing that mainstream American teens weren't such whiny little bitches.
Is it bad? Yes. Is it over-hated? Also yes.
Upon hearing the hate it got, I was expecting a *total* trainwreck. But it wasn't *that* bad. I actually liked some parts like Spike and Jet's chemistry, yet other parts like Vicious and Faye were horrible.
Still wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I would say the camp was too far over the top compared to the original. But I've been on enough tirades about this show. So I will just say it is awful.
Watanabe himself watched one scene and immediately said “ this isn’t Cowboy Bebop”.
I agree with him on that, I like some of the cast ( which I’m pretty sure he did as well ) but the script and the show in general was very shit.
I enjoyed it a fair amount and loved how they did the last 3 episodes. I think it's overall better than it gets credit for. It's running a 6.7 on imdb audience score, which sounds about right to me.
No, I thought it was fine for the most part. I was interested to see where the new stuff with Julia went, and I thought it was cool that she got to do more in the new show because she had to be rushed into the original since it was canceled before the first season was done. Obviously Ed looked stupid, but that was one tiny scene after the season was over, and had nothing to do with the actual show. I also thought the Faye origin was really nicely done and mirrored the anime closely. That part felt very poignant to me.
I thought it started off good and went downhill from there. I didn’t mind changing the story and adding more of the gangster stuff. Love John but he didn’t fit Spike for me, sorry man. Jet was a highlight for me, idk how he managed to get his voice to sound so similar. But than again see/hear him in Luke Cage and u see a talented actor.
Also I think people forget this was a Covid casualty. Aka it went through Covid and didn’t get the full attention it deserved.
I love the OG Cowboy Bebop. It's probably my most watched anime.
I enjoyed the live action and watched as the internet did its thing and destroyed it. Very few shows get it perfect in the first season and I felt like the live action had potential, but it became apparent very quickly that it was never going to see season 2.
I was excited for anything new in the franchise universe but it felt like the "real fans" just want the franchise to be done.
I also liked it allot, i think this is the same problem with every fandom, people can be crazy about what they like or dislike, i personally dont care what most people think anymore and just enjoy things for me
I have major issues with it (the character assassination of both Vicious and Julia, the fact they clearly didn't understand Gren at all, and the Mad Pierrot episode in general, just to name a few) so I would have issues calling it good, but I do think it's fairly overhated. As you said, I think the casting was fantastic (especially the Bebop crew, who had fantastic chemistry) and a number of the episodes are a lot of fun.
I think I'd have appreciated it more if I didn't have the original to compare it to. I always tell my friends this: "They nailed everything except the casting and the writing"
So if I never watched the anime then I would've enjoyed the show a bit more but I also wouldn't have even touched the show to begin with if I wasn't trying to see my fav space cowboys come to live action.
I mildly enjoyed it (I’m kind of damning with faint praise there as the original is one of my favorite shows), and I wanted to see where a second season would have gone. Some shows just take a season to find its footing, but Netflix gotta Netflix.
Hated it. Only thing I liked was jet and spike and even then I didn't love them like in the original. I couldn't get past like episode 4. Vicious and Julia were just completely ruined in terms of character and story. Faye I didn't like. They went overboard with the marvel type comedy, which I and many others are way burnt out on. The action was a downgrade to the animation and the acting just wasn't it even with jet and spike. They messed up the tone of the show which was mostly Noir.
I wouldn't call it bad, but mediocre. And also, it made many, many violations to what made the anime great.
If it was written as a cowboy bebop inspired show, then it would've worked. But due to the many deviations from the anime, everyone hated it.
I believe the issue with the Bebop live action was the fact that they turned it into an overly serious drama show.
The original Cowboy bebop has its moments of intense drama and mixes it well with some less intense episodes too, like when there was the alien that infiltrated the ship and Ed eats it. Overall the show can be described as a fun show with serious moments. The remake on the other hand, is a serious show with fun moments, except those fun moments basically disappear the further you get into the season.
Obviously there are other issues like the writing and all that. But I think the biggest thing that any live-action remake needs to do to succeed is to just capture the spirit of the original story, and this live action adaptation dropped the ball there hard.
- Killing Gren's story
- Murdering Vicious' persona for a spoiled child attitude
- Girlboss heel turn Julia
- Shoehorned Faye sexuality plotline
- Faye's over the top character and attitude, also abandoned most of her humanity by cutting her backstory
- Jet is a fun dad now, not a former hard boiled street cop
If there's anything else, I've forgotten. Thankfully.
But yeah, that's pretty bad IMO
A big part of Cowboy Bebop was the mystery of Spike’s affiliation with Vicious and the Mob, and the mystery of Julia. By focusing such much on those they took away a lot of the mystery of Spike’s past, and ruined any build up Vicious may have had. These are key elements in building up anticipation and suspense. Think about movies like The Third Man, as a classic example, or John Wick, or Thanos for more recent ones. In the first example we don’t see the character Harry Lime for almost an hour into the film before he finally makes an appearance, but we’ve heard so much about him we WANT to see this character. In John Wick, we hear people talk about Wick, we see how they act around him, but we don’t really see what he can do. Building up Vicious could have waited until a season finale before we really see what’s he’s about, and while you can break this rule, they didn’t make Vicious intimidating, or intriguing at all; they neutered the character.
Then of course we could talk about how the ppl adapting stories from the OP seemed to entirely miss the point of some stories so that we got bad adaptations with no real lasting punch.
Just like a good movie adaptation of a novel should make you want to read the novel if you already haven’t, a good adaptation should make you want to check out the anime or the manga. Cowboy Bebop like Death Note before it would not make me want to watch the source material from either.
My biggest gripe wasn't even the character changes but the lack of 90's - 00's anime aesthetic. I wish they leaned into that more visually. The pacing and color grade was also a little off.
Beyond it being a Cowboy Bebop thing...it has to be the cheapest looking sets and props I have ever seen. The guns looked like rubber. The story might work. But the spent so little money. No matter what the show was it was cheap and awful. It looked lije a college play....maybe.
Honestly, the only bad part for me was when Ed popped in at the end, and they tried to play her like the anime. It just doesn't work. All they need to do is just play off the fact that Spike was concussed at that point/not in the right state of mind. If they come back for another season, play Ed straight, maybe go for a more angst teen vibe, and all should be good.
I was a huge fan of the original anime for many years. What I wanted out of the live action was a sort of remix and more depth out of the universe and characters, and to me, they delivered. I liked what they did with Julia and the Red Dragon syndicate. Honestly, that episode where Spike got trapped in the VR headset was GENIUS, more of that, please.
In the end, toxic fandom sort of won out. It was like they couldn't be pleased, like what do you want out of it? Frame by frame, exact copy, or something new that tells the same story with some twists?
My vote is to keep going. I'll totally watch it and probably like it a lot.
P.S.
I was born in the 80s, and the show hit my generation at the prime time, I love the show. It's probably in my top 5 anime of all time. But even I could see that there was quite a bit of great things they did with the live action. Way more good than bad, IMHO.
The show was bad and we should be honest about that.
Netflix spent a ton of money on it and it was still horrible because the creators didn’t actually care about cowboy bebop or care to understand.
No you are not.
I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Not as a bebop fan exactly, but as someone who liked the goofy brokenness of it. The setting, the music is still Kano. I don’t know. It was my guilty pleasure/comfort show.
It had a strange charm and I was sad when it was over. I would have LOVED a second season.
Same here! I’ve loved Bebop since I first watched on Cartoon Network in ‘01. That’s over 20’years of the same content and I was SUPER excited to have new content!
I really enjoyed the first episode. That opening scene I felt captured the feel and essence of the anime. I kept imagining all the scenes as the anime and it worked out really well for me.
Of course there were things I didn’t like, like the casting for Julia and Vicious. I was hoping to get more background on the syndicate. It wasn’t perfect but I love Bebop so much that I honestly didn’t care. I was annoyed with the changes at the end, but definitely looking forward to a second season.
And it introduced Bebop to a whole new audience so that was cool too.
I enjoyed it well enough. I wasn't big on the changes to Vicious and Julia and some of the other story changes, but I loved the casting for Jet and was surprised to really adore Faye as well. I think John Cho did a decent enough job as Spike, but sadly, it might have been better suited to a younger actor due to the physical nature of the role. I think he had a fairly good handle on who the character was supposed to be, though. I'd have liked to be able to see more Ed but it is what it is.
It’s fine as an inferior remix of the series with some fun beats from time to time. But I think bebop is so big/influential that it’s hard for anyone to have accepted it *unless* it actually turned out better than the original.
A live action anime that I personally couldn’t stand was the Yu Yu Hakusho adaptation, mainly because it chopped something like 100 chapters of the manga into 10 episodes and didn’t even try to recreate the charm of the original. At least Bebop *tried* to give us some of what we liked
I'm self-aware enough to admit that I'm not capable of judging it fairly. The problem I have is in the fundamental part of the execution: They changed the characters and then put them in the same situations. Because of this, I feel like I was all but forced to compare the two. If they had kept the characters the same and then put them in new situations, I probably would've loved it. *Cowboys in Space* is something that has limitless potential for new ideas and they did nothing with it.
great point. the focus of any story remixing should’ve been on the bounty-of-the-week stuff. trying to give vicious and Julia more screen time was a massive mistake. and spike and especially Faye strayed a little too far from the source. from what I remember at least. kind of forgot that show fast
What didn’t you like about the vicious and Julia stuff? Genuinely curious
Vicious became an ineffective, whiny daddy-issue laden character. Does the LA Julia's motivations work for you? Even assuming she's supposed to be a scheming mastermind who intended to take over the syndicate from the start, her actions made no sense. Assuming she's the same character as what she was in the original also doesn't work when she tries to kill Spike.
those two characters are barely characters in the og and that’s on purpose. they’re just supposed to represent spikes mysterious past that he can’t outrun nor can he let go of. they’re mostly intangible and only need to show up for the small fraction of episodes that advance the plot. adding more details and new storylines does not help them serve that purpose. at best it would’ve been a neutral addition, but then they made vicious pathetic and julia betrays spike? the show isn’t about the plot, it’s about characters, specifically the crew of the bebop, and their character arcs. you get to know these characters over plenty of episodes that have nothing at all to do with vicious and Julia. I think the Netflix show just missed that fundamental aspect. idk how much that made sense but I’m sure there more articulate posts on here about why the julia/vicious story was a problem. imo it may have been the primary reason for how badly the show was received (but there’s plenty others)
check out Firefly if you never have.
Or don't because it's soul crushing in all the right ways.
exactly. they changed core aspects of who the characters are, and then showed me a less cool version of a scene i already have seem and liked
I dislike it and have many problems with the show but I'm not gonna rant to the extent I have before. My main problems are with character changes, primarily Vicious and Julia. Honestly I can't imagine what they were thinking to this day. Perhaps they were delusional enough to think they could massively alter the story for the better, so shame on them.
They fundamentally didn’t understand the source material and, according to the few interviews with Watanabe, [they didn’t want to listen to anyone who warned them.](https://deadline.com/2023/01/cowboy-bebop-creator-couldnt-bear-watching-netflix-adaptation-of-work-1235243180/amp/)
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Same. Especially Vicious. I’d also go as far to say Gren was ruined too because his plotline was reduced to nothing. However, my dad watched it without background or having seen the anime and thought it was decent. I think those folks are more likely to give it a fair shake. What I will give it credit for is production quality. It’s something it really excelled at imo, from set pieces to cinematography and overall visuals/sound design. It really was just the critical story beats and character changes that made it a poor adaptation.
They definitely ruined Gren. Jupiter Jazz 1 and 2 were amazing and there just wasn't a way to make them with the way they changed Gren. Such a tragic backstory and connection to Vicious totally thrown out the window.
Agree, The casting would have been salvageable with good writing. But the writing was absolutely horrific, like 8th grader reddit fan fiction terrible. Once people started calling it out, the lead person from the writers room responded by saying the show was an “improvement over the original.” Which added insult to injury. It’s sad because really it was only the writing that killed it, everything else was passable although sometimes corny looking.
I thought the show was okay except for the Julia/Vicious scenes. Those were terrible.
 Vicious, Julia, Gren. Why?
Gren 🥺
haven't watched it and I don't think I ever will. just like the dragonball movie, other LA or most remakes.. I live by the principle of not having my childhood memories ruined by some greedy Corp trying to cash out on people's nostalgia..
I, too, don't encourage bad behavior.
I DO encourage bad behaviour, but watching a live action? Even im not that depraved
I genuinely enjoyed it because I thought it was well cast. A different take on Faye was fine by me. I really did like John Cho and Mustafa Shakir as Spike and Jet. They seemed invested in the show. I also thought playing through the major story beats without going shot for shot was a good decision. There are obvious weak spots- Vicious and Julia are notable problem areas, particularly Vicious. His writing made him seem more of a cross between Snidely Whiplash and a brooding 16 year old. Overall, turn brain off a bit, don’t expect a remake of one of the greatest and most influential animes of all time, and just go for a ride with some space cowboys.
He looked and acted like lord farquad relocated to a universe with space travel.
Accurate!
I think I'd rather just watch firefly for the 15th time if I want a LA Cowboy Bebop
You know what’s great? I never watched that series. I am planning on watching it next month.
I never have either!
I kind of enjoyed where Faye’s actress went with the material, I just hated the material they gave her lol I think my big issue is how much they fleshed out that took some of the mystique out of the series. It felt like all the mains in the OG had things that were hinted at, but left unspoken. The LA just kind of vomited at you what the new folks thought up to fill in those holes. I’m sympathetic to them kinda wanting to make it their own and go to newish places with the plot or whatever, but I do wish they had done a closer adaptation and saved some of that stuff for subsequent seasons. It’s weird to me that in a world where media shoehorns mystery boxes into every orifice of IP that they possibly can, these folks took some of the best mystery boxes I’ve ever seen, and decided to not utilize them whatsoever. The only mystery box they left intact was people who saw the Ed teaser before watching the show wondering how the actual fuck it got to that point. EDIT: I think I’m similarly minded on the enjoyability if the LA as a whole, it was just disappointing with context. I do wish we would have gotten another season or two to see if it got turned around.
Agreed on the front of taking mystery away being a big negative. It feels like the writers wanted some original content to also help pad it. Maybe it would’ve been better if they actually condensed it to 1 solid season start to finish instead of planning a cliffhanger heading to season 2.
Absolutely! No one: The writers of the Cowboy Bebop Live Action: “Let’s keep a lot of people’s favorite character until Season 2 and just have more of ***Faye’s mom*** or something. GILFs are big in the 2010’s, right?” The pacing definitely didn’t feel good, I don’t know if it’s the fact there was a cliffhanger or what the cliffhanger actually was that was worse though. Felt like the wrong thing to hang, ya know?
It was terrible. But honestly an Anime like Bebop going to live action is very hard to pull off. A character named “Vicious”. Well in a cartoon you can get away with the bad guy basically being named “Evil bad guy.” But it doesn’t work in a show trying to be serious. So you have to come up with things like “it was all a code name.” A character like Ed. Well Ed basically had low tier toon force powers. It’s very difficult to bring something like that into live action. Is she still going to be capable of impossible feats? Thing like staying straight as a board when caught by her dad? It wouldn’t work at all in live action.
I say it could work. I mean it's been done before (with varying degrees of success) and all it takes it's a good script, memorable characters, good direction and unlimited budget. Marvel pulled off a whole decade of box office success and cultural impact working with the very definition of toony characters and bad guys called abomination, Mysterio, and of course Thanos (immortal). I hate those movies but most people seem to like them to a point of fanaticism and all of those movies achieved impressive technical feats. This series? It just flopped, but it can be done. I know you didn't say that it couldn't be done, just hard so I'm not actually disagreeing with you, btw. I just think that it was terrible for other reasons.
Marvel never took itself that seriously though. DC was the one who tried to make a dark, super serious, universe. The problem is Bebop does have humor; but it’s a very serious show. The Anime dealt with very adult situations and topics. Buuuut; because it’s a cartoon, it also could get away with some rather cartoonish things. Those don’t translate well to live action
Sure, I see what you mean. Anyway, take care.
You have a great day!
Honestly of all anime it should've been relatively easy to remake in live action. Bebop was grounded 95% of the time. Apparently the One Piece live action is killing it and all the characters have toon powers.
That’s exactly my point. One Piece established the rules of its universe very well: the fruit can give you toon force powers. Cool, then you can make that live action like you can make a marvel movie. The problem for Bebop is it’s an incredibly serious show with very serious themes. Ed kinda just breaks the rules because well…..she’s Ed
Any show where the phrase “amaze balls” is used unironically as dialogue is automatically bad.
If it was it's own thing and not Bebop it would have been an okay show with fun moments. As it is now it's an embarrasing disappointment.
Yup
Yes. You are.
This conversation has been had a gazillion times here, so there are a lot of threads about why people did or did not like the show. You are not alone. I'm someone who both has been a fan of the original for nearly 25 years and liked the overall package of the Netflix one. It might not have nailed every re-interpretation it tried, but I respect if for at least trying them. With some time to listen to the constructive feedback out there and to find more a voice, a season 2 would have probably been legit good.
There's some bits that are not that great but overall i really enjoyed it, it felt like an alternative universe for the characters and i liked how they changed the story. The casting for Jet was absolutely perfect, and it had so many fun moments, I'm glad i gave it a shot
It was very obvious throughout the whole run that the writers/producers didn't have the slightest understanding of their source materials and what they delivered is nothing short of a butchery.
I think it would have been a fine show if it wasn't supposed to be Cowboy Bebop.
I've thought a lot about this and it turns out a lot of my criticisms of the live action are also my criticisms of the anime. My main issue with the anime is that they never bothered selling the idea that Spike and Vicious used to be best friends. A lot more could be done with even 5 total minutes of the two of them back in the day. The live action tries it, but fumbles. In trying to humanize Vicious, they end up neutering him. In the anime, Vicious works as a villain because he's a force of nature, only ever stymied when colliding with Spike. The live action screws up his storyline because any mistakes he makes should have been made BEFORE the present day. His character development should be complete by the start of the show. Basically, both versions mishandle Vicious in different ways. The chemistry of the main characters in the live action is flawless, though. I just wish the writing was better.
I personally also enjoyed it very much. I like the casting other than vicious. I enjoyed the humor and the visual style of the show. Only thing I truly dislike was vicious character. Felt out of place but I’m sadden there’s no season 2 to give it more time to develop.
The culture and sensibilities of the original version don't really apply to society today. Loner/bad guy with a heart of gold? Terry Moore did it in Strangers in Paradise with Katchoo and David. Sleeper did the Faye Valentine thing, Jet is basically Nick Fury, etc. Ed got misrepresented, but that might have been fixed in Season 2. Vicious and Julia though? Yeah, that was pretty off-key. I guess they wanted to make Julia a 'strong female character' instead of a tragic love angle. I liked the LA, but it definitely pales in comparison to the anime. BUT The effects were pretty spot-on. Good to see the Bebop and Swordfish come to CGI life!
"Jet is basically Nick Fury", guy who has seen two black people on screen. What the fuck are you talking about
Well, if Nick Fury had a daughter, I guess...
Really confused by the mention of a comic when we’re discussing a live action anime adaptation.
Nick Fury in The Avenger's movies? MCU? Ring a bell?
Wrong comic, I meant ‘Strangers in Paradise’, and I’m not sure why you answered about a character and not the comic, as I specified.
I was pointing out that, since the anime came out a LONG time ago, the culture has shifted. But the archetypes still exist - David is basically Spike. Katchoo is Faye (sort of). Nick Fury in Avengers is Jet Black is Nick Fury (the Samuel Jackson version at least). The idea of someone waking up with a huge debt has been done both by Woody Allen in Sleeper, and Fry in Futurama (although I think Fry went back in time and deposited a penny and compound interest made him rich). Even the idea of that kind of debt is an anachronism. Wouldn't there have been some mechanism to arrange for payment? Otherwise, why not just pull her plug? The anime is classic. I don't think the LA was as bad as everyone made it out to be. It deserved a second season to get its footing. The CGI was decent, the stories that followed the basic good episodes were action packed. It was fun. It wasn't the anime. But that should not condemn it outright.
So Nick Fury existed before Cowboy bebop was written by decades, his introduction (as a white man) was in 1963. Sure, Jet could possibly have been based on him, but neither were originally black, and Fury was retconned into the Marvel version of Samuel L Jackson in the comics before he was cast in the films. Be that as it may, these archetypes being used in other media (before and after the anime and LA) has no bearing on changes or shifts in culture.
As a show, it entertained me and I don't regret watching it, because it didn't change my opinion and love for the anime. It was not a good adaption. It was a fine show
It's fine. Got it's ups and downs. If it was an unrelated sci-fi show I think people on here would be recommending it as a show like bebop
My biggest issue were the changes they made to Spike, Faye, and Jet's pasts. They made absolutely no sense. Vicious and Julia were terrible lol, it felt like a mockery of their characters. They didn't need to do that over sexualized humor. The main 3 were well cast, but I missed Ed so much! Also, the visuals were everything!
I really try to be positive with this stuff but If I’m being honest I’d rather eat a bowl of nails than ever watch any of it again. Every aspect of it was really just terrible
There a good live action adaption of Cowboy Bebop, it’s called Firefly.
It’s not terrible but not good. I would have liked if the just focused on the main crew of Spike/Faye/Jet. Especially to get why they become the beloved crew. I think LA are just trying to condense too much into the episodes.
I didn't think it was too bad, I also didn't think it was very good.
I thought it was pretty good, though I’ll say most people’s criticisms are valid. I went in with no expectations and ended up having a good time watching it. Nothing beats OG bebop though
The issue was, fans had been wanting a faithful remake. Not adjusting characters to change their established core values or even make them do actions that didn't fit the character we had established as fans. Like what The Last of Us became.
What did The Last of Us do?
It was perfect! Characters that stuck to their paradigm, a storyline that didn't lose its essence. Even if the minutia of the story changed, You didn't have characters like Joel, or Bill or even Ellie having a drastic character shift for the sake of a show.
I couldn't agree more. The last of us TV show took amazing source material and actually improved it without altering its essential essence. It's the gold standard of adaptation, a standard that the cowboy bebop la completely failed to reach in any substantive way, despite the fact that there were a few clever things they managed to stumble backwards into. It's clear in bebops case that the creators had their own story they wanted to tell, and had very little/no interest in making a faithful adaptation.
Fans often want faithful adaptations but, in practice, that is impossible. There are things each medium does that others cannot replicate. Does that mean this adaptation was good? No, it was passable at best, but fans always expect too much from adaptations and are always left feeling disappointed and/or robbed. Rarely is that actually what happened, adaptations like The Last Airbender are rarer than fans would have you believe.
You are not alone and this community is not going to entertain your opinions.
I enjoyed it, considered it more of a re-mix than a reboot. However, I personally believe they mixed in too much Vicious and Julia.
It was a great show. I enjoyed it. I could have watched another 3 or 4 seasons of it. But unfortunately a large number of fake fans destroyed it for the rest of us by having a massive toddler tantrum online and causing the show to be cancelled. Real Bebop fans will keep enjoying it and rewatching it and keep wishing that mainstream American teens weren't such whiny little bitches.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Is it bad? Yes. Is it over-hated? Also yes. Upon hearing the hate it got, I was expecting a *total* trainwreck. But it wasn't *that* bad. I actually liked some parts like Spike and Jet's chemistry, yet other parts like Vicious and Faye were horrible. Still wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I stopped watching live action adaptations after that dragon ball one that shall not be named. America just can’t do it without fucking everything up.
Look at The One Piece Live Action, They did turned it around!
I would say the camp was too far over the top compared to the original. But I've been on enough tirades about this show. So I will just say it is awful.
I loved it, all of it. Ok with Ed at the end. It would have lead into s2 only ppl bitched, got canceled....so it seems odd now.
I liked it, I know it wasn't amazing but I enjoyed it.
I liked it a lot. I think people just can’t enjoy things.
Watanabe himself watched one scene and immediately said “ this isn’t Cowboy Bebop”. I agree with him on that, I like some of the cast ( which I’m pretty sure he did as well ) but the script and the show in general was very shit.
I enjoyed it a fair amount and loved how they did the last 3 episodes. I think it's overall better than it gets credit for. It's running a 6.7 on imdb audience score, which sounds about right to me.
No, I thought it was fine for the most part. I was interested to see where the new stuff with Julia went, and I thought it was cool that she got to do more in the new show because she had to be rushed into the original since it was canceled before the first season was done. Obviously Ed looked stupid, but that was one tiny scene after the season was over, and had nothing to do with the actual show. I also thought the Faye origin was really nicely done and mirrored the anime closely. That part felt very poignant to me.
I thought it started off good and went downhill from there. I didn’t mind changing the story and adding more of the gangster stuff. Love John but he didn’t fit Spike for me, sorry man. Jet was a highlight for me, idk how he managed to get his voice to sound so similar. But than again see/hear him in Luke Cage and u see a talented actor. Also I think people forget this was a Covid casualty. Aka it went through Covid and didn’t get the full attention it deserved.
I love the OG Cowboy Bebop. It's probably my most watched anime. I enjoyed the live action and watched as the internet did its thing and destroyed it. Very few shows get it perfect in the first season and I felt like the live action had potential, but it became apparent very quickly that it was never going to see season 2. I was excited for anything new in the franchise universe but it felt like the "real fans" just want the franchise to be done.
I'm with you
I really enjoyed it!
I thoroughly enjoyed the live action…. I think it’s the best live action adaptation that’s recently came out
I also liked it allot, i think this is the same problem with every fandom, people can be crazy about what they like or dislike, i personally dont care what most people think anymore and just enjoy things for me
Also the fight scenes were amazinnnnnng!!!
I really liked the live action. Yes very different from the anime but they had to appeal to a broader audience.
I have major issues with it (the character assassination of both Vicious and Julia, the fact they clearly didn't understand Gren at all, and the Mad Pierrot episode in general, just to name a few) so I would have issues calling it good, but I do think it's fairly overhated. As you said, I think the casting was fantastic (especially the Bebop crew, who had fantastic chemistry) and a number of the episodes are a lot of fun.
I think I'd have appreciated it more if I didn't have the original to compare it to. I always tell my friends this: "They nailed everything except the casting and the writing" So if I never watched the anime then I would've enjoyed the show a bit more but I also wouldn't have even touched the show to begin with if I wasn't trying to see my fav space cowboys come to live action.
"Welcome to the ouch" that is all
I mildly enjoyed it (I’m kind of damning with faint praise there as the original is one of my favorite shows), and I wanted to see where a second season would have gone. Some shows just take a season to find its footing, but Netflix gotta Netflix.
Hated it. Only thing I liked was jet and spike and even then I didn't love them like in the original. I couldn't get past like episode 4. Vicious and Julia were just completely ruined in terms of character and story. Faye I didn't like. They went overboard with the marvel type comedy, which I and many others are way burnt out on. The action was a downgrade to the animation and the acting just wasn't it even with jet and spike. They messed up the tone of the show which was mostly Noir.
I wouldn't call it bad, but mediocre. And also, it made many, many violations to what made the anime great. If it was written as a cowboy bebop inspired show, then it would've worked. But due to the many deviations from the anime, everyone hated it.
Thought fay was actually annoying, while in the anime she was called annoying for being a woman.
I simply have no desire to watch it. I hate reboots, especially live action remakes of animated shows. I hate them all!
I believe the issue with the Bebop live action was the fact that they turned it into an overly serious drama show. The original Cowboy bebop has its moments of intense drama and mixes it well with some less intense episodes too, like when there was the alien that infiltrated the ship and Ed eats it. Overall the show can be described as a fun show with serious moments. The remake on the other hand, is a serious show with fun moments, except those fun moments basically disappear the further you get into the season. Obviously there are other issues like the writing and all that. But I think the biggest thing that any live-action remake needs to do to succeed is to just capture the spirit of the original story, and this live action adaptation dropped the ball there hard.
I personally think ed doesn't work in live action but other than that it's fine.
- Killing Gren's story - Murdering Vicious' persona for a spoiled child attitude - Girlboss heel turn Julia - Shoehorned Faye sexuality plotline - Faye's over the top character and attitude, also abandoned most of her humanity by cutting her backstory - Jet is a fun dad now, not a former hard boiled street cop If there's anything else, I've forgotten. Thankfully. But yeah, that's pretty bad IMO
A big part of Cowboy Bebop was the mystery of Spike’s affiliation with Vicious and the Mob, and the mystery of Julia. By focusing such much on those they took away a lot of the mystery of Spike’s past, and ruined any build up Vicious may have had. These are key elements in building up anticipation and suspense. Think about movies like The Third Man, as a classic example, or John Wick, or Thanos for more recent ones. In the first example we don’t see the character Harry Lime for almost an hour into the film before he finally makes an appearance, but we’ve heard so much about him we WANT to see this character. In John Wick, we hear people talk about Wick, we see how they act around him, but we don’t really see what he can do. Building up Vicious could have waited until a season finale before we really see what’s he’s about, and while you can break this rule, they didn’t make Vicious intimidating, or intriguing at all; they neutered the character. Then of course we could talk about how the ppl adapting stories from the OP seemed to entirely miss the point of some stories so that we got bad adaptations with no real lasting punch. Just like a good movie adaptation of a novel should make you want to read the novel if you already haven’t, a good adaptation should make you want to check out the anime or the manga. Cowboy Bebop like Death Note before it would not make me want to watch the source material from either.
I really liked the live action show and I would love to get the second season. It had its flaws, but it was charming and interesting.
I enjoyed it.
I hated it and moved on. If it wasn’t mentioned on a nearly biweekly basis here I’d have forgotten by now too.
I kind of enjoyed it.
My biggest gripe wasn't even the character changes but the lack of 90's - 00's anime aesthetic. I wish they leaned into that more visually. The pacing and color grade was also a little off.
Beyond it being a Cowboy Bebop thing...it has to be the cheapest looking sets and props I have ever seen. The guns looked like rubber. The story might work. But the spent so little money. No matter what the show was it was cheap and awful. It looked lije a college play....maybe.
I enjoyed it, even knowing the creator wasn’t keen on it. Sure, there were issues, but it had good moments too.
I absolutely loved the live action show! I also absolutely loved the original anime. You can love both. I know I do!
I enjoyed it more than the anime tbh (I'm prepared for the downvotes)
No, I thought it was fun and got unjust treatment
Honestly, the only bad part for me was when Ed popped in at the end, and they tried to play her like the anime. It just doesn't work. All they need to do is just play off the fact that Spike was concussed at that point/not in the right state of mind. If they come back for another season, play Ed straight, maybe go for a more angst teen vibe, and all should be good. I was a huge fan of the original anime for many years. What I wanted out of the live action was a sort of remix and more depth out of the universe and characters, and to me, they delivered. I liked what they did with Julia and the Red Dragon syndicate. Honestly, that episode where Spike got trapped in the VR headset was GENIUS, more of that, please. In the end, toxic fandom sort of won out. It was like they couldn't be pleased, like what do you want out of it? Frame by frame, exact copy, or something new that tells the same story with some twists? My vote is to keep going. I'll totally watch it and probably like it a lot. P.S. I was born in the 80s, and the show hit my generation at the prime time, I love the show. It's probably in my top 5 anime of all time. But even I could see that there was quite a bit of great things they did with the live action. Way more good than bad, IMHO.
The show was bad and we should be honest about that. Netflix spent a ton of money on it and it was still horrible because the creators didn’t actually care about cowboy bebop or care to understand.
No you are not. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Not as a bebop fan exactly, but as someone who liked the goofy brokenness of it. The setting, the music is still Kano. I don’t know. It was my guilty pleasure/comfort show. It had a strange charm and I was sad when it was over. I would have LOVED a second season.
Yes, yes you are.
I loved itm I wish they just decided to ignore the haters and finish the last half of the series.
I only watched a couple episodes. It wasn’t bad at all though.
If I'm reading most of these comments correctly, it would be great, if we weren't being gatekeepers.....
No It just wasn't good. It was not about gatekeeping ..the show was a bad adaptation and mediocre at best as it's own thing
I liked it
If you watch it without serious expectations... then yeah. It's not horrible - they just tried to tackle a task they couldn't handle.
Same here! I’ve loved Bebop since I first watched on Cartoon Network in ‘01. That’s over 20’years of the same content and I was SUPER excited to have new content! I really enjoyed the first episode. That opening scene I felt captured the feel and essence of the anime. I kept imagining all the scenes as the anime and it worked out really well for me. Of course there were things I didn’t like, like the casting for Julia and Vicious. I was hoping to get more background on the syndicate. It wasn’t perfect but I love Bebop so much that I honestly didn’t care. I was annoyed with the changes at the end, but definitely looking forward to a second season. And it introduced Bebop to a whole new audience so that was cool too.
I was disappointed it didn't get a second season, but mostly because I wanted them to fix the problems with the first.
I liked it a lot and wished there was more.
I agree I thought it was a good live version good casting also. Could have gone a bit more with the nudity for my taste but thats just me LOL
I enjoyed it well enough. I wasn't big on the changes to Vicious and Julia and some of the other story changes, but I loved the casting for Jet and was surprised to really adore Faye as well. I think John Cho did a decent enough job as Spike, but sadly, it might have been better suited to a younger actor due to the physical nature of the role. I think he had a fairly good handle on who the character was supposed to be, though. I'd have liked to be able to see more Ed but it is what it is.
It’s fine as an inferior remix of the series with some fun beats from time to time. But I think bebop is so big/influential that it’s hard for anyone to have accepted it *unless* it actually turned out better than the original. A live action anime that I personally couldn’t stand was the Yu Yu Hakusho adaptation, mainly because it chopped something like 100 chapters of the manga into 10 episodes and didn’t even try to recreate the charm of the original. At least Bebop *tried* to give us some of what we liked