Of the three, Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black is, for me, the best. What I do want to talk about is the performance of the main cast.
Don’t worry though, while there are some slight changes to the Spike, Jet, and Faye, the main trio here in the live action series sticks true to their original anime counterparts, at least in terms of personality and motivations.Įxplaining the depiction of the Bebop crew in detail will delve into spoiler territory, so I won’t go too much into that (even if you’ve already seen the anime). The episodes aren’t the only remixes in this series as the iconic Cowboy Bebop characters also come with their own remixed traits and origins. And yes, the new music is just as good as they tapped the legendary Yoko Kanno to compose the series’ music. Fans of the anime will be happy to know that a lot of the original tracks are used here. Without getting into spoilers, each episode of this Netflix series is based primarily on an anime episode, but with elements of other storylines, complete with some original characters and twists.Įven though the format is changed, what the live action series retained from the anime is the soundtrack. This is because, most of the live action series’ episodes are sort of remixes or the original anime episodes. Cowboy Bebop fans will even enjoy some of the unique twists that they made to the story. When taken on its own, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop is still a well-made show in terms of how it’s written and structured. Sure, I lament the shift to a serialized format, but that’s me speaking as a fan of the original.
It’s as if you’re watching a crew of Bounty Hunters just drifting through their lives instead of heroes that are destined for an epic showdown – a strong reflection of the series’ themes. In the anime, watching each episode feels like you’re watching different short films, each with their own genres or mix of genres. Typical does not mean bad, but for someone who loves the episodic structure of Cowboy Bebop, I did miss it. While each 40-minute episode contains its own adventure, peppered within are scenes that build up the main storyline, making the show feel more like a standard Netflix series than what the original anime was. With Netflix’s live action adaptation though, they went with a more serialized format.
There are episodes in the anime that serve to tell a more overarching story, but there are only really five of them in the series (The Ballad of Fallen Angels, Jupiter Jazz Pt.
While most of today’s TV shows and anime are serials (meaning there’s a continuing plot episode-by-episode), the Cowboy Bebop anime is a mostly episodic show, meaning each episode has a self-contained story. Instead, what I got was somewhere in the middle. More specifically, I expected it to be either a straight-up adaptation of the original episodes (with minor modifications to fit live action better), or a totally new take on Cowboy Bebop. Coming into Netflix’s live action Cowboy Bebop, my expectations were, admittedly, rather low.