Tag: Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop Live-Action

I have mixed feelings about the new Netflix live-action adaptation of the famous anime Cowboy Bebop. Is it bad? No. It’s definitely not as bad as all the overwhelmingly negative reviews are out there making it sound. But, if I had to recommend someone to watch the Netflix show or the original, I would still recommend watching the original.

The live-action show was a perfectly fine show to watch. It was funny, had action, and the actors were well cast for their roles. However, at times it simply felt awkward or like it was drastically under budget. The underlying problem was that this was a live-action anime. Things that work well in anime don’t work well in the real world. A pinnacle example would be with the tease of radical Edward at the very end. What is very eccentric and funny in anime come across as awkward in the live-action form.

This all begs the question:: was a live-action remake even necessary? I would have far rather had an animated remake or an animated movie over Netflix’s mediocre live-action remake. With all the advances in GCI and animation, remaking Cowboy Bebop with the same animation quality that Deamon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen has would be transcendent. Fight sequences could be elevated to the very next level to accompany the phenomenal music track. The anime protagonist over the top style of fighting comes across as awkward with live-action, but if you keep it animated, it retains its cohesion. The fight sequences in this case almost work well since it is almost John Wick esk. However, there are moments that totally destroy the synergy like the opening fight scene where Spike kicks a quarter and it flies like a bullet.

My last gripe is with the plot development. Opposed to the original, the remake is significantly lacking. Although Spike, Fay, and Jet have a great dynamic, something critical is missing by not including Edward earlier on.

The biggest sin that Netflix made was treating the audience like babies and explicitly showing every single detail of the past and present. In the original, Spike’s past was left mostly as a mystery and the focus was diverted towards the day-to-day life of living as a bounty hunter. The show was about living with a tragic past and just barely getting by. However, the live-action show dedicated entire episodes towards showing the past lives of Spike and Jet wherein the anime only had brief flashbacks of the past. The live-action tried to force emotions by showing us sad things, whereas the anime built emotions more subtly by letting the audience fill in the details of the past and only shows the reverberating effects that the past. As a result, the original Cowboy Bebop is far more emotionally charged than the live-action show.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Cowboy Bebop, the movie, definitely lives up to the reputation of the anime. The plot follows the Bebop crew as they foil the plans of a biological terrorist using nano technology developed in secret by the martian government.

The terrorist (Vincent) was an ex-military member used as a Guinea pig for anti-nano technology. The particular nanotechnology that he got infected with completely wiped out his memories. This led Vincent down a dangerous path where he questioned his very nature of being believed that he was trapped in a dream. Vincent believed that the only way to escape this dream would be to be the last one standing: ie kill everyone else with nanotechnology.

The very notion of being in a dream and not “living” is reminiscent of the themes in the rest of the anime. In fact, during the show, Spike said that he and Vincent aren’t all that different since they have both died before — in this case, a spiritual death rather than a physical one. For Spike, he died when he fled the crime Syndicate, leaving behind the love of his life.

More recently, Mugen Train explored dreams in an Inception fashion way. But, all this begs the question of what happens when you can’t trust the very nature of your reality? Do we use dreams as a fantasy, a way of escaping reality since the world is too cruel to accept?

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is an anime amalgamation of multiple genres that stands the test of time and still feels fresh over two decades after being produced. There is nothing not to love about this anime.

The action is decent– especially considering the time it was produced. The characters are funny and relatable. The episodic nature of the anime made it a easy show to watch one at a time on lunch break. However, my favorite aspect of this show was how distinctive yet familiar the show felt.

Cowboy Bebop incorporates aspects of the western, sci-fi, and noir genres, making the show feel very fresh. Although the show is sci-fi with space-battles, high science concepts like transplanting your brain into cyberspace, Cowboy Bebop is not a dystopia. In fact, it feels more like a snapshot of the ’90s rather than a dystopian future. At its core, Cowboy Bebop is a story about people, not about science; technology merely serves as a backdrop for the story.

The core story carries strong noir and western themes. The crew of the Bebop are searching for meaning in their lives, yet are shackled by their past. The episodic nature of the show illustrates how easy it is to fall into a slump. The only character progression we get is with the few episodes where people from the characters’ past are brought in.

Jet was holding onto a past relationship that had long gone –literally carrying an old broken pocket watch. It wasn’t until the episode where Jet confronted Allisa and saw that she had moved did he realize that his idealized version of the past never existed in the first place.

Faye was literally frozen, unable to move forward. It wasn’t until Faye regained her memories of the past she was able to move onwards. Returning to her home and realizing that she has nothing to go back to make her realize that she had everything she wanted with the crew of the Bebop.

Spike used to be a member of a powerful crime syndicate called the Red Dragons. Spike later fell in love with Julia and made a plan to leave the syndicate with her. However, in the process, he nearly dies and is plagued by his past the rest of the series. In the final episode after Julia is killed, Spike decides to confront his past and take down his rival Vicious. When leaving the Bebop, he tells this to Fay while she pleads with him to stay:

Look at my eyes, Faye. One of them is fake cause I lost it in an accident. Since then, I’ve been seeing the past in one eye, and the present in the other, so I thought I could only see patches of reality, never the whole picture. I felt like I was watching a dream I’d never wake up from… Hmp. Before I knew it, the dream was all over. I’m not going there to die; I’m going to find out if I’m really alive. I have to do it, Faye.

This is not a happy story. It is not a happy ending. But, by facing his past in a blatant suicide mission, Spike was finally able to get closure and move forward with his life, breaking the monotonous cycle.