Alright, brace yourself and get everybody and the stuff together, because Netflix is making a 10-episode live-action version of the classic anime Cowboy Bebop.
WHAT?!?
Netflix is producing the series with Tomorrow Studios. Anime director Shinichiro Watanabe will be consulting on the show, and Thor: Ragnarok writer Christopher Yost will write the first episode.
Guess it’s time to announce that Cowboy Bebop, the live-action series, is heading to @Netflix. pic.twitter.com/bKe0d8EKoH
— NX (@NXOnNetflix) November 28, 2018
Cowboy Bebop first debuted on Japanese television back in 1998. It tells the story of Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, Radical Ed, and Ein the Corgi. Together, the team of bounty hunters live aboard Jet’s ship, the Bebop as they hunt down bounties.
After Bebop hit America on DVD, it ended up on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim as the block’s first anime, and it lived there in rotation for a long time – long enough for me to watch through it at least 10 or 15 times during college.
The series is hailed as one of the high points of anime, and just about any best-anime-ever list you can dig up will stack Cowboy Bebop at-or-near the top. The series blended sci-fi styling, western and kung-fu flick pacing, and one of the unquestionably best soundtracks (this writer’s opinion) to be matched with just about any show.
Immediate reactions on Twitter have been, anecdotally speaking, pretty negative, from a simple “wait, what?” to stuff we can’t print here. I’m usually one to give the thumbs up to adaptations – I love seeing directions put a different spin on something to see how it turns out. Cowboy Bebop is the rare case where it would both translate easily to live-action and also lose just about everything charming about it in the process.
You know I’m still going to be there on day one, though. There’s no date or timeframe yet for this, so we all have plenty of time to dread live-action Cowboy Bebop before it happens.
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