Cowboy Bebop was, and even still is to this day, one of the most well-regarded and beloved animes on a global scale in recent memory. While there’s definitely die-hard traditional anime fans who have a larger variety of options, or those that aren’t really interested in the genre outside of Dragon Ball, nobody has really had anything bad to say about the original 1998 TV series, even when it was brought overseas to a new audience, as both the sub and dubbed versions of this neo-noir sci fi story about a rag-tag team of bounty hunters received immense praise and still holds a special place in the hearts of many for its characters, visuals, style and atmosphere. So much like other favoured series and films that people appreciate for what they are, of course the smartest thing would be to remake it in 2021, but weirdly this wasn’t immediately met with outrage, rather ambiguity and shaky hesitation. It was a weird choice for a remake despite its popularity, but from looking at the trailers and seeing the casting, visuals and how it looked like it wanted to be a faithful adaptation, people were willing to wait and see. Set in the near future where the main way of earning income comes in the form of accepting bounties on dangerous criminals, two space cowboys; former police officer Jet (played by Mustafa Shakir) and man with a spotty past Spike (played by John Cho) struggle through getting payment while facing off against deadly and insane foes. After meeting and recruiting Faye Valentine (played by Daniella Pineda) to their team, the trio work their way through various crazy situations to try and survive, especially since a crazed old friend of Spike’s, Vicious (played by Alex Hassell) wants Spike’s head for what happened in the past with his girlfriend, Julia (played by Elena Satine). The show was met with mixed to bad reception upon release and considering a second season was cancelled a month after its release, safe to say it didn’t win people over.

One of the key things that was felt when this remake was originally advertising itself was that despite what people thought about bringing back the series with a new coat of paint, it definitely felt like the people behind it wanted to be faithful to its original and wanted to bring something good, but new to the table. Unlike other failed adaptations, this one doesn’t reek of cynicism or pompousness, instead it feels more like failure in execution rather than malice towards a fan-base. Upon going into the first few episode, it will feel like you’re watching something that at least feels akin to the original show; the actors, some of the writing, the visuals, the episodic format mixed with a twinge of a connected narrative, it has an air of what it once was, but something just feels slightly off, and it won’t be an obvious answer until it keeps going. As the show nears its ending, it becomes clear how the show fails as both a faithful adaption and as a basic re-imaging, because it tries and fails at being both. The show unfortunately feels like it’s trying to replicate a lot of what the original show did (it even has the same opening beat for beat) and that isn’t a smart choice when bringing something beloved back, because all it will do is remind people how these aspects were done better elsewhere. But on the other hand, changes are placed throughout to keep it from being an exact shot-for-shot, but none of these aspects are done uniquely or interestingly enough, so it results in people noticing the changes in a bad way because they don’t fit with the original flow. Ironically, it can’t be a faithful adaptation because of what it adds in and handles differently, but it also isn’t its own thing because these changes are boring and add nothing to the original story, so it detracts from its original and just makes whatever new stuff messy and ill-handled, its confused on what it wants to say and therefore says nothing new. The creator of this show, Christopher L. Yost, is best known for his work on the two Thor sequels, as well as episodes on The Mandalorian, so it’s safe to say that he can be a bit mixed in his work, and that comes through here as well. It doesn’t feel like a poor job, but it feels aimless and lacking a distinctive identity apart from its superior originator.

From the first trailer, people were mostly mixed, but one thing that a lot of people gave credit towards was the casting, as the three leads looked and sounded a lot like the original characters, and even from a critical standpoint, despite everything else being pretty messy, people like those three in the lead, and it makes sense. All three of them are very good actors and are really good choices for these roles. They do good impressions, they have the right look, and despite the writing being a bit wishy-washy for them, they do the best with what they’re given. John Cho doesn’t capture the exact empty-stare and pained inner turmoil of the original Spike, but the attitude, look and delivery is present, Mustafa Shakir is a pitch perfect Jet down to look, voice and attitude, and while Daniella Pineda does feel the most dissimilar from the original Faye in terms of story, personality and even look, most of the changes aren’t awful, the acting is still good and it’s the closest the show comes to readjusting something in a new but still familiar light in a good way. But the errors that come from the script really go a long way in making them alike their originals, but not exact enough to be the same. This normally wouldn’t be an issue as they shouldn’t be exactly the same, but since its going out of its way to keep their storylines pretty accurate and unchanged, they don’t match with what the story is telling. They feel like shadow versions of these characters; unable to be their own entities because of their insistence to stick to an expected outcome, but not similar enough to be authentically similar and feel like it’s replaying the same situations. It’s a problem that plagues this whole series. While the heroes and side characters are all acted pretty well, the villain is a big misstep from one version to the other. Vicious is awful in this version; while the original version is pretty bland, there’s at least some presence and intimidation to him, whereas his overexposure and cliched story line and personality here make him not only less memorable, but also way less threatening, he is pretty pathetic in every regard.

Something about the style, visuals and production of this series feels very different from how the original was presented. Both seem to tackle similar genres like noir, sci-fi and western, but as opposed to the anime’s more standard, but memorable world-building, this one doesn’t have a very interesting environment. The show feels more like a Quentin Tarantino exploitative action as opposed to glorified anime action, but that’s an issue with transitioning from one medium to the other. This style isn’t poor for the series, but (like everything else), it doesn’t go strong enough that it becomes a stable part of this version. The action isn’t anything awful, but at the same time, it’s nothing spectacular either. While the original didn’t have amazing action, it could present it in a flashy, over-the-top way to make it more interesting due to the animated format. Here, it starts going for a more hands-on ‘John Wick’ style which would work great in this environment, but near the second half just devolves into a bunch of shoot-outs, which isn’t very interesting. The show has a lot of interesting and dynamic cinematography by Thomas Burstyn, Dave Perkal and Jean-Philippe Gossart that on its own looks nice and stylistic, but in the context of the show, means very little. It lacks a visual language and feels completely pointless to what is going on in the scene, feeling like it does these interesting shots just because as opposed to it having an actual meaning or purpose behind it. While the original music ranged from jazzy and smooth to cryptically operatic and hauntingly blissful in parts, this one feels like you’d hear in any other show despite getting the same composer for the job, Yoko Kanno, who did very good in its previous.

It’s pretty obvious why this version of such a beloved series doesn’t work, but on the brighter side of things, it doesn’t feel like a failure due to being unfeeling or unaware of what made the original great, but rather an inability to reshape said show into something different and refreshing so that its remaking could have a point. Upon watching it, it won’t feel disgustingly painful to get through, rather just laboriously dull and uninteresting, mainly because one does it a lot better. Whatever’s kept the same feels predictable and watered down, while whatever’s new is poorly written and not unique enough to feel worthy of being in the story. It does have a great cast that makes the characters feel different, but still likeable enough and it does clearly have enough love for the original that for someone that’s just willing to go with it, it will be fine, but otherwise it’s not worth searching out. Decide for yourself if this is a space adventure you see later down the line or if this iconic show should have stayed silent after its final ‘bang’.

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