Two –not so successful- bounty hunters travel through space in an old vessel named The Bebop searching for criminals, but mostly, a lost love. The given year is 2171 and Mars-born Spike Spiegel counts the days eating noodles from a cup, listening jazz on his headphones, wandering around inhabited planets that nobody on the present Earth would have thought of living in, while beating the shit out of people. Former detective Jet Black, owner of The Bebop and a reluctant partner to Spike, hardly makes ends meet. As it seems, the two of them won't be the only passengers of The Bebop for the days to come since the mysterious Faye Valentine and a high intelligent and cute as hell Corgi called Ein will get on board.
A live action version of the beloved 1999 anime series became a reality since Netflix courageously green lit a first season of 10 episodes. The future of this new Cowboy Bebop ‘'component'' is yet uncertain. It's all bright colors, detailed scenery, a bunch of the secondary characters of the original show are there, too, but Netflix's “Cowboy Bebop” is neither a reboot nor is lightly based on the anime. The core story is here, but the narrative is totally different and although it might seem weird to the fans, the production is totally unapologetic about it. The evil syndicate chases Spike as it should be, Spike secretly searches for Julia, as well. Faye doesn't have a clue about her past. In the start titles, we hear Seatbelts' ‘'Tank!', checked. The title of every session is almost identical to the original. The tag lines in every epilogue are the same. Even the most famous quotes and dialogues of the anime can be heard, but from random characters.
“Cowboy bebop”, though, isn't a neo-noir anymore. Femme Fatale Julia appears in almost every episode and stops from being Spike's redemption. Gradually, it becomes clearer that a finale won't come easily since Netflix have decided to turn a great story with a controversial ending to a soap opera of a counting number of episodes. And most importantly, the series needed a story to fit in 2021 (queer Faye and fierce Julia). An idea that doesn't always work. That's why some major keys of the plot are missing, despite that the great Shinichiro Watanabe is still a consultant to the live action “Cowboy Bebop”.
One problem the 2021 version has to deal with is the stance of its protagonist. In an attempt to integrate the attitude of both the Japanese voice acting (Spike is presented indifferent to anything else than his own issues, here) and the English dub (in this version Spike is just laid-back and mysteriously relaxed) John Cho's Spike is physically great but a bad version of a Marvel Cinematic Universe hero when it comes to dialogue. And then is the amnesiac Faye. Do you know why Faye doesn't remember her past? Because Spike doesn't see a future. She is the ying to his yang. She could be the one that saves the day – and Spike, but Watanabe put them in a state of possibility that never realized. Bebop is a family for people keen on wanderlust. Jet Black is the father figure. Faye is a sister. There's a kid, Radical Ed, even a dog. And yet Spike doesn't stay because of a hopeless, unfulfilled dream. The existential chaos of his mind (in anime's first episode Spike reads a novel written by Camy) doesn't let him be.
Despite the flaws and the bad wigs, there are some remarkable things about the show. They smoke, they read magazines, the put records on the turn-table, they walk in the rhythm of the tunes of Yoko Kano, they pay tolls in space, Bebop is beautifully dusty and old and that girl that portraits Faye, Daniela Pineda is always on character.
Come to think of it we waited to see a masterpiece all shiny and new for 20 years, but what difference does it makes?
