Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite anime's of all time. The characters are fun, there's a certain mysterious aspect, and it's set in a future that isn't perfect. When I heard there was going to be a live action adaptation I was wary. Previous anime adaptations have been, well, let's just say not good (Death Note and Dragonball Evolution I'm looking at you). But then I saw that John Cho had been cast as the main character Spike Spiegel.
John Cho is a great actor so I thought that he would be able to balance the humor with the seriousness that the role called for. I am so glad to say that I loved him in this role. Not only did he look the part, but his acting was completely believable. Cho really sold to me that he was Spike.
I am not familiar with any of the other leads in this show besides Tamara Tunie who played Ana. I used to watch Law & Order: SVU all the time growing up and she was just as good as I remember her being. Mustafa Shakir did an amazing job with Jet Black as well. He embodied Jet and had a perfect blend of gruffness and gentleness that the role required. Daniella Pineda played a good Faye Valentine as well. She had the aloofness down to a T but some of the more serious scenes did feel a bit awkward. I really liked Gren in this show, who was portrayed by Mason Alexander Park. They are a great actor and I really enjoyed the expanded role that they were given as Gren. Vicious was terrifying as well. The one main role I didn't enjoy as much was Elena Satine's Julia. I didn't really like how her character was expanded because it took away from the mystery of who she was to Spike.
There were quite a few changes that were made to this live action adaptation. A couple that I really liked were Jet's backstory and Spikes backstory. Jet was given a family and I thought that made him really relatable and it fit in really well with the rest of the arc of this series. Spike was also given an expanded backstory that I loved. John Cho's acting was just so good throughout the series and I liked the shift from Fearless to Spike.
There were some changes that I didn't enjoy as much. I didn't like what they did the Ein. The cute corgi wasn't featured as much and they made him into a robot or cyborg or something. Instead of just being a super intelligent dog, his story in this version was just confusing to me. Also, Radical Ed was completely missing until the last minute of the series. Ed played an important role in the anime and I thought for a second they would show up in a mid-series episode. But instead we just get a last minute introduction, which while good, wasn't enough.
Now I loved the imagery in this adaptation. The intro was fantastic and was basically a shot-for-shot copy of the anime. We also get scenes that were taken right from the anime, like this cathedral scene fight between Vicious and Spike. There are a handful of other scenes that are the same and it made me happy to see Christopher Yost stay so true to much of the source material.
The last minute introduction of Radical Ed did set it up for a second season, but Neflix has yet to order one. I hope they do because I am giving this adaptation an A- overall, simply from pure enjoyment. It was a bittersweet ending, but then again the original anime was as well. I definitely want to see the full cast back together hopefully with more Ein and Ed.
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