A live-action remake had been in the works for over a decade, going through many format changes and production delays. It wasn’t until 2018 that a Netflix series was finally announced, bringing on the original series’ director as a creative consultant. Three years later, it debuted with 10 episodes. Unfortunately, it also was also poorly received, currently holding a 47% of Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.7/10 on IMDB. The reception was so harsh that Netflix cancelled it a month after premiering, ending on unresolved cliff-hanger.
Talks of both iterations were renewed because of this. But while they’re currently on Netflix in their entirety, it seems like the debate over which is better is a nonstarter; it’s obviously the anime, right?
Well, to answer that question properly, the two series need to be analyzed in-depth. Be prepared for spoilers.
Let’s start with the…
Story:
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What makes this premise unique is how it blends sci-fi and the Western into an episodic format. In the anime’s case, there’s also a blending of filmic inspiration with musical inspiration. Each episode borrows from a different classic/genre of film-Alien, Thelma and Louise, Desperado, film noir, blaxploitation-and mixes it with a title that directly references music (“Heavy Metal Queen”, “Asteroid Blues”, “Jamming with Edward”, and so on). Even the episodes are called “Sessions”. It’s interesting, but it works. As the show’s mission statement, which it plasters over the intro in English, suggests, the purpose of this series is to create a new genre in and of itself.
While most of the anime’s episodes are self-contained, enough general details are present that jumping around would cause you to miss plot or character details. This is especially true with the 5 story-centric episodes, all of which focus on Spike, his past, his nemesis and his inability to escape his former life fully. We don’t get a complete picture-only bits and pieces through the aforementioned episodes, the opening montages of Sessions 1 and 6 and the show’s end credits montage-but we don’t need one. Cowboy Bebop’s anime original trusted its audience enough to let them piece it together themselves. It’s a level of sophistication not present in most contemporary television.
This writing motif carries over to the Netflix adaptation…at least, in theory. The episodes still contain Session names, and they’re episodic, but there’s also an overarching narrative about Spike’s nemesis, Vicious, and him taking over The Syndicate. It pops up frequently, and it feels like padding. I suppose that’s deliberate, each episode’s double the length of the anime, but it routinely pulls your attention away. And yet, the show feels it’s worth it, as it routinely drags itself into the main stories too.
To be fair, there’s definitely something there. It’s not a bad story on paper, feeling like a hybrid of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, but it isn’t Cowboy Bebop. And it lacks the restraint of the anime, violating “less is more” while fulfilling “show, don’t tell”. Even Spike’s backstory becomes a full-on episode. And it’s distracting.
The dialogue in the two iterations is also different. The anime made a conscientious decision to weigh its spoken lines carefully. Every word, even the silly ones, has weight, revealing character and often containing subtext. There are even times when the characters don’t say anything, letting the visuals do the talking instead. It’s a subtle touch that’s lost in the Netflix show, which is littered with contemporary dialogue, piss-poor quips and lines that’d feel at home in a bad sitcom.
Perhaps the best example of this is in “Black Dog Serenade”, or Session 16 of the anime. In it, Jet’s backstory is revealed, as well as how he lost his arm during an encounter with an assassin named Udai Taxim. We get a brief clip of the exchange before the incident, but it cuts away equally as quickly. All we see is a spotlight on Jet’s face, the line “A set-up!” and the sound of a gunshot. But that’s all we need.
The Netflix series does that same scene in excess. Not only is the light held on Jet’s face, but the gunshots are shown in succession. It’s violent, bloody and over-the-top, driving its point too well. I know the anime had to fit its stories into 24-minutes, hence the writers had to be concise, but the Netflix series goes overboard. It doesn’t help that the episode’s main conflict takes up a third of its runtime, with the rest alternating between Vicious and a metaphorical pissing match between Spike and Faye aboard The Bebop.
I’ll give the Netflix show the upper-hand in one area: Episode 7. While a remixed version of “My Funny Valentine” and “Speak Like a Child”, both Faye-centric episodes, it keeps the earned pay-off of the anime even as it recreates the ending nearly shot-for-shot. It’s one of the only times where the Netflix series understands, and perhaps improves upon, the anime’s brilliance. It never rises to the level of “Boogie Woogie Feng Shui”, often touted by fans as the worst episode in the anime, but it comes close.
That being said, I’m giving this to the anime, hands-down. Not only does it do a lot with so little, but it doesn’t go overboard. Every scene, every line, is layered with meaning and double entendre. It also sticks the landing in its final episode, but we’ll get to that eventually.
Winner:
Cast:
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The other exception is Eden Perkins as Radical Edward, who makes a cameo at the end of Episode 10. I know this is Perkins’s first role, and I appreciate the fact a non-binary actor was chosen for the character, but, and I mean no disrespect, it doesn’t work. At all. Anime Ed was quirky and high-energy, but she knew when to show restraint. Netflix Ed, despite Perkins’s efforts, feels like the hyperactivity of anime Ed with none of the restraint. Like Hassell’s Vicious, it’s jarring.
It’s a shame, because everyone else really works. I especially like John Chu, Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda as Spike, Jet and Faye. Faye even being reworked into a bounty hunter from the get-go is made palatable by Pineda, while Shakir’s pitch-perfect as Jet. And they share excellent chemistry, really coming off as dysfunctional comrades.
One rare improvement in the Netflix series over the anime, however, is Elena Satine’s Julia. Anime Julia, like Lady Jagura in one of head writer Keiko Nobumoto’s other shows, is barely a character. She’s a plot point, a MacGuffin for the show’s story-centric episodes, and her death, while tragic, barely holds weight as a result. It’s unfortunate because every other female character, even the minor ones, has weight to their presence, making Julia stand out even more. It’s a missed opportunity, essentially.
That’s precisely why Satine’s Julia is so good. Whereas anime Julia was a plot-point, Netflix Julia is a character. Whereas anime Julia barely had depth, Netflix Julia is a singer trapped in a loveless marriage. And whereas anime Julia dies, Netflix Julia lives. It’s a shame that Netflix Julia’s ruined in Episode 10 with a “Girl Boss” heel-turn, but it’s still an improvement over anime Julia.
This’d appear to be even-keeled, but the anime has something the Netflix show lacks: character subtext. Director Shinichirō Watanabe was careful to not include a single character that didn’t enhance the world or make a statement, and it shows. His show has characters of various, sometimes mixed, races, even including Indigenous and queer characters at a time when that was still taboo. One character, Gren, even has gender dysphoria, and while him hitting on Faye is gross and creepy, he’s never an empty punchline.
The Netflix adaptation is also diverse, an oddity even by modern Hollywood standards, but much of that feels hollow given the social progress since 1998. When the anime, for example, features a moment where Faye barges in on two males having sex, it’s shocking. When the Netflix show has Faye and a female mechanic having sex, it’s more passé. Even Netflix Gren now being gender non-conforming, while valid, loses its bite because they don’t do all that much in comparison. The Netflix show also feels like it’s ticking off diversity boxes because it’s expected, rather than to make a point.
So yeah, the anime wins again.
Winner:
Aesthetic:
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One of the strengths of the anime was that it felt “lived in”. It took the Star Wars approach to sci-fi, meaning that technology constantly broke down and nothing ever went according to plan. Different planets also had societal issues, such as poverty, crime and government corruption. In fact, many of the bounties were really about injustices that society was too apathetic about to fix. It’s something you don’t see all that much.
But it doesn’t stop at the bounties. The episodes often had underlying messages that you wouldn’t notice unless you thought about them. “My Funny Valentine”, the episode about Faye’s cryosleep past, is a commentary about privatized medicine, predatory lending and how both of those take advantage of people. “Mushroom Samba”, aside from being one of the funniest episodes, is pro-decriminalization, taking a hard stance on Japan’s strictness about drugs. Even “Brain Scratch” and “Mad Pierrot Le Fou”, which are wildly different tonally, are about how society takes advantage of people, be they cults in the former or eugenics in the latter.
The Netflix show, while remixing these episodes, loses that bite in translation. Many of the bounties feel like mishaps, while pointed commentaries from the anime, like how law enforcement promotes and encourages corruption, are toothless as a result. It’s unfortunate, because there’s potential for updated commentary here. One episode, which features sex workers, could’ve had a biting commentary on how society abuses prostitutes, but it’s never followed up on. Instead, the show uses it as a mild inconvenience on the way to getting Jet’s daughter, a Netflix-only character, her birthday present.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the two shows comes in at their visuals. The opening being remixed in the Netflix show is a great example of this, but it goes further than that. The Netflix show wants to have its cake and eat it too, and it crams in as many references to the anime, sometimes lifting shots directly, as possible. In the process, however, they lose their meaning.
This is most-prevalent in Spike and Vicious’ fight atop the church cathedral. Both series have Spike defenestrated in slow-motion, but the anime also shows Spike having the last laugh with a pipe bomb he detonated pre-toss. In the Netflix series, however, Spike’s shot out the window by Julia, which makes no sense thematically or narratively. Essentially, what was intense and shocking in the anime is now actively frustrating in the Netflix series.
This’d seem like an easy win for the anime, but some of the animation is dated. I understand that it had to contend with the limits of TV and early CGI, but both aspects don’t emerge unscathed. With the latter, it even looks jarring now, despite taking the Jurassic Park approach and keeping it minimal. The Netflix series, while less-impressive visually than the anime’s hand-painted animation, has an unfair advantage there, being backed by contemporary technology. So yes, as bizarre as it sounds to say, the Netflix series edges out here.
Winner:
Sound:
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It’s true that composer Yoko Kanno returns to score the Netflix series, porting over the jazzy style from the anime, but, with a few exceptions, you can’t hear a lot of it in the Netflix show. That includes her new stuff, which is even more insulting! And this is because the anime let the characters stop talking on occasion and have the music set the mood, something the Netflix series seems to be allergic to. Characters now routinely talk over tracks in excess. And that’d be fine…if that weren’t antithetical to what made Cowboy Bebop so special to begin with.
This is best illustrated with both shows’ opening episodes. In both series, Spike’s bounty had stolen a drug called Red Eye and, together with his girlfriend, wanted to seek refuge on Mars. Both episodes also end in tragedy: Spike tries reasoning with the girlfriend, but fails. She chooses death over his help, and the police blow up her and her boyfriend’s ship as they’re exiting the planet. It’s a no-win situation for everyone involved, and it’s depressing to watch. So how is it handled in both versions?
In the anime, the climax is images and music. No words, no in-episode sound effects, nothing but pure score. In the Netflix series, not only does the episode introduce both Faye and The Syndicate, further upping the stakes, but it has the same ending spelled out with muted music. The bounty’s girlfriend even says “It’s time to wake up!” before she and her boyfriend are shot, robbing us of Kanno’s score. It’s maddening.
This one’s no contest. I like that Julia has her own vocal solo in the Netflix series, instead of a music box jingle, but that doesn’t excuse butchering Kanno’s score. The anime wins.
Winner:
Entertainment factor:
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Both shows have appeal. The Netflix series, despite any flaws, has a vibe going until its finale. If you ignore the bad dialogue, the call backs to the anime and the muting of the music, it’s a decent series with moments of greatness for most of its run. If Episode 7’s indication, it could’ve even been excellent! The problem is that the Netflix show is actually two shows vying for attention, with the Cowboy Bebop content being the weaker content.
That all changes in Episode 10. Suddenly, what was once an enjoyable series turns in a metaphorical middle finger. Why did Julia need to take over The Syndicate? And why did she defenestrate Spike? Yes, seeing her alive at the end was nice, and I appreciate her shooting Vicious, but this completely contradicts everything that’d been established prior. There weren’t hints that Julia was power-hungry, as that’d show consistency! It’s a shame, as the Netflix series fixes a longstanding problem with the anime’s finale, that being a severe lack of Faye coming to help Spike.
It’s especially disappointing because the anime never has this problem. Even “Boogie Woogie Feng Shui”, which has excessive narration and a resolution that makes no sense, knew how to be consistent with its character writing. And every other episode, especially the story-centric ones, was deliberately crafted, such that you could enjoy it both solo and together with the rest. It’s not like there weren’t details that couldn’t have been improved, it tosses around a slur against The Romani people like candy, but they don’t compare to lines like “Welcome to the ouch, motherfuckers!”, or how one of Jet’s contacts was blackmailing him because, “[He’s] black, and [he’s] male”. That doesn’t include character updates, like Gren as a secretary, that butcher their original meaning, or even Vicious’ subplot about overthrowing The Syndicate dominating the Netflix adaptation.
I feel bad at this point! Ignoring its finale, the Netflix show could’ve been improved with a second season, something it’ll never receive thanks to its reception. Like I said, there’s potential there! It simply needed to fix its writing and be its own show, as opposed to a half-baked mishmash of the anime. But I guess it’s too late now…
Whatever, the anime wins. I know it’s flogging a dead horse, but the anime has multi-demographic appeal that the Netflix series lacks. I’m sorry.
Overall winner:
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