You need a few things for a live-action anime adaptation, but I’d argue that the most important thing is… the actors. You can’t exactly call Dragonball Evolution or Alita: Battle Angel live-action movies if they were just an hour and a half of pretty explosions and CG backgrounds. The Netflix production of a live-action Cowboy Bebop series is one step closer to being done with their casting, thanks to the recent acquisition of Elena Satina as Julia.
Satine is a rising star in the world of television, most recently seen as Maggie in CBS All Access’ Strange Angel. She also played Louise Ellis on the fourth season of ABC’s Revenge and is known for her roles in Twin Peaks: The Return and The Gifted. The series also stars John Cho as the iconic Spike Spiegel, with co-stars Mustafa Shakir, Daniella Pineda, and Alex Hassell playing the rest of his memorable crew of bounty hunters.
Netflix signed on Cowboy Bebop for a 10 episode run back in November. They describe the show as “the jazz-inspired, genre-bending story of a ragtag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals. They’ll even save the world — for the right price.” They describe the character of Julia as “a sultry beauty and a voice to die for, Julia is the dream-like object of Spike Spiegel’s (Cho) desire. She struggles to survive in a violent world.”
Shinichiro Watanabe, the incredible director of the original anime, will act as a consultant on the project. Yasuo Miyakawa, Masayuki Ozaki, and Shin Sasaki from the original anime studio behind Cowboy Bebop, Sunrise Inc., will act as executive producers. Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements will also be executive producers, alongside Tetsu Fujimura and Matthew Weinberg. Even more executive producers come in the form of Andre Nemec, Josh Applebaum, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg of Midnight Radio. Christopher Yost, the writer of the hit Marvel film Thor: The Dark World, will be writing the first episode of the series.
The original Cowboy Bebop is a Japanese animated science-fiction television series animated by Sunrise, featuring a production team led by director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno. The twenty-six episodes (titled “sessions”) of the series are set in the year 2071, and follow the lives of a bounty hunter crew traveling in their spaceship called the Bebop. Although it covers a wide range of genres throughout its run, Cowboy Bebop draws most heavily from science fiction, westerns, and noir films, and its most recurring thematic focal points include adult existential ennui, loneliness, and the difficulties of trying to escape one’s past.
The series premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from April 3rd until June 26th, 1998, but only twelve episodes and a special were aired due to their controversial adult-themed content. The full twenty-six episode run of the show was later broadcast on WOWOW from October 24th until April 24th, 1999. The anime was adapted into two manga series which were serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Asuka Fantasy DX. In 2001, an animated film follow-up to the series was released worldwide.
The iconic English dub of the anime series was originally produced by Animaze and ZRO Limit Productions, and was licensed by Bandai Entertainment in North America. It is now licensed by Funimation. In Britain, it was licensed by Beez Entertainment and is currently licensed by Anime Limited. Madman Entertainment has licensed it for releases in Australia and New Zealand. In 2001, Cowboy Bebop became the first anime title to be broadcast on Adult Swim in the United States.
Here’s an in-depth synopsis of Cowboy Bebop:
In 2021, the accidental explosion of an experimental gate device that allows for hyperspace travel seriously damages the Moon, causing a swarm of meteorites and asteroids to bombard the surface of planet Earth, wiping out much of the population. The survivors then abandoned the now inhospitable planet to colonize new habitable systems: Mars, Venus, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter’s satellites. By 2071, the technology of the Astral Gates had stabilized and developed thriving civilizations on many of these planets, most notably Mars, the new hub of human civilization.
Politics, society, and economics changed with the times. New generations grew up with no memories of Earth, and ethnic groups and nations gave way to planetary allegiances. As these new communities flourished, the economy boomed. However, this also widened the disparity between the rich and poor, and interplanetary crime syndicates began to exert influence over the planetary governments and the Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP). In order to control the criminal activity, a “bounty-reward scheme” was introduced similar to that of the Old West. These new bounty hunters of the solar system were therefore often called “cowboys” and had a disreputable or envious reputation depending on who one talked to.
Spike Spiegel, a former affiliate of the Red Dragon, and Jet Black, a former ISSP investigator, are two bounty hunters who move from planet to planet aboard their spaceship, the Bebop. They are eventually joined by three new companions: the hyper-intelligent Pembroke Welsh Corgi Ein, the provocative scammer wanted by creditors Faye Valentine, and the eccentric and brilliant pre-adolescent hacker Radical Edward.
While the crew pursue bounties — usually unsuccessfully, inconclusively, or for low profit — they also each face unresolved issues from their pasts. Traumatic memories, lost memories, unexplained abandonment, and troubled love affairs come to a head for each of them, treated with a strong philosophical, mature, psychological, and existential note reflecting both the best and worst moments of four lost people. Behind many of the bounties, the crew realized there was more than met the eye. They met other people with their own issues, whether they were of their own ambitions, another’s deception, or allegiance to a syndicate.
As of now, there is no release date set for the Netflix Cowboy Bebop series.
