User reviews

Don't compare this with the anime two different shows I am afraid this doesn't live up to the hype to bad this was a great idea how ever the changes to the characters were sad to say the least & don't get me started on the story line which was all over the place no big surprise it was canceled I predicted it after I got finished watching it you can always tell when a remake isn't going to make it rest in piece live action Cowboy Bebop made those who try it again learn from your mistakes.

Despite nice visuals and fun stylistic fights with a cool jazzy undertone, the writing, a bit of the acting, and the sci-fi plot are all cheesy and corny :-(

NOT WORTH THE WATCH! :-(

First off the story is twisted up and yes I know you have to do that to not make it the same show but it's twisted in ways that made the sentimental value of cowboy bebop not really there in my opinion. Second off many of the characters didn't really served a purpose in the show such as Gren because his whole story of who he is, is gone. Third off they left out so many good parts to the story such as some antagonist and some events but I don't want to spoil for those who want to watch the original.

It does good for its own thing but doesn't live up to the cowboy bebop name.

You're casting was immaculate however the direction and Cadence was totally missed. Cowboy Bebop has a Cadence of super brutal making you cry versus making you hate somebody completely. This series seems to emit a lot of that not being able to catch the character and overall hierarchy of garbage. There are many episodes you are not putting in that are pivotal meaning the first episode in the Animated Series completely time Spike Spiegel 2 Julia and The Syndicate. The rest of the story telling almost means to me that the director skimmed Cowboy Bebop and never was never able really connect to the completely Canon episodes to some forced information we have to have boo. I understand why this was canceled just not good direction you guys left out everything great in simplified and put in everything that was overstory reason you wanted to Force and just not following the main story boo.

Some great action some bad action some good CGI some really bad CGI Some good jokes some flat jokes a missed opportunity to be great Some scenes so flat boring some scenes are good mostly mediocre jokes though. The episodes could be half the time run to make it more better paced because some really flat scenes.

Don't know the anime original, so jump into the dark. I like it. The borderlands in combo with funny jazz touch is sweet. No modern politics BS or feminism nonsens is present. Good gore and not ashamed for what it is.

I am a fan of the original Cowboy Bebop anime series. I approached this new series with an open mind. And after the first episodes of this adaptation, I still thought: Not perfect, but not bad at all.

But then - from episode 7 / 8 on - it went rapidly downhill. Oh boy, and don't ask me how. Without wanting to spoil anything - the last two episodes in particular are so stupid that you seriously wonder whether the writers still think their audience is sane. The last two episodes were almost unbearable.

If you look at the current ratings of the individual episodes, it's obviously not just me... The series gets worse from episode to episode. Only the first episodes save the rating of season one for me at a 5.

The series is good where it uses the anime series as a template. And as long as the core business - the bounty hunt - is still the subject. Everything that has been newly added is completely inconsistent and makes little sense. Especially the whole subplot with Vicious and Julia is completely stupid. Vicious is a total caricature of a villain. The acting is just ridiculous. Don't even get me started on Julia ... especially in the last episode.

All in all, a fantastic story was destroyed by the newly added elements. I have very little desire for season two.

"See You Space Cowboy..." is shown at the end of 4 out of the 5 episodes I've seen so far and that's quite presumptuous of the writers, assuming we WILL be back to watch a mediocre adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, the beloved classic nearly perfect jazz space tragedy of the late 90's. I was willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt, but even in the trailers they couldn't help themselves and remade characters, plots, even nearly the whole 1st episode of the anime. For some reason, coming up with new stories was just too much trouble, which was masterfully done in the 2001 Cowboy Bebop animated movie.

Even when they do come up with new stories, each episode feels the need to extend the runtime to 45+ minutes (possibly the fault of Netflix), doubling that of one anime episode. Meaning by the time the Netflix episode is halfway over, we'd be done with the anime, which somehow conveys more information, emotion, action and better humor than an overlong slog of a scene the live action version seems to do. It reminds me of the new Twilight Zone, each double the length of the 1950's show, with less going for it and the message wondering away.

This fault lies heavily on the bewildering decision to overly show the monotonous syndicate scenes (I won't go into this Vicious "The Chin" version) which have added nothing so far and the removal of the slick beautiful neo-noir feel in favor of more energetic Scott Pilgrim-esque or a less funny pseudo-Edgar Wright gags. Also the strange decision Hollywood continues to make that dutch angles means cartoon or comic book, when the cinematography of Cowboy Bebop made it so skillfully beautiful that it was the first for many to walk the line of "just a cartoon" to a real work of art. Maybe instead of Cowboy Bebop they should have remade the wackier "Outlaw Star"?

The huge pluses are of course the music, wisely picked for their scenes, though I'm not sure I've heard anything new by Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, but I could be wrong. The action is great, though the fight scenes seem slow and overly choreographed, that's unfortunately due to the live action vs. The watery flow of Spike's animated fight style. And the main cast has been fun to watch, John Cho is really good even if he's not quintessential Spike, he seems to combine Spike and Shunsaku Kudo, the character from Detective Story whom Spike is based on. A lot of people have commented he's too old, I don't see it. Faye is annoying, but she's supposed to be (as long as it's not all the time) and Jet is Jet...really, Mustafa Shakir is that good. I loved him in "Quarry" and now this.

Overall, it's nice to hope maybe kids today will watch this and then watch the original series if they haven't, but it's kind of like the new Ghostbusters or Star Wars films... did this really need to happen?

There are some thrilling visuals, an old school jazzy ambiance and some good supporting actors.

However the main actors are really bad. I have not seen such poor acting in a major production for a very long time, especailly Shakir & Pineda.

The storyline does not bring much emotion, nor interested. It is kind of a flat line.

It is slow, not in a good way, and get boring after a couple of episode. Very tough to keep watching.

I'm a huge fan of the original anime and this remake looks more like a fresh out the school director attempt. Camera shots, lights, chroma keys and lines are poorly directed and executed. I noticed the effort in giving more details and lines to all the characters but most of the times it brakes the peace. I'm big fan of John Cho and he quite fits the suite of Spike but the performance is not quite there. I'd rather went for new stories instead of making simpler versions of the original ones.

It might comfort some readers that I'm not approaching the Cowboy Bebop remake as a fan of the anime (I've gathered "fans" aren't held in especially high regard by those who might want to defend this new take). I know very little about the original sci-fi adventure and so I come at the Netflix version with relatively fresh eyes. Nostalgia isn't why I'm here.

What did make me interested in Cowboy Bebop, ironically, was the negative word-of-mouth. Not that the show was "so bad it's good", but that it supposedly epitomized the contemporary pop culture trend I wrote/warned about in my Harley Quinn review.

The trend stems from a desire for better racial diversity in media, as well as giving female characters more to do than simply look sexy (or at least, this is what studios and distribution companies will CLAIM is what motivates them), but the resulting products are perceived as having a spiteful tinge. Cowboy Bebop is cheap-looking, poorly edited (both in terms of plot pacing and action sequences), and just generally irksome to look at, all while supplying irritating characters. I don't know that I agree that it's as spiteful towards a supposed white-male fanbase (nor as hung up on half-baked critical theory and self-satire) as some other reboots, though this manner of counterproductivity appears in the bizarre "defenses" of the series, which I'll get to later.

Even though I feel like a Nostradamus For Nerds over some of the sh-t I wrote in the Harley Quinn article, let's begin with something I was dead wrong about: The idea that we're all used to this stuff and accept it. My point (which was based on little besides the fact that Harley Quinn had flown under my radar, even though shows like it usually cause fuss) was that geeks have grown weary of fighting for what they love; that they choose to live with the fact that Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters (between 2016 and now), Disney remakes, comics, or whatever (things that used to function as escapist fun, basically) have become "contemptuous deconstructions of what they once were" -- reboots nowadays so often criticize the worlds they profess to adapt through a modern, usually "more progressive" lens.

I felt that only the turbo-sexists still bothered complaining and everyone else had realized that it's useless to try, since they'd probably get lumped in WITH the turbo-sexists anyhow. I thought the golden age of fighting over cartoons and space-wizard movies was at an end. Boy was I wrong.

What I should've realized is that, if there's anything that still riles people up when you make needless modifications to it, it's anime (there's even a famous meme template that compares the faithfulness of manga-to-anime adaptations vs. The laughable/"diverse" casting choices of most Netflix remakes).

When Cowboy Bebop came out, resembling its source material very little in terms of tone or character traits (John Cho as Spike looks fine but even one of the Channel Awesome "films" had a more accurate, less grating Ed), there was ample outrage -- I hadn't seen the like since 2017's Death Note. And since we've learned nothing, people involved in the series chose to deride the fanbase (even though the main topic of discussion, namely Faye Valentine's redesign, makes practical sense for a live-action production and can be easily defended with better arguments). To think, by some strange turn of events, this show that failed to please fans (who then got the blame for it) is now canceled.

As wrong as I was a few months ago, I did also write: "...it's bound to get old. My theory is that, if you want to make more money, it may soon be time to do the unthinkable and simply give fanboys more of what they want, instead of the middle finger."

This sort of self-sabotage should tell us something, as should the other "defenses" of this series. As someone on Twitter pointed out, there seems to be a whole new genre of journalism where writers explain that, actually, these shows are SUPPOSED to be bad and the fact that they alienate people is totally part of the plan, you guys, we promise (shows like Santa Inc., which alienated the "fanbase" of an entire holiday, and The Wheel of Time, which has less-than-stellar ratings, garnered similar coverage).

And even now, at the end of it all, journalists try to find copium wherever they can. One of the chief neckbeards on present-day YouTube is Nerdrotic, who gloated at length about this show's cancelation, capping his smug post with "Don't f-ck with us" (I'll ignore the eerie Tim Buckley similarities for now).

The defenders' takeaway from this (really grasping at straws to strike back at the geeks) was that Nerdrotic meant to imply that he is single-handedly responsible for killing the series, which he clearly isn't so ha-ha, take that Nerdrotic! But the guy's actual, very legible point is that you're asking for disaster when you choose to adapt a beloved work but also hate the people who love it. Some works get away with it, yes, but this stuff DOES happen -- and it HAS. Even if it's true that you're only flicking the middle finger at "the toxic fans", there seems to be a consensus that fandom as a whole is toxic. So why do it? This sort of squabble is only good PR until someone loses a Netflix series (I think that's how the saying goes).

Cowboy Bebop isn't one of the worst examples of modern-day reimaginings, but in terms of what these ideas can lead to, it's certainly one of the best.

Mimicking the original cartoon just ain't gonna cut it. That made the actors sound cartoonish and unrealistic. That's a downer for me right there. Plus, even the original's score sound a bit boring and drags the directing down with it. Sorry but it's a no no. I gave it a 5 for the production value. It looks really good! Still, I couldn't even finish the first episode.

I just can't stand the dialogue. It's so awkward how information is introduced.

Even small talk feels so scripted.

Tech is worse than the anime, space tech mixed with tech too old so it's not even funny.

I decided to give this a watch as i was looking for something new. I was unaware that it was originally an anime until my son told me so i am not familiar with the source material.

I feel the show is quite pretentious with its garish mixture of styles and fashions and some of the dialogue that i feel was directed to be performed in a wooden manner as an almost inward satire.

It's a though every shot is trying to be a defining image of the show.

I enjoy when the story focuses on Jet as i think he is a more interesting, likeable, not so self-centred character. I don't give a damn about Spike and his past and Vicious looks like something out of Twilight or Harry Potter.

I found the first 3 episodes enjoyable but after that i found myself skipping over scenes with pointless, time filling dialogue. I don't know if Faye is gay in the original but i found it incredibly predictable that an independent woman who is left alone with another independent woman would turn into a half-hearted sex scene.

I thought TV was supposed to be past that!

The stories quickly became genre confused and episodic with a poor attempt to tie it together with an intermittent story arc that you can be forgiven if your forget it even existed.

I haven't even finished the series. And i am unlike to.

If you haven't seen the original masterpiece, this will be passably entertaining. Not great in any way, but with enough production value to be worthy of your time.

As a fan though, I had two main misgivings:

1. The cast doesn't measure up. They lack charisma and style, especially the two main leads who play Spike and Faye. Harold with a six pack just didn't do it for me.

2. The tone of the series is unconvincing. The original was funny, sad, hot, cold, raw, emotional - lots of ups and downs. This version is just bland and lukewarm.

7 for first time viewers, 3 (for Ein) for us fans for an average of 5.

My woke alarm went off so I went online to check if a rather large change had been made to appease wokies that won't even watch sci-fi anyway... and yep. I'm going to stop here and not watch the rest. I'm not interested anymore.

It is quite astonishing how one wrong cast (Faye) can destroy the whole experience so much for me. She just does not fit the actual Faye at all. It was so important to get her right, and they failed fully. Also the cast for some side character s is laughable. I cant make my mind up with Spike, but at least I can see the point there.

One more thing I do not get is why they are trying so hard to stay close to the original so many times, but then suddenly deviate where it does not make sense (Bloody Mary).

I've watched my fair share of cringe live action so I find it understandable how it's hard to separate the two. Let's not even talk about DBZ and ATLA. Yikes. But for this one I never watched the anime so I'm a blank slate here. I have nothing to compare it.

Alright then so, I quite like the cast especially their banter with one another. I think my favorite is Jet but Spike is close second. As for their acting...kind of weird in some parts if you've watched Shang-chi they have similar acting.. stoic faces with occasional emotions with a lot of close-up and eye twitching. The whole set is a bunch of mixed themes...cowboys, space ships, western bars, Japanese culture etc.. it's honestly so all over the place but I guess it kind of fits with space post earth era? But with the lack of world building background sometimes it's a bit hard to get into it. The costumes...some look okay but some look well like costumes like Faye's hair and Spike's main outfit for some reason it just looks off, kinda tacky. The action sequences are hit and miss too. Some parts are awkward and looked too choreographed to be smooth. My favorite is the music scoring. Love the jazz and everything else especially during fight scenes.

Overall for me, I find it clunky but funky. Good enough watch. Yeah some of the scenes and acting were kind of stiff, off and rustic but I'm not really mad at it since I never expected Oscar worthy acting. Feels like those niche indie shows. It has that type of vibe weirdly enough. I feel like it's a mix of The 6th Day, Bungouku Stray dogs and Space Sweepers.

It's episodic in nature so the plot is scattered in between "bounty of the day". I quite like mystery and crime syndicate themes so it scratches that itch for me. I'd say if you're into the weird and funky mystery action you might like this. Just don't expect dramatic and emotional vibes (I mean there's some drama with their back story but I didn't get invested enough to feel anything) as this has more of a light watch than something somber and deep for me.

Does make me want to watch the og so I get more story... Actually I might just watch the anime later and see the what's what lol.

TLDR: Plot and dialogue are either mediocre or diabolically bad.

Characters are barely the same with some having their personalities and behaviours almost entirely rewritten.

Some scenes are really well directed and others not.

The cinematography and soundtrack are perfect.

The SFX are usually pretty good but sometimes bad.

The show could've been a really good adaptation if the writers managed to do a better job. Everything else was either satisfactory or really good.

Writing: The original storylines didn't have to be fleshed out at all. Instead, they could've adapted the original storylines exactly as they were and then added in a few new stories or fleshed out the overall plot by adding more backstory episodes and whatnot. Most of the original show would be considered filler as they were unrelated to the overall plot so that made the episode story possibilities endless.

Regarding the main plot, it's pretty meh. Entire dynamics were rewritten. Entire personalities were rewritten. It doesn't compare to the original main plot. There's a lot of extra drama and a massive lack of realism as well. The main antagonist is just a psycho man baby compared to the calm and calculative manipulator in the orignal. It's pretty disappointing to see people turn a really good story into something mediocre.

The dialogue is so bad sometimes it hurts to watch. I have probably skipped through some sequences because of how cringeworthy they were. Also, they poured in wayyy too many sexual jokes into this adaptation and almost none of them were funny.

I will say though that some scenes are just perfectly written and genuinely make me smile because of how they remind me of the original. A scene I keep in mind is when Jet is at his daughters performance and Spike is fighting a bunch of goons in the background. There are other things too but it doesn't matter, the point is that most of the writing is incredibly mediocre and has watered down or completely demolished what used to be a very well-written storyline.

Characters: As stated earlier, the characters don't feel the same for the most part. The only character that reminds me of the original is Jet but even then he has some very questionable moments for his character. Most of the other characters are just questionable all the time with some parts that remind me of the orignal. The main antagonist got the worst of it. Once again, he went from badass Bond movie villain to a weird man baby that has overexaggerated facial expressions. Some fo the acting also feels very forced and unnatural, both for the characters, actors and the situation in general. I understand it's incredibly difficult to capture the personalities of these characters as they're very complex and translating the dynamic is probably easier said than done but this was a bit too bad in my opinion. It felt like I was watching a sitcom at times.

Cinematography, OST and SFX: These 3 were actually perfect most of the time. Sometimes the SFX felt a bit underwhelming or clunky but for the most part, it was really good.

The cinematography was amazing with some amazing camera work and angles as well. This is probably the best part of the show but unfortunately, doesn't really make up for the other faults.

Soundtrack is perfect. Can't expect less considering it's literally composed by the same person that composed the original show's soundtrack.

As you can see the show is pretty much a tasteless cake with the best icing and cherries on top. I don't know where these writers come from and why big companies keep hiring them but it's disappointing to see so many projects wasting away because of bad writers.

As a fan of the anime and the main 3 characters just do not fit. It feels off to me. Cho is ok but not believable as a action star, the other 2 are just unfit for the role. The story and side characters are good, effects are good enough. Maybe if you have not seen the anime the casting would not bother you, but see the anime after the show. Also the arrogant comments from Daniella Pineda did not do any favors to the fanbase of the anime. If it is getting you to see the original anime i am content.

This show is just enough like the anime to remind you how good the anime was and how far Hollywood has fallen. The cgi is decent but not perfect. 2 of the 3 leads fit their okay except for their ages and the third seems to be trying to hard. The scoring isn't bad. The writing, wow. The writing is horrible especially when remember that all they had to do was watch the anime and copy it. Writing seems to be the number one thing wrong with movies and tv nowadays and this is definitely no different. If you haven't seen the anime then you might really like this show. If you have seen the anime then this will just remind you how good the anime was. 5 out of 10 for the normies!

It's "loosely based on cowboy bebop" not "the cowboy bebop". My position is not "I don't like changes", my position is "I don't like when a good original piece is being turned into something mediocre". Visuals are good/ok. Except for camera work(or is it bad choreography?) that feels laggy in combat scenes somehow.

Everything was reworked: characters, story, tone. It went from "blues western" to "pop sitcom". I can't quite put a finger on it, but the whole thing except for CGI feels cheap like a college art project or something.

The thing is pretty mediocre overall; tries to appeal wider audiences by making characters more relatable. Writers turned a bunch of outcasts running from their pasts & earning money the only way they know into some bro-cowboys who think killing is a fun pastime. A story of small people in the big world is turned into some cliched criminal dramedy.

The original was "not perfect, but good", this one is just two steps down.

Looking at creators Nemac and Yost's repertoire, it's pretty clear how the new Bebop turned out the way it did. Unfortunately, they were not able to achieve the most important quality that Watanabe had that made the anime ooze coolness - noir. Every episode of the live action is redundantly formulaic in pace, tone and plot and the dialogue was all really shallow. It's colorful, silly and fast, but that's all. Also, structurally the original anime had every episode exist on its own, serving up distinct episodes that explore aspects of different genres. These are the major faults of the live action IMO.

When it comes to the casting, I personally don't think Cho fits, either. His voice doesn't have the same deep coolness as Japanese voice acted Spike, which is really the only Spike. As an actor, Cho's demeanor is naturally trustworthy, sweet and optimistic. Spike should have a dark apathy coupled with his underlying compassion. I don't find that Cho naturally carries those qualities. Everyone else was pretty well fit though.

Ultimately I couldn't watch the whole thing.