The Uncanny Valley of Live Action Anime – ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Season 1 Review

Netflix, and anime in general, hasn’t exactly had a great track record when it comes to live action adaptations. I’m looking at you Full Metal Alchemist and Death Note. When you have 15-year-old high school boys who look 30, and 50-year-old women who look 8, some things just don’t translate well into the IRL medium. So when it was announced that the beloved Cowboy Bebop would receive the remake treatment, all eyes were deservedly on Netflix. And with them diving into the deep end of live action anime, Cowboy Bebop could become the Iron Man for their service. Or to could end up being their Batman V Superman. So where does it end up? Well, it’s solid, one of the better made live action adaptation, for whatever that’s worth, with the bar already extremely low… but just not quite there yet. Special: Bell Peppers and Beef The original Cowboy Bebop was this strange mishmash of a science fiction noir kung-fu western exploitation show that on paper really shouldn’t have worked. However, most would agree that this is one of the greatest animes made to date. From the get-go, it was going to be an uphill battle to satisfy the fanbase of this juggernaut. The biggest thing that sets this apart from a lot of other adaptation is that, for better or worse, it fully embraces the tone of what the original is.

The original Cowboy Bebop would have a totally serious dark brooding episode like “Black Dog Serenade” and jump to a completely goofy off the wall episode like “Mushroom Samba.” Tha…