S01.E01: Cowboy Gospel

[tessaray]

A ragtag crew of bounty hunters chases down the galaxy's most dangerous criminals; they'll save the world for the right price.

Drops November 19, 2021

[AnimeMania]

I liked it. It is better than most of the stuff currently being released. John Cho could be better at delivering his punchlines. I am not sure why it is futuristic and retro at the same time. Phonographs and typewriters have to business on a spaceship, especially when the headphones don't even have cords.

[Valerie]

I liked it too. I agree that Cho isn't as effortlessly flippant as he needs to be, but it's possible that he'll get more into it as we go through the episodes.

Loved hearing snippets of the original soundtrack along with the new music Kanno composed just for this series.

Vicious and Julia being more in the foreground than in the original is also an interesting change.

I love Faye so much.

[tessaray]

 Visually it was quite striking. I liked the little details, including the ship landing on the water. Faye was fun. Jet was solid. Spike was... iffier. I watched it early this morning, so maybe I just wasn't in the mood for angsty flashbacks. 

[thuganomics85]

Having not watched the anime (might check out even though I'm never really got into that genre), this reminded me a lot of Firefly with the mixture of sci-fi/retro/western vibes, and everything involving scrappy bounty hunters, mysterious organizations, and evil corporations.  Like with most adaptations, I'm sure the original did it better, but it was fun at least.  Did think the ending was kind of abrupt, but I guessing that's one of the benefits of being a streaming show.

John Cho was one of the main reasons I tuned it, but right now, I'm finding him and the Spike character to be one of the least interesting things about it.  Hopefully he'll improve the more the show goes on (certainly wouldn't be the first: lead characters tend to suffer most in the pilots.)  Mustafa Shakir was good as Jet and Daniella Pineda was the highlight as Faye (and go figure, her casting is the most controversial one, from what I've read about online.)

I'm sure we will get more of creepy, long-haired guy and femme fatale-like lady (who might have been involved with Spike?) going forward.

Hey, that was Geoff Stults underneath all that facial hair as the cop that has some kind of history with Jet!

Decent world building.  Curious to see more of this setting going forward.

[WildPlum]

I'd prefer a cut in the amount of blood, gore and dying, it strikes me as unnecessary - but I like the main cast. The combo of space tech and retro is pretty amusing (record players in space!). A lot of it is straight from the anime, but I think it has been realized pretty well. Loved the New TJ set, although I thought it had more of an "old Havana" vibe.

[tennisgurl]

I have been really excited/nervous about this for awhile now, as Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite shows of all time and the first anime I ever watched, being the show that got me into the genre in the first place. Its exciting, funny, heartbreaking, and a surprisingly existential exploration of loneliness and being haunted by your past. Its also massively influential, you can see its footprints in all sorts of cyberpunk and science fiction from several genres, and it being in live action makes it even more obvious. I was excited by the look and cast, plus if your going to make a Netflix show out of any classic anime, Cowboy Bebop is a solid choice. Its a classic "gateway" anime, one that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in starting to explore anime, or even if your not normally an anime person, one that feels familiar to a western audience, filled with references to western film genres mixed with anime hijinks, and its premise is elegant in its simplicity and would make for a lot of fun stand alone episodes mixed with an overarching story in the background. I was nervous because anime adaptation have a tendency to range from "that was alright" to "really really unwatchable bad" so I have been pretty concerned about what Netflix will do to such great source material. So I am going to try really hard not to just compare it to the original show, being the insufferable "well in the show..." guy, but its not going to be easy. 

As for the actual episode, it really hits how much the story has a Firefly sort of vibe. They actually came out around the same time, Cowboy came out in the late 90s while Firefly came out in the early 00s, and while I am pretty sure its a coincidence, it really is noticeable how similar they are in a broad strokes way. Crew of morally ambiguous criminals/bounty hunters try to make a living (and often fail at it) as they fly around in their space ship in a used future world with both western/eastern influences, often getting into trouble of the gun fighting variety and dealing with various traumatic pasts. The visuals are quite striking, they are clearly trying to match the look of the anime, and sometimes it works, like in the opening scene, and sometimes it makes the show feel a bit off, like the world feels a bit less real then it should. They are setting up a lot of the world pretty quickly but aren't dumping too much exposition on us, which I like. I normally really like John Cho, and he had his moments here, but I am not sure about his take on Spike quite yet. He is trying to go for effortless breezy quipping, but its feels a bit labored. I did like it pretty well though so I will see where it goes from here, i can see it getting much better or much worse. 

A big change is having Julia and Vicious so present so quickly, I am not sure how I feel about that. Its a bit hard to take Vicious that seriously in his terrible Viserys Targaryen hair. 

Alright, anime thoughts down below, I just cant resist. 

Spoiler

I really do not think I like them putting so much emphasis on Julia and Vicious and telling us so much about Spike's backstory. So much of everyone's backstories, especially Spike's, are left ambiguous, and I think it really works to add mystery and suspense to the show. We never really know much about Vicious or Julia beyond how they fit into Spike's backstory and from what we get from them near the end, and we can pretty easily speculate on what went down with them but the ambiguity of everything just heightens the tragedy. A big part of Spike's character is he feels like everything that has happened since he almost died was a dream, and only getting flashes' of the backstory gives it a dreamlike quality, and fits into the shows themes of loneliness and the struggles of dealing with your past. Just showing us everything removes all of that and makes Spike's backstory feel so much more generic. I feel like the show is going to want to be more serialized because that's what Netflix shows are, but the show lends itself so much better to having a bunch of fun or interesting one off episodes, usually as homages to various genres, having to cut to a more serialized story could take away from that. I guess its a legit way to differentiate this from the anime, and I don't have a problem with them wanting to be different, but I think it takes away from the more existential dreamlike qualities to the show.  

 

[tessaray]

It was said at the time that Firefly was directly influenced by the anime.