Nobody seems to want to talk about Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop series since it premiered in November 2021 and canceled the following month — least of all Netflix. to all appearances. The only person the series seems more willing to forget is none other than the director of the original Cowboy Bebop himself.
In an interview published Thursday on Forbes, Shinichirō Watanabe, known for his prolific career directing animes such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy and Carole & Tuesday, spoke at length about the milestones of his early years at Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks) under his mentor Ryōsuke Takahashi (Blue Gender) and the origins of cowboy bebop to the lessons he learned from Æon Flux creator Peter Chung while working on The Animatrix (2003).
Of course, the conversation turned to his thoughts on Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, which credits Watanabe as Associate Producer and Consultant. And boy, he didn’t mince his words. “For the new Netflix live-action adaptation, they sent me a video to review and review,” Watanabe told Forbes. “It started with a scene in a casino, which made it very difficult for me to continue. I stopped there and […] only saw this opening scene.
Watanabe goes on to elaborate on how he felt about the live-action series compared to the original 1998 anime. “It definitely wasn’t cowboy bebop, and I realized at that point that it wouldn’t be cowboy bebop without me. I felt like maybe I should have done that. Although the value of the original anime is somehow much higher now.”
Ouch! Well, if it’s any consolation for Watanabe, Cowboy Bebop is far from the first popular, idiosyncratic animated series to receive a well-intentioned live-action adaptation that missed the mark. One can only hope that Netflix’s upcoming live-action one-piece series can take the lessons from live-action cowboy Bebop and deliver a series worthy of Eiichiro Oda’s legendary manga.