By Kayleigh Donaldson | Streaming | November 28, 2018 |
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Streaming | November 28, 2018 |
Cowboy Bebop is an undisputed anime classic, and possibly one of the best television shows ever made. It’s a timeless genre mish-mash that juggles humour, spectacle, social commentary, emotionally gut-wrenching pathos, and hallucinogenic mushrooms with utter ease. And also there’s a genius corgi. And the greatest score ever, thanks to Yoko Kanno. It’s the show I’ve probably watched the most over the past year not named The Simpsons. Why watch new stuff when you can watch more Cowboy Bebop?
A live-action adaptation has been talked about for a long time. Keanu Reeves was the perpetual future Spike Spiegel for the longest time. But now, the show is actually happening at mega content machine Netflix, who announced that they are co-producing a ten episode run with Tomorrow Studios. The showrunners include Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol co-writers Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum along with Venom and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle co-writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. The first episode is written by Christopher Yost who worked on Thor: Ragnarok. So yeah. Lot of white dudes. That eases my suspicion over this show.
Look, I get all the arguments that a Cowboy Bebop adaptation could totally work with a white cast. The show is heavily American inspired and of course Spike’s surname is Spiegel. But still, can we not perpetuate this sh-tty trend of taking amazing Japanese stories and wiping away everything remotely Japanese? That bloody awful Death Note movie still haunts me. Let’s be more interesting than this, okay?
And yes, I’m still going my ‘John Cho for Spike Spiegel’ campaign. Care to join me?