Cowboy Bebop Review

This adaptation gets more right than its reputation allows. Yoko Kanno returns and the music is the real thing, the ships and interiors are built rather than rendered, and Mustafa Shakir's Jet is a genuine piece of casting, warmer and more tired than the drawing and immediately believable as the man holding the crew together. John Cho understands what Spike's laziness is hiding. The problem is everything the show does with them.

The original is a set of self contained stories held together by mood, and the series replaces that with an ongoing plot about Vicious and the Syndicate, which drags a villain who worked as a rumor into the middle of every episode and asks him to carry scenes he was never built for. The dialogue is the worst of it, explaining relationships the anime conveyed with a look and reaching for quips in the middle of fights.

The action is staged flatly, in wide takes that display choreography instead of selling hits, and the color grade washes out the noir the sets are working to build. What is left is a competent science fiction show that keeps stopping to remind you of a better one. Netflix canceled it less than three weeks after release, and the original's director said publicly that he stopped watching almost immediately. Neither reaction is unfair, and neither is the whole story: the parts that work here are good, and they are stranded.