While the original “Bebop” transcended a lot of anime’s ickier leanings, it kept Faye in a barely-there crop top and painfully short shorts.
(The English-language voiceover actor who plays him in the anime is Black, but the character is drawn White.) As for Faye Valentine, the amnesia-stricken con woman who joins up with these two: Daniella Pineda’s version is as prickly as the original, and twice as clothed. Spike’s partner on the patched-up spaceship the Bebop is the pilot and ex-cop Jet Black, played by Mustafa Shakir (“Luke Cage”), and although his long mutton chops look hilariously glued-on, it’s nice to see an actor of color in the role. He nails Spike’s soulful nonchalance, and seems totally at ease fighting off thugs with a bathroom towel dispenser or lighting a cigarette as he hangs upside down out a window, bathed in the neon glow of a strip-joint sign. He wears Spike’s iconic blue suit with melancholic swagger, his hair – if not greenish like his animated counterpart’s – a chaotic cloud that still somehow looks impeccably coiffed. John Cho as Spike in “Cowboy Bebop.” KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIXĬho doesn’t disappoint. A few tastes of this, and they might be ready for the original’s stronger stuff, conveniently also available on Netflix. Second, it’s good bait for viewers who shy away from animation. First, it updates some racially-homogenous, glaringly sexist aspects of the original. This “Cowboy Bebop” does a couple of things well.
But it’s mostly an excuse to hang out with a trio of mismatched, cranky, heart-of-gold space cowboys as they flit from one bad-idea job to the next. Like all private eye yarns, this one revolves around a love affair gone wrong amidst a sea of questionable characters. And 1998’s “Cowboy Bebop” stands as maybe the most revered piece of anime this side of “Akira” and “Ghost in the Shell.” Netflix has boldly gone there anyway, adapting the animated sci-fi-noir-Western to a live action thriller with John Cho in the lead as brooding intergalactic bounty hunter Spike Spiegel. Remaking a masterpiece is always a losing proposition. ‘Mirai’ cultivates fine animation, but this magic garden is grating ‘The Grudge’ review: Why do good actors do bad horror movies? Fans, cast devastated by Netflix canceling ‘Cowboy Bebop’ after just one season
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