Just play the first few seconds of Yoko Tanno’s “Tank”, performed by The Seatbelts (a group made specifically for this show by Tanno), and most anime fans are right in the groove. There’s a reason Cartoon Network reran Cowboy Bebop for years and still breaks it out on occasion. Not only is the show itself amazing (and I don’t want to risk overhyping it) but the English dub is fantastic. Despite not being in the room together, a necessity when it comes to dubbing foreign productions due to the focus on matching the mouth movements (or “lipflaps”), the cast seems to play off each other like they were in the same room recording. The vocal choices are great, and the jazz music that is easily the soul of the series is left intact. If you haven’t watched it, you really should if sci-fi western-style shows are your thing.
Of course Hollywood can’t leave anything good alone, especially if it’s done without live actors. I keep mentioning the pecking order in the entertainment industry, with comics, video games, and animation at the bottom of the stack. If it’s cool, they reason it NEEDS to be done in live-action. Disney has been terrible at this lately as they seem to be replacing all their animated classics with sub-par live-action remakes and reimaginings that fail to grasp what animation has over live-action in terms of storytelling. (I thought I did an Art Of Storytelling on the subject but it isn’t coming up. Guess what we’re doing on Friday!)
Netflix is now part of the Hollywood system. Originally a way to get movies through the mail it has become a streaming service that makes its own TV shows and movies, with the same track record as any other studio. They’ve also gone down the route of live-actionizing animated favorites, including anime. Their history is…less than stellar, and now they’re bringing that record to Cowboy Bebop, a show with wide appeal around the world. Judging from what they’ve put out so far they have learned nothing from their last failure.
