Netflix’s Live Action Cowboy Bebop Recreates Iconic opening

During the ‘Tudum: A Netflix Global Fan Event‘ Live Stream, anime fans were treated to the opening for Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop series opening.

Netflix seems to have gone with the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach because the opening is a complete recreation of the Cowboy Bebop anime opening complete with the original theme ‘Tank!’.

This song is composed by Yoko Kanno who’s is also returning to score the soundtrack of the live-action series.

Netflix’s description of the series is:

COWBOY BEBOP is an action-packed space Western about three bounty hunters, aka “cowboys,” all trying to outrun the past. As different as they are deadly, Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) form a scrappy, snarky crew ready to hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals — for the right price. But they can only kick and quip their way out of so many scuffles before their pasts finally catch up with them.

The cast includes:

• John Cho as Spike Spiegel
• Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black
• Daniella Pineda as Faye
• Alex Hassell as Vicious
• Elena Satine as Julia
• Geoff Stults as Chalmers, Jet’s ex-partner
• Tamara Tunie as Ana, Martian club owner
• Mason Alexander Park as Gren, Ana’s right-hand person
• Rachel House as Mao, White Tigers Capo
• Ann Truong as Shin, one of Vicious’ twin henchmen
• Hoa Xuande as Lin, one of Vicious’ twin henchmen

The opening also hints at various scenes in the anime being adapted like the horrifying Pierrot appearing and the fight between Spike and Vicious in the church.

As we previously stated when the costume images of the Bebop crew were published, if there is one thing that the new series wants to prove, it’s that it very clearly wants to be seen as faithful to the original.

The costumes, sets, and now the opening clearly want to state that this is going to be like the anime we all know and love as opposed to a widely different “re-imagining” like previous anime adaptations. The fact that original director Shinichiro Watanabe is a consultant for the project probably helps.

Of course, this is still no guarantee of the actual quality of the series. It could still widely misunderstand the original or be downright bad but at least getting these basic design choices mostly right is at least overcoming the first hurdle. For now, we must wait and see.

Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop will premier on November 19th, 2021.

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