Netflix’s highly anticipated animated series, ‘Cowboy Bebop‘ released on Netflix worldwide… And it could have been better. While the cinematography, music and action sequences are brilliant in some scenes, other scenes are too cringey to watch – making many of us wish that those parts had stayed in the anime and not made their way to the live-action adaptation. While the series is decent as a live-action series, it doesn’t hold a candle to its brilliant original anime series. And with the live-action adaptations of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ and ‘One Piece’ eventually releasing on Netflix – is this a sign of things to come on all things live-action adaptations by Netflix?
Netflix made a smart decision when the streaming platform decided to venture into the anime streaming market. Anime is an art form that has a market in pretty much every country, and with the streaming conglomerate buying the streaming and production rights of major anime, the OTT platform has made itself one of the biggest international digital libraries featuring anime. The OTT platform didn’t rest on its laurels, however.
Live-action adaptations have always been welcomed by fans of anime series, manga series or games; provided that they are good. ‘Oldboy’ and ‘Rurouni Kenshin’ are examples that South Asian film industries know how to create proper live-action adaptations. ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ and ‘Detective Pikachu’ are examples that even Hollywood can create good adaptations if they know what to put in these adaptations and what to leave out. This is the market where Netflix have tried to expand into.
And we are now left with this ‘Cowboy Bebop’ semi-mess. On one hand, it is not as bad as Scarlett Johanson’s ‘Ghost in a Shell’ or the Hollywood adaptation of ‘Deathnote’ – but it is not as good as ‘Oldboy’ either. While we do not think Netflix will sit idly by and give us a similar version of ‘Avatar’ or ‘One Piece’; we sincerely hope that the OTT platform will bring on better filmmakers to work on these live-action adaptations and learn from their errors from this web series.
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