Hey there, you crusty cave dwellers. So, normally when I talk about a show or a film I do a full fledged review on them. However, today I'm going to do something different and I'll just be going over some things and ranting a bit about why this show is fucking awful. So, again, not a full review. Just some bitching and general thoughts on why I think this show is bad. I'm honestly too lazy to really do a full review on this show, as it would just be me dunking on it anyways which is low hanging fruit. So, yeah. Strap yourselves in, babybois. Because, it's about to get really fucking weird and cringey in here.
Cowboy bebop is a pretty old anime at this point, yet it's still one of the most loved out there. I watched it as a young teenager and enjoyed it, though a lot of the themes of the show went over my head at the time and I missed quite a bit. It also had an earworm of a soundtrack that always seemed to get stuck in my head for hours after I watched some episodes. Still, even then I found a lot to enjoy and love in the show. And, watching it as an adult made it an even better experience. Since this time around I picked up on a lot of the deep topics in the show, that explore existentialism, self identity problems and what makes you actually you, the intricacies of past relationships and much more. The anime is considered to be a masterpiece for a reason.
It had a set of charming characters with unique personalities and backgrounds that would deal with fun, goofy situations or mysteries while dealing with heavy subject matter at the same time. The dystopian future it depicted and built a massive amount of lore around was really fascinating at the time and is still so to this day. The writing for the dialogue and characters was always perfect, and nothing felt sloppy or ham fisted or pointless throughout the series 26 episodes. It focused on the characters and their mundane lives linked with the existential, and had an overall arching plot lurking in the background that slowly unveiled itself as the show went along. The action was always really well done for the time, and the show itself just had a level of sophistication that you don't see in anime often. While it isn't my absolute favorite anime, it definitely deserves all of the praise that it gets.
So, I was pretty nervous when I originally heard about this live action adaptation being made. And, I guess that was a good reaction to have since it is really fucking bad. You've probably seen pretty much everyone on social media hates it. And, that's for good reason. The dialogue is some of the goofiest, most ridiculous shit I've ever heard. And, not in a funny, good way. It's shockingly bad, where I can't believe a team of people approved it going into the show. I'm sure some of you have seen some of the clips showing the cringe parts, but for those of you who hasn't I'll toss one in so you can get a feel for how bad it can get.
Yeah, let that shit sink in for a few. That's the quality level of the show overall. The show isn't even self aware about how cringe it is where you can watch it as a so bad it's good type deal, it takes itself very seriously while having awkward, awful dialogue all over the place. There's also parts in the show where it starts feeling like the writers wanted to make this show into Seinfeld, because there's these moments where the characters are just sitting around talking about mundane things for 2-3 minutes at a time like bidets. But, it just feels out of place and insultingly stupid like a horrible Seinfeld knockoff. The original show had moments that were funny, but it wasn't a comedic show itself. Where as this show seems to put a lot of comedy into it, but, it's all flat and none of the jokes hit. Fuck, man. It is so bad.
They do get very faithful to adaptations on certain things from the show. Such as the character, Ed. In the original show, Ed is a cringe ridden 12 year old whose gender is up in the air for most of the show. Their dialogue is the goofiest in the series by far, and you never really take them seriously since they're so weird. And, for some reason they made sure to adapt that into this live action series with 110 percent effort. It does not work at all in live action. You can have a weird, kooky character like this in anime because people can suspend their disbelief for a bizarre cartoonish character. But, it just will never work with real life actors without making your dick suck itself back up into your body. And, you might be wondering how bad could it possibly be? Well, oh boy! There's even a handy little clip I can throw in here for you guys to see! Though, I'm sure that some of you have already seen this snippet.
I really don't get why they chose to make all the other characters more realistic in terms of being just a normal human being. But, with Ed they decided to do this. It doesn't fit with the gritty world they were trying to present or with the other characters at all. It's genuinely like watching a coked up version of Spy Kids or something. It's just uncomfortable and awkward, to say the very least of it. And, this isn't on the actor or anything, they were just doing what they were told and working with what they had. But, the only place I could see this cringey, hyper active, over animated style working is on Tik Tok to make children giggle for 30 seconds before they move on to something else. If someone has some insight on why they did this with Ed, I'd love to know.
The characters interacting with one another is probably the best part of this show, and sometimes it can be fun and done pretty okay. But, most of the time it's not done well at all. Especially for the parts where they take quotes from the anime and put it into a real life conversation. It comes off as off putting and you have a hard time believing that this conversation would actually take place between human beings and not just Zuckerburg generated AI. Early on in the show for example, there's a part where Jet rips a mans hand off and then goes onto the ship and says "I've got this" and throws it down. And, Spike's response is "Oh. Good, I needed a hand." Yeah, they go for the absolute laziest path they can for this show. It's so out of place and comically weird I almost feel like I'm watching dialogue from aqua teen hunger force sometimes. As I said, sometimes the interactions between characters can be entertaining. But, most of the time the chemistry isn't there and they feel like they're just being the embodiment of quirky/quippy. Ugh.
The look of the show is really off putting as well. They were definitely trying to go for an anime inspired look for the way they filmed the show as well as with the world it's set in, and it just doesn't really work. I think this is largely in part due to the budget. It feels like they didn't have much to work with, since a lot of the show feels and looks kinda cheap. I think to pull off what they wanted to do with the looks and style of the show would have required a budget that was ten times the amount that they actually had. Obviously they worked with the limitations that they had, but I feel like it was a bit too over ambitious.
I won't say this is the worst thing in the world that I have ever watched. I mean, I would much rather put on this live action adaptation of Cowboy bebop than watch snuff films, or CCTV footage of someone being run over by a bus and then backed up over. So, hey, props to you guys for doing such a stand up job with the show. But, on a serious note, there has been much worse adaptations done previously that were worse. Like, the god awful live action Dragon Ball movie for example. So, I won't sit here and actually say this is a 0/10 piece of trash. But, it's still a pretty big god damn stinker in my books. And, saying it doesn't suck as much dick as another failed adaptation isn't much of a compliment. Another quick point I'd like to bring up, is that this isn't Netflix's first time dabbling in doing shitty anime adaptations, as they previously provided us with that great Death Note movie. And, don't you guys worry, because the team who made this Cowboy Bebop series is also working on making a live action One Piece series. So, we'll get to see even more horrible butchering done to our childhood favorites! Hellll yeahhhh.
My final comment is this. Why. Why was this made? Please stop with this shit you degenerates. Fuck sake.
Alright, until next time, doods. Later!