Netflix Cowboy Bebop : Does Spike Spiegel die in the Anime? John Cho

‘Cowboy Bebop’: Does Spike Spiegel die in the Anime?

The Anime ends on a seemingly vague note and here’s what director Shinichiro Watanabe has to say

For fans of ‘Cowboy Bebop‘, the anime has a cult status.

From its lovable characters to its soundtrack, no matter how you dissect it, it remains a fan favorite to this day. Everyone on the Bebop crew has their own story, often filled with tragedy and loss, bringing them together in the most unlikely way.

And at the center of it all is Spike Spiegel, whose own mysterious past is revealed in vague fragments through the 26 episodes until it all comes together in the end. However, this also marks what seems like the end of his journey. Or is it?

The last two episodes of the anime, titled ‘The Real Folk Blues’ part 1 and 2, delves into Spike’s past and, more importantly, his deep love for ‘his woman’, Julia. Having escaped the Red Dragon Syndicate, the love between these two never died, and they find themselves in the same situation they were years ago — with Julia promising never to leave Spike’s side.
However, with Vicious taking over the Syndicate, he has assassins track them down to end them. Spike manages to take down said assassins until one shoots Julia in the back, ending her life. Spike decision is clear as he goes back to Bebop for the last time.
His final conversations with both Jet and Faye are rather telling.

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Netflix Cowboy Bebop on Twitter

SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY!#CowboyBebop
— Cowboy Bebop (@bebopnetflix) November 19, 2021

HOT FROM TEAM TVF: #CowboyBebop Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Cowboy Gospel https://t.co/7Qjrl9Ks4Q (via @diana4tv) pic.twitter.com/m0xZFPSykM
— Carissa Pavlica (@CarissaPavlica) November 19, 2021

It's time to wake up… #CowboyBebop
— Cowboy Bebop (@bebopnetflix) November 19, 2021

Ok so she could have been drinking tequila at the bar #CowboyBebop
— Cowboy Bebop (@bebopnetflix) November 19, 2021

The Syndicate blood really pops against those white vans #CowboyBebop
— Cowboy Bebop (@bebopnetflix) November 19, 2021

Glad I haven't watched Cowboy Bebop for a very long time (it will be for next week, like the best bonus ever). I couldn't spend a second complaini… comparing it to the awesome anime.

In any case, the casting of the 3 main characters is very successful. pic.twitter.com/pnG71AgOsk
— The Spaceshipper ? (@TheSpaceshipper) November 19, 2021

Cowboy Bebop Netflix Anime

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop is a Japanese science fiction neo-noir anime television series

created and animated by Sunrise, led by a production team (billed as Hajime Yatate) of director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno.

The twenty-six episodes (“sessions”) of the series are set in the year 2071, and follow the lives of a traveling bounty hunting crew in their spaceship called the Bebop.

Although it incorporates a wide variety of genres throughout its run, Cowboy Bebop draws most heavily from science fiction, western and noir films. Its most prominent thematics include adult existential ennui, loneliness, and the inability to escape one’s past.

The series premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from April 3 to June 26, 1998, broadcasting only twelve episodes and a special due to its controversial adult-themed content. The entire twenty-six episodes of the series were later broadcast on Wowow from October 24, 1998, to April 24, 1999.

The anime was adapted into two manga series which were serialized in Kadokawa Shoten’s Asuka Fantasy DX. A film was later released to theaters worldwide.

Cowboy Bebop | Official Teaser “Lost Session” | Netflix

John Cho, star of Netflix’s ‘Cowboy Bebop,’ is simplifying his creativity

Cho explains how an injury on set gave him a new outlook, and how he’s getting his creativity back to basics.

Listen to the latest episode of Fast Company’s Creative Conversation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.

Cowboy Bebop Cast : John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, Daniella Pineda, Elena Satine, and Alex Hassell.

It took John Cho tearing his ACL to let go of the anxiety that he felt stepping into one of his most high-profile projects to date.

Cho plays the lead role of Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the beloved anime Cowboy Bebop.

The complex bounty hunter chasing criminals across space amassed a die-hard following since the show’s initial run in the late 1990s, which has put Netflix’s version under particular scrutiny from fans and critics.

For Cho, playing Spike was a manifestation of the headspace he’s been in lately, of being very intentional with what he wants to explore as an actor.

“It was so wonderfully weird, and it was such a collision of different genres that, in its totality, it seemed like the most dream job I could ask for,” Cho says in the latest episode of Fast Company‘s podcast Creative Conversation. “I had always wanted to play in noir and westerns and sci-fi. And the dialogue was unusual and sparkling. The world was completely interesting and funny, and it just was unlike anything I’d ever seen.”

How Willem Defoe changed his perspective

“We were doing a scene [in Pavilion of Women], and I have a tendency, to look askance when I’m thinking and composing my words, which is something I do in real life. And I was doing that in the scene that we were doing.

He said, ‘John, may I give you a note?’ And that’s not typical. You’re not supposed to, technically as an actor, give another actor notes. But I welcomed it. He said, ‘I notice you look around when you’re thinking. Try the scene looking directly at me and see what happens.’ It was the smallest thing that I’m ashamed to say it took me years and years and years to really look people in the eye and completely focus.

Reconnecting with music

“I’m starting to think about everything creative in a different way where I’m not thinking about building anything. I’m just following what speaks to me.

How Cowboy Bebop Handled This Missing Character

Ahead of the premiere for Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop the question on everyone’s minds was, “Where’s Ed?” Well IGN has the answer, as well as a comment from showrunner André Nemec on why the show’s creators chose to handle the character the way they did.

[SPOILER WARNING. Don’t read if you haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop yet]

Cowboy Bebop: Who’s Who in the Live-Action Netflix Series

During the lead-up to the Cowboy Bebop premiere, Nemec and the cast kept mum on the whereabouts of Ed, only telling fans they’ll “be delighted.”

Well, at the end of the first season of Cowboy Bebop, the crew is scattered in the winds and an injured Spike lies down on the street by himself, wounded. Only it’s Ed who shows up with a bounty request for the cowboy.

It’s definitely Ed, with the same outfit and mannerisms as from the anime. Nemec says the decision to keep Ed from appearing on the show until the very last minute, setting up a possible second season, was deliberate.

“We really take our time to get to know our characters. And Ed is a very complicated character in all of the good and right ways,” Nemec explained to IGN. “And I wanted to make sure that, fingers crossed, we get to a season 2 that we really have the appropriate amount of time to explore the character of Ed.”

Nemec says that the first season was dedicated to exploring the core trio of Spike, Jet, and Faye. And that a full season was necessary to ensure audiences fully understood this main trio. Then, and only then, did Nemec feel it was appropriate to add Ed.

“Ed is a proper disrupter and really gets the guys into some real sh*t every now and again. So I think to really properly tell the story of Ed the real estate was necessary to know who our characters were before disrupting their world with Ed.”

‘Cowboy Bebop’ review: Live action remake is a lite remix of the original

If you know those words, you’re probably a Cowboy Bebop fan. The original anime, which came out in 1998 and ran for 26 episodes (called ‘sessions’) has a huge cult following, and is widely recognised as one of the best and most influential anime series of all time.

So of course Hollywood would try to make a live-action version out of it. Does it work? Well, yes and no.

Streaming on Netflix starting today (Nov 19), the show is set in 2071 and follows a group of bounty hunters (known as ‘cowboys’ in the show) who live on a spaceship called the Bebop. At first, the group comprises just Spike Spiegel (John Cho) and Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), but later on adds Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) and a Corgi named Ein. As we follow the crew while it takes on various bounties, there is also an ongoing storyline involving Spike’s past and a gangster named Vicious (Alex Hassell).

First of all, let’s talk about the cast. John Cho is pretty fun as Spike Spiegel, albeit a slightly more smart-mouthed version than the laidback one in the anime (the iconic blue suit looks one size too small for him though).

Mustafa Shakir is suitably gruff and tough as Jet, and while Daniella Pineda’s Faye takes a bit more getting used to, but she does at least make it her own version of the character rather than just a carbon copy of the original.

The only misstep for me in terms of casting, however, is Hassell’s Vicious, who comes across more like a bumbling goon than the cold-hearted killer he is in the anime.

As far as adaptations go, this is actually pretty faithful to the original in terms of story. In fact, many of the episodes actually draw directly from the anime, just remixed for a more international audience.

How ‘Cowboy Bebop’ fails to live up to the original

Remaking a masterpiece is always a losing proposition. 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.

Like all private eye yarns, this one revolves around a love affair gone wrong amidst a sea of questionable characters. 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.

This “Cowboy Bebop” does a couple of things well. First, it updates some racially-homogenous, glaringly sexist aspects of the original. Second, it’s good bait for viewers who shy away from animation. A few tastes of this, and they might be ready for the original’s stronger stuff, conveniently also available on Netflix.

Cho doesn’t disappoint. 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. 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.

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. (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. 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. Here, she gets well-deserved pants and combat boots. (Pineda addressed fanboy complaints in a sardonic Instagram post, apologizing for not being six feet tall with a “two-inch waist and double D-size breasts”).