I’m not too interested in the actual thing that is Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, aside from some technical aspects–the music, the Japanese dub (which I don’t get in the US), and the overall reception. To me Cowboy Bebop is like the Civil War–it’s all done in the past. You still see the occasional Confederate flag, and kids learn about it in Youtube videos, but that’s pretty much it.

However what’s never done is the Spirit. And I’m all for the Spirit of Cowboy Bebop to descend onto the popular discourse yet again, and this time with the largest crowd it ever had. I still remember seeing Watanabe at BAAF talking about The Movie and how if it made a million bux in the North American Box Office they will make more. A million USD is about one and a half million USD 20 years later, adjusted for inflation, so that’s a tiny fraction of what Netflix spent, which is still not a lot versus other TV remakes today.