But Nemec knew her story had to be more than just being the woman at the center of Spike and Vicious’ rivalry.

“There was so much whole cloth that we were building, we didn’t want this to be just this full-time departure” from the anime.Īs in the anime, the live-action Julia is caught between Spike, Vicious and the world of their criminal syndicate. Julia “was the hardest character to get our claws into as storytellers,” said Nemec. She is a much larger presence in the live-action adaptation, which addresses her, Spike and Vicious’ (Alex Hassell) shared past more clearly. This was particularly significant for Julia, who in the anime mostly serves as a specter from Spike’s past, appearing only as flashes in his memory until the final episodes. Nemec and his team also were sensitive to instances in the anime where women, including Faye and Julia, were essentially reduced to dramatic devices to further the story of the male characters. It’s an experience Faye chooses, one that contributes to the process of figuring out who she is. But the scammer is entirely reimagined for the live-action series, which, among other things, results in this romantic element being completely excised from live-action Faye’s past.Īnd when a mechanic propositions her in an episode of the new series, their tryst is not part of a scheme. Part of Faye’s anime backstory involves her being romanced by a con man who fakes his death to saddle her with his insurmountable debts. To dig into a deeper narrative in places for these characters.” … This felt like a great opportunity to mine their stories and to answer some of the things that I felt in the poetry that was the anime. “Spike, Jet, Faye, Vicious, Julia - they’re such delicious characters in the anime.

“I knew we were treading on hallowed ground,” said Nemec during a recent video call. This includes the ship’s hard-working captain, Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), his laid-back partner with a mysterious past, Spike Spiegel ( John Cho), and - eventually - the scrappy and determined Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda). Set in the not-too-distant future after humans have had to colonize other planets and moons within the solar system, “Cowboy Bebop” follows a misfit crew of bounty hunters who operate out of the spaceship Bebop. That was the guiding mantra for showrunner and executive producer André Nemec and the cast and crew of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the beloved anime series, which hit the streamer Friday. “It’s ‘Cowboy Bebop,’ let’s not f- this up.”

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