Studio that made Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop convinces Shinichiro Watanabe to work with them again.

In 2021, Netflix released a Western-made live-action adaptation of landmark anime series Cowboy Bebop. It did not go well. Preexisting fans found little of the charm, depth, and stylishness that had attracted them to the franchise in the first place, and new audiences were left unimpressed.

Less than a month after its release, Netflix announced that there would be no second season. That doesn’t mean that Hollywood isn’t willing to take a second try at adapting the work of Bebop creator Shinichiro Watnabe, as it’s been announced that another Watanabe anime is now being adapted to live-action.

This time it’s Samurai Champloo that’s getting the call. Watanabe’s first major directing project following the Bebop anime TV series and its follow-up theatrical feature, Samurai Champloo was a 26-episode TV series that aired in 2004 and 2005. A tale of three wandering outcasts in the late Edo period, as cracks were forming in the feudal shogunate system and new ideas from both within and abroad were starting to change Japanese society, Samurai Champloo gets the back half of its title from chanpuru, a type of Okinawan stir-fry dish that resonated with Watanabe as a symbol of mixing diverse elements together.

▼ Samurai Champloo’s ending theme, “Shiki no Uta”

Handling the adaptation will be Los Angeles-based Tomorrow Studios, which has, to put it mildly, a mixed record when it comes to this sort of thing. On the one hand, Tomorrow Studios is the same company that was behind the immediately and intensely panned live-action Cowboy Bebop, but they’re also the ones doing the currently ongoing live-action One Piece, which has been praised by many as an excellent adaptation that’s satisfying for established fans and newcomers alike.

A key difference in Tomorrow Studios’ strategies between its Cowboy Bebop and One Piece projects is the involvement of the original creator. By all accounts, One Piece manga author Eiichiro Oda has a much more active role in his series’ adaptation than Watanabe did on the live-action Bebop. In an interview following its release, Watanabe said “[I] only saw [the] opening scene. It was clearly not Cowboy Bebop, and I realized at that point that if I wasn’t involved, it would not be Cowboy Bebop.”

“We’ve learned. Having the creator there to bless the creative is really important,” says Tomorrow Studio’s Marty Adelstein, one of the producers for the live-action Samurai Champloo, in an interview, while promising that Watanabe will have more input this time around. “We had dinner with [Watanabe] in Japan and said, if we move forward on doing ‘Samurai Champloo,’ we really want you to be a part of the creative. We were thrilled that he was willing to do that.”

There’s currently no timetable for the adaptation’s release, nor a streaming home for it (though Netflix would seem to be the most likely candidate).

Despite how things turned out the last time Hollywood attempted to bring a Watanabe anime into live-action, there are a few reasons for more optimism this time around. For starters, the success of the live-action One Piece, as well as the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog movies, have shown that, even when not adhering to strict fidelity to the source material, there’s now a greater understanding and appreciation of the core elements that helped Japanese franchises build their fanbases in the first place within the Western entertainment industry. In terms of visuals and set designs, a samurai story is also a lower bar to clear than the interplanetary adventures and culture that had to be shown on screen for Cowboy Bebop. There’s also the fact that, while respected and popular in its day, Samurai Champloo doesn’t have the same iconic status and intense fan familiarity that Bebop does, which could spare it from the moment-by-moment comparisons to a predecessor it has no chance of surpassing.

On the other hand, following its talk with Adelstein, Variety says that “The [Samurai Champloo] adaptation will retain the core elements fans love while updating the material for a contemporary television audience,” implying that Tomorrow Studios still intends to tinker with the story or other elements in an attempt to improve, or otherwise broaden the appeal of, the original work. It’s a bold decision, considering how that plan panned out with the live-action Bebop, but Watanabe is apparently willing to give Tomorrow Studios a second chance, and time will tell if he’ll be able to help steer the project down a path that audiences will actually enjoy.

Source: Variety via Anime News Network/Alex Mateo, Forbes
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