Anime adaptations very rarely work, and the very few that don't turn out awful are exceptions that prove the rule. Learning from mistakes seems like too high a hope for a genre that exists entirely against the advice of fans and the lessons of history, but perhaps they'll start now.

Cowboy Bebop is now, unfortunately, the name for both one of the most iconic and influential anime series of all time and a pointlessly dreadful live-action remake of the same. The single season dropped on November 19th last year, and its cancellation was made public no less than twenty days later. It was despised by fans and disliked by critics, but its tremendous failure wasn't enough to convince Netflix to give up on the concept.

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It's hard to pinpoint the things that Cowboy Bebop did wrong, there are too many to reasonably list. The astounding thing about the series is how easy it could've been to create a decent adaptation of the series. Not a great one, but a serviceable live-action update that would make some fans happy just to see their favorite action scenes acted out by real humans. The best anime adaptations capture the spirit of their source material and intelligently update them to fit the new medium. Look to Speed Racer or Alita: Battle Angel; imperfect films, but ones that put the soul of the anime to the cinema. The average anime adaptation, however, is better represented by Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Rurouni Kenshin. They fill the space and smoothly recreate fan-favorite moments, then fade with little negative attention. They work on the level of a big-budget fan film. One Piece does not have the benefit of that level of ease of use.

One Piece Lyffy Stretching His Skin Like Rubber

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece probably sits among the most enduringly popular works of fiction of all time. It has run largely uninterrupted for almost twenty-five years to unimaginable success with no sign of diminishing returns. Setting out to adapt One Piece is tremendously ambitious and equally ill-advised. The problems begin long before a single frame is shot. Netflix's Cowboy Bebop was rife with budgetary issues that ensured many of the anime's best scenes simply didn't appear. This simple aesthetic weakness kept the series far from the modest hopes of straightforward mediocre adaptation. It's hard to know whether the issue was a simple lack of funds or more complex misallocation, as much of the show looks cheap. One Piece will require a far more substantial budget, or the careful eye of a low-budget master like Adi Shankar to make it work. Producers have claimed that the series could break the record for TV budgets, but that remains to be seen.

Some failures of Netflix's Bebop are obvious enough that the upcoming One Piece series should see them coming. The writing of the characters failed on such a massive level that the upcoming series may need to actively pursue failure to match it. Live-action Spike so effectively contradicts everything fans love about him that his first on-screen appearance had viewers giving up hope. An effort comparable to Cowboy Bebop would turn Luffy into a Spider-Man-style quip artist or Zoro into a bad Batman pastiche. Capturing the characters and their unique interaction is arguably more important than approximating the plot. So long as the adaptation gives fans their favorite characters in a new medium, some fans will be happy to see them. It was no fun to watch live-action Jet, Spike and Faye interact. If live-action Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and company are equally unoriginal, unlikable, or unrecognizable, the show is a lost cause.

Spike from Cowboy Bebop Live-Action

The format was another significant issue in Cowboy Bebop's adaptation, and it will undoubtedly be an issue in One Piece. The Netflix adaptation turned a loose anthology series into a distracting serialized narrative. It cut away to the bad guys to give the audience their ongoing plans, Faye's appearances and disappearances were constantly in focus, and the series managed to be repetitive in an ongoing story.

One Piece's format likely can't survive the transition. It's a classic shonen, based largely around story arcs that each takes place in a new location and pits the heroes against a new villain. The live-action series seeks to introduce the entire crew and lead them on an adventure in a single season. If they try to adapt a single arc, they'll have to pick aspects to get additional focus. If they try their hand at several, they risk overloading the narrative. The sweet spot they need to find is very difficult, but Cowboy Bebop proved that breaking an existing story into a new structure rarely works. Rather than taking more time to tell fewer stories, One Piece has to pick from an overwhelming source and somehow come away with one satisfying season of TV.

The obvious lesson of Cowboy Bebop is that some stories only work the way they were told. One Piece is, at best, a substantially more ambitious attempt at similar work. Fans can only wait and hope that One Piece turns out better than Netflix's previous effort. Or, more realistically, that the upcoming adaptation will be swiftly forgotten, like its predecessor.

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