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a being of endless gathering

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All those ingredients and yet someone forgot the broth.

RIP Cowboy Bebop #Netflix

December 14, 2021 by Michael Olivarez

I mean honestly, could we have expected more than this?

I suppose I need to stay fair in thinking about the just released, just canceled live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. But more than the ever consistent dilemmas that come with translating japanese animation into live action for western audiences, there seemed to be something immediately missing as the clearly reverent nods to classic iconography and episodes unspooled before my eyes a few weeks ago. I needed the extra time to collate thoughts about what didn’t work, and the main element that keeps coming back to mind is..heart. To put it mildly, for all the clever casting, the occasional dead on visualization of famous moments, the ever present sound of Seatbelts wafting through scenes, the biggest problem for me was that the final product seems far more interested in the language of “cool” rather than of tactile emotionality. One of the most vital underpinnings of the anime is the use of blues, jazz, and other genres to often convey feelings that our spacefaring characters find themselves unable to verbalize. This sense of sad sack persists in the often run down, rust covered space colony system of the show. Illustrative of the romance of outer space becoming nothing more than a junked out, overpopulated, spiritually worn out shell of itself. The blue collar world of ALIEN is taken to its logical conclusion as we see that capitalism has indeed turned space into just another network of dusty freeways, casinos, and shopping malls.


And while the show tries its damndest to present the world as it was in the original, there is a clear lack of real consideration for the way the world looks and how it affects the people. For a project whose episodes run two to three times as long as a 22 minute animated one, it really feels like so much emptiness is exposed. Considering this specifically, it’s a losing strategy to not only forget that this is a consistent theme throughout Bebop ‘98, but that a huge amount of why our characters behave the way they do is in response to it.  


It truly is a gaping hole in the writing. For all the Easter Eggs, and various nods they provided it was missing this ever present sadness that drives everyone throughout. And this is from someone who doesn’t mind making someone else’s mythology yours. It didn't have to follow the story. But Bebop is a particular brand of melancholy that makes the characters sing. And without it, it’s an endurance test to be around anyone. This is especially true of Faye Valentine, who for me sports one of the more moving arcs of the original. By swapping out a woman who knew endless misfortune only to create an often effective facade of coolness into an abrasive, loud girlboss type feels like a profound misreading. Or how about when we give Jet a daughter in hopes of instantly delivering us his future role as the ship’s “dad” figure? Or maybe let’s needlessly keep having Spike and Jet killing willy-nilly for no reason because of comedy, or because “COOL”?  It’s hard to grasp what was going on at the screenwriting level as a lot of it plays like producers saw little value in patiently granting viewers subtle character moments that could culminate in the finale. There’s a definite drive in the live action to front load everything, and that’s the problem. Like the jazz cliche, a huge amount of what makes the late, great Nobumoto Keiko’s character writing so impactful, is its deliberate patience in what it doesn’t say, even as the anime mostly uses an episodic format. 


So much stealth character building in those scripts, often told in behaviors and mannerisms.

Good casting can't overcome shallow writing. But the fact that no one at the top tried to keep it more on-board with making the characters relatable flawed saddens me most. What we get is a lot of surface level posture.


It could also be that with anime, everything is about efficiency. These LA  episodes go on way longer than they should, making it harder to work through. And yeah, Vicious and Julia do not need backstories. They only represent inability to let go, which is powerful because they are such elusive ideas. We can't know. That to me was a big part of the original, that Spike was eternally incapable of escaping his past. It's a shadow. Not something we are privy to. There's a deliberate line between the Spike we know, and the Spike that is supposedly dead. We're not meant to know dead Spike. Another shadow. Heck, Vicious is merely an illustration of Spike’s past as a hollowed out angel of death. And while I can see the writer’s temptation to humanize the character, but a huge part of what makes such a deliberate abstraction of Vicious is that in what little he says in the anime, it’s clear that he is the end result for Spike should he abandon all forms of attachment, Julia included. The tragedy of the original series lies in how we absorb the often unspoken lingering pain of our scrappy leads, only to see that there was a glimpse of connection in this often cruel galaxy. And while it may not have turned out all roses in the end, the central lesson being conveyed is that those seemingly insignificant encounters we make are opportunities to turn the past into something akin to redemption.  


What we do get a glimpse of throughout Watanabe’s anime, is another possible life. For everyone. A possibility that is fleeting and just out of reach for our central leads. And that's really hard to write when “cool” is the goal. It just seemed like they needed a real top down rewrite from a character perspective. And that begins by regarding everyone in that universe as tattered by a persistent capitalistic cruelty at the heart of everything and everyone in the series. Because the Netflix series seemingly forgot this, what we got was hard to get invested in. Hard for me anyway..

I really wanted to feel this take on the journey. It simply wasn't there for me on that much needed human level. Something the original does almost supernaturally well.

The only plus for me here was more Kanno/Seatbelts. 


But that’s always a win.


December 14, 2021 /Michael Olivarez
Anime Adaptations, Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe, Yoko Kanno, Netflix
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The Lingering Promise Of Carole & Tuesday

July 16, 2020 by Michael Olivarez

At last, completed Motonobu Hori & Shinichiro Watanabe's musical anime series, Carole & Tuesday, and truly enjoyed most of it. Particularly its world, characters, and overall lighthearted tone regarding the role of the artist, even in the colonized space of Cowboy Bebop. The show's greatest strengths being its appealing leads, and the often incredible soundtrack spinning a tale of a pair of starcrossed musicians who create a unique analog musical bond in a world where pop music tends to be enhanced via technological means. It isn’t hard to see where this affection for popular music through the ages sits within the heart of Watanabe, who’s classic 1998 series was nothing if not in itself a gargantuan solar system spanning poem regarding art’s influence upon our often ephemeral relationships with one another.

Where the show does stumble, is of course toward the final stretch with too many overbearing plot threads introduced far too late, and a finale that feels far too pat for the show's length. In truncating the end, the show never figures out how to properly address some awkwardly inserted timely elements, taking the teeth out of what could have been an emotionally powerful closing. Come episode 21, it had become alarmingly clear that every subplot that had been introduced in the wake of C & T’s overnight success, was about to get the compression treatment, and it wasn’t more evident than in the pacing of their musical rival, the talented and feisty Angela. A choice that only further hurts the more political themes the show was bravely hewing close to as the story pits artists versus the changing, and often manipulated sentiment of a public on the brink of an anti-immigrant platform on the coming election. An election that features a candidate closely related to a member of our duo.

Another reminder of the importance of knowing that your producers have your back to make good on these themes before, and during production. Because from the looks of how the show plays out, it seems like something happened resulting in a season shortened from the classic 26 episode order to 24. What we get, is a sorely missed opportunity for anime to spin a potent allegory for the current moment, and more a sweet-intentioned , and occasionally rousing ode to music set amidst a compelling sci-fi backdrop.

Still, I would have loved to have followed these characters through more adventures, making new friends and allies between planets alike. They are a charming, cheerworthy pair that the show almost forgets to explore further. In a way, C & T, for all their charms fall into the background as the meaty complications around them begin to pile up. Their spirit and music shine for sure, but we really deserved that beautiful seven minute miracle, and everything it purportedly changed.

But in order for that to happen, we probably needed those last two episodes.

July 16, 2020 /Michael Olivarez
Streaming Television, Streaming Anime, Studio Bones, Shinichiro Watanabe, Carole & Tuesday, Netflix
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