Trivia / Cowboy Bebop (2021)

• Ability over Appearance: André Nemec deliberately cast actors who are much older than the characters in the source material to better convey the weariness they're supposed to be experiencing.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Daniella Pineda was heavily involved in developing Faye's costume.
• Approval of God: Several of the English dub cast members from the original anime, including Steve Blum, Beau Billingslea and Wendee Lee, have given their approval towards both the show and the new cast.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: John Cho said that his involvement in the series only became definite when Yoko Kanno was locked in to compose the soundtrack as he felt no one else could do it justice.
• Dear Negative Reader:
  • In the wake of the show's abrupt cancellation, writer Naomi Markman posted a (quickly deleted) rant on Twitter, aimed at the people that were celebrating the show getting the axe. Expressing her grief over hundreds of dedicated people losing jobs that they loved doing, and mentions that she read the scripts that were prepared for the aborted season 2, saying that they were "missing out".
  • Steve Blum also chimed in by voicing his sympathies for the live-action crew, telling them they did justice to the original show, and that the "haters" should just "make their own" if they think they know better.
• Directed by Cast Member: In the Swedish dub, Nick Atkinson was the voice director and also voiced Vicious.
• Disowned Adaptation: The anime's director Shinichiro Watanabe was sent the opening casino scene by Netflix, and mentioned that it was "very tough for me to continue", and states that "It was clearly not Cowboy Bebop and I realized at that point that if I wasn’t involved, it would not be Cowboy Bebop".
• Dyeing for Your Art: John Cho grew out his hair to play Spike in the series.
• Fake American: New Zealand actress Eden Perkins plays the American-accented Radical Ed.
• International Coproduction: The series was a co-production between Tomorrow Studios and Midnight Radio in the United States, and Sunrise in Japan.
• On-Set Injury: John Cho tore his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) filming a night scene, which caused months-long delay in filming before they could resume.
• The Other Darrin: In the foreign dubs, a significant amount of Cowboy Bebop characters are not dubbed by the actors that voiced them in the anime.
  • In the Japanese dub:
    • Taiten Kusunoki voices Jet Black since his original voice actor, Unshō Ishizuka, passed away in 2018.
    • Romi Park voices Shin instead of Nobuyuki Hiyama, on the account of the character's Gender Flip.
    • Masako Isobe voices Mao instead of Kazuaki Ito, for the same reason as Shin.
  • In the Italian dub:
    • Gianfranco Miranda voices Spike Spiegel instead of Massimo De Ambrosis. Miranda also dubbed John Cho's character Hikaru Sulu for the Star Trek reboot.
    • Massimo Bitossi plays Jet Black instead of Nino Prester.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub:
    • Fernanda Robles plays Ed instead of Isabel Martiñón.
    • Annie Rojas voices Julia instead of Dulce Guerrero.
  • In the French dub:
    • Jérémy Prévost voices Spike Spiegel instead of Yann Pichon.
    • Daniel Njo Lobé voices Jet Black instead of Philippe Roullier.
    • Zina Khakhoulia voices Faye Valentine instead of Bérangère Jean.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Both Gren's live-action counterpart and their actor, Mason Alexander Park, are non-binary.
• Role Reprise:
  • The Japanese dub brings back most of the original anime's cast, including Kōichi Yamadera as Spike Spiegel, Megumi Hayashibara as Faye Valentine, Gara Takashima as Julia, Norio Wakamoto as Vicious, Hikaru Midorikawa as Lin and Kenyuu Horiuchi as Gren. Aoi Tada also reprises her role as Ed in the final episode, despite having retired from voice acting.
  • In the Italian dub, Barbara De Bortoli, who voiced Faye Valentine in the anime, reprises her role again.
  • The Brazilian Portuguese dub brings back Guilherme Briggs as Spike Spiegel and Miriam Fischer as Faye Valentine, both from the theatrical film and the TV series, and Raquel Marinho as Katrina from the Netflix dub of the TV series.
  • Returning from the anime's 2021 Latin Spanish dubs by Netflix and Funimation are José Gilberto Vilchis as Spike Spiegel, Karla Falcón as Faye Valentine, Ricardo Tejedo as Jet Black, Cristina Hernández as Katerina Solensan, Monserrat Mendoza as Judy, Abraham Vega as Punch and Rafael Pacheco as Vicious.
• Screwed by the Network: Though Jeff Pinkner teased plans of a potential second season, Netflix announced they were canceling the series altogether on December 9, 2021, less than three weeks after it was released. The announcement shocked many people in the industry, John Cho and Daniella Pineda included.
• Self-Adaptation: Sunrise, the original anime studio, co-produced this series. Shinichiro Watanabe, the anime's director, served as a consultant for the live-action series^note although he put out a statement saying he only provided some opinions early in production and told fans to send their complaints to Sunrise rather than to him. Yoko Kanno, meanwhile, returned to compose the soundtrack.
• Stillborn Franchise: Despite ending on a Sequel Hook, having multiple works of tie-in media in production, and maintaining relatively high viewership ratings, the series was cancelled only three weeks after its release, likely due to a combination of severe online backlash by fans of the original series and the show's extremely high budget.
• Troubled Production: Filming was interrupted in October 2019 when John Cho suffered a serious knee injury that required surgery to fix, which left him partially benched for the better part of a year as he recovered and went through physical therapy, and then further disrupted by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Unfinished Episode: Apparently, the writers had scripts for an entire second season already written out before the show's premature cancellation, but whatever plans they had to wrap up the storylines went up in smoke, and left the series on a cliffhanger.
• Voice-Only Cameo: Steve Blum, who voiced Spike Spiegel in the anime's English dub, gets a voice cameo in the first episode as the toll operator that Jet is complaining to.
  Radio: Astro Gate toll will be deducted from your account.
  Jet: I'm gonna take a piss in transit. Wanna charge me for that too?
  Radio: We already do, Bebop. Read the Fine Print.
  Jet: (disgusted look)
• What Could Have Been:
  • This was supposed to be a live-action movie with Keanu Reeves attached. However, due to a lack of progress in getting it into production, the idea was dropped. When asked, Reeves said that the script was impressive and he was excited to do it, but it would've been too expensive to make, thus explaining why it never went anywhere.
  • A costume close to Faye's anime outfit was tested and abandoned because it didn't provide enough coverage for Daniella Pineda and her doubles to conceal protective padding for stunts and fights.
  • Gren wasn't supposed to be introduced during the first season, but the production pauses caused by John Cho's injury and the COVID-19 pandemic gave the writers a chance to reconsider their scripts and include the character.

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