Cowboy Bebop’s Anime Changes Ruined Julia’s New Ending

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Cowboy Bebop

Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop has had a divisive reception due to some of the changes made to the story, but changes to the first episode miss out on what could’ve been excellent foreshadowing for Julia’s new ending. The overall story is ultimately a tragedy with some almost Shakespearean qualities, with flawed heroes caught up in power struggles larger than they are, with a cathartic and controversial ending. In both versions, the very first episode gives a taste of the themes which run through the entire series. Differences made to the live-action adaptation, however, both strengthen and weaken that foreshadowing.

In the original anime, Cowboy Bebop episode 1, “Asteroid Blues”, acts as a simple introduction to the central two characters, Spike and Jet, as well as the crime syndicates and their drug trade, but it also holds a deeper meaning. “Asteroid Blues” centers around the tragic story of a violent drug addict, Asimov, and his apparently pregnant girlfriend Katerina as they try to flee together into a new life. This story is adapted in the remake, and their story bears an eerie similarity to that of Spike and Julia. In both versions, Spike notes this himself, telling Katerina that she reminds him of “someone” with the unspoken implication that the someone is Julia. In the anime, Katerina seems more like a victim than a criminal, ultimately realizing that she’ll never be able to live the life she wants and shooting Asimov herself before being gunned down by the police.

A major difference in the Netflix show is Julia’s role. Where she was little more than a lost object in the anime, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop sees her overthrow Vicious to become the crime lord running the Red Dragon Syndicate. Where Julia refused to assassinate Spike in the original, the climactic showdown of the new series ends with Julia shooting Spike, leaving him to fall from a broken cathedral window in a recreation of an iconic scene from the anime episode, Ballad of Fallen Angels. But the adaptation also makes a big change to the first episode, “Cowboy Gospel”. The live-action version of Katerina is not at all the tragic character her anime predecessor was, feeling more like the real villain of the pair and remaining defiant till the end. The new version of Asimov is killed not by Katerina but by Faye. This change removes what could’ve been excellent foreshadowing for Julia eventually shooting Spike, and her likely inevitable tragedy still to come.

An alternative way to read these changes though, is that the newer and more villainous Katerina foreshadows the newer and more villainous Julia in the final Cowboy Bebop plot twist. The live-action sets Julia up as the antagonist of a prospective season 2 and makes her a much more interesting character in the process. In the anime Julia has little agency, taking the role of a “sexy lamp” — an attractive object with no real personality, which other characters are mainly interested in possessing. Her characterization in the Netflix show could definitely be stronger, but bold changes like this can often stand out as high points in any adaptation.

Cowboy Bebop, in both its anime and live-action forms, pays homage to tropes from numerous classic movies, with Asimov and Katerina being a classic ill-fated pair of outlaws on the run. Their focus in the first episode also cements the central theme of the main story, that no one can truly escape from their past. While the Netflix Cowboy Bebop adaption is far from perfect, the attempt to push the story in a new direction is deserving of some praise, even if it trips over its own foreshadowing.

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