T5W#320-Top 5 Easter Eggs from the Netflix Cowboy Bebop Intro

Last weekend, Netflix hosted an online event to show off their high profile releases for the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.  This includes new sneak peaks at the fourth seasons of Stranger Things and Cobra Kai and the long awaited Second Season of The Witcher (with the added announcement of a Third Season in the works).  Of course, this presentation included our next look at Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop adaptation.   Rather than a trailer, our first footage of the show came in the form of the shows intro sequence, which bears the same look, sound and feel of the legendary Anime opening.  It’s not a carbon copy either.  Sure there are little recreated moments but this opening is a beast all its own, with more than a few nuggets of familiarity to get fans a little more excited for November 19^th when the series arrives.  Still, couldn’t pass up a chance to do a deep dive on what I saw.  Ergo, our Top 5 Wednesday for this week are my Top 5 Easter Eggs from the Netflix Cowboy Bebop Intro.

#5-Swordfish takes off

Considering how little we’ve seen of the Live Action Bebop series til this point, any glimpse of something new, no matter how small, is welcome.  Case in point: a scene we’ve seen dozens of times in the Anime-Spike Spiegel’s trusty spaceship, the Swordfish, launching from the deck of the Bebop.  The ship has been spotted on the poster for the show and we get other silhouetted glimpses of the Swordfish along with Jet’s Hammerhead and Faye’s Red Tail and the titular Bebop itself.  Everything looks true to its Anime counterpart from a mecha perspective.  Theyre really aiming for faithfulness but hopefully the show can carve out a path of its own.
 
#4-John Cho’s Giving It His All

From Harold and Kumar to Star Trek, we all love John Cho, he’s a freaking awesome actor.  Him being cast as one of the coolest leading men in Anime, Spike Spiegel, came with a mixed but mostly positive reception.  Spike is a tough role to cast.  Not only do you need to nail his too cool for school/easy going nature, there’s also his incredible physicality you have to match.  Concerns were raised when Cho injured himself on set, causing filming to be delayed cause the producers refused to recast.  It looks like that faith will be rewarded.  Seeing Cho pull off that mad air kick in the opening sequence looks like something Spike would pull off in the Anime.  Also, shout outs to Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda as we got to see some of their Jet and Faye in action as well (Jet working on Banzai and Faye sedeuctivley drawing her gun were both grin worthy moments).
 
#3-Big Shots

Now this was a surprise.  While we got some initial casting announcements a long time ago (including Cho, Shakir and Pineda as the Big Bebop Three) there were some notable absences including Bebops resident wacky boneless hacker Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV.  Two faces I should have expected to be in the series from the start made their live action debut in the new intro: Judy and Punch.  In the Anime, these two are the hosts of Big Shots for the Bounty Hunters, a intergalactic broadcast spot detailing who is wanted in the galaxy and how much theyre going for.  Typically, these two can only provide a name and a bounty number and little else (it actually led to them being cancelled near the end of the series, due in part to a failed special featured in The Cowboy Bebop Movie actually).  Call me crazy but I doubt Judy and Punch will be any more help in live action form either, but welcome entertainment always.
 
#2-Very Familiar Bounty Heads

Cowboy Bebop is home to some of the most dangerous and diverse villains in Anime.  Drug enhanced syndicate enforcers.  Escaped Bio Weapons.  Environmental Terrorists.  Drug peddlers selling mushrooms.  There’s hardly a repeat in the long list of Bounty Heads Spike and company pursue and it looks like some of them will be targets once again on Netflix.  There’s plenty of familiar faces to spot in the roster of villains shown off such as Asimov and Katarina, Mad Pierrot, Twinkle Maria Murdock and Teddy Bomber (or at least his teddy bear and bomb detonator combo).  I’m really hoping this isn’t just a “for the fans” batch of Easter Eggs.  As much as I want this new version of Bebop to try some new things, leaning into the villains who helped make the series great isn’t a bad way to go either…but maybe not too much.
 
#1-Vicious and Julia Revealed

You aren’t going to do a Live Action Cowboy Bebop without Spike, Jet, Faye, Edward and Ein.  You’re definitely not going to do it without the other two people who are cornerstones in Spike’s life.  Vicious is his former best friend and a top enforcer of the Red Dragon Syndicate.  Julia is the woman both men fell for hard and had a serious and bloody falling out over her.  Elena Satine and Alex Hassell were both announced at the same time as Cho, Shakir and Pineda in their roles but this opening sequence is the first time we’ve seen either of them in character.  Julia’s appearance is only a few seconds, looking tearful and distressed.  Vicious is more in the action, strolling down a hallway of bodies he probably helped layout and squaring off with Spike in one of the Anime’s most iconic sequences from The Ballad of Fallen Angels (God I hope they do that episode and do it proper justice).  Will Julia meet a different fate from the Anime and what’s in store for Vicious.  November 19^th cant get here fast enough.