Original ‘Cowboy Bebop’ director expresses disapproval of Netflix adaptation, Hollywood producers

For the new Netflix live-action adaptation, they sent me a video to review and check. It started with a scene in a casino, which made it very tough for me to continue. I stopped there and so only saw that opening scene. It was clearly not “Cowboy Bebop” and I realized at that point that if I wasn’t involved, it would not be “Cowboy Bebop.” I felt that maybe I should have done this. Although the value of the original anime is somehow far higher now.

Back on The Animatrix, I first got to work with people in Hollywood. Working with those kinds of people is always difficult. This is because at the beginning they promised me that I could do whatever I want, but that’s just lip service.

Actually, I had a big altercation with a Hollywood producer on The Animatrix. He would always come with these stupid requests, just so he could identify his own contribution. As the requests were stupid and made no sense, I rejected all of them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t win in this situation, so I had to concede on some of these things. I learned from this bitter experience though. For subsequent projects, I became smarter at handling people who wanted to interfere.