Hello,

I recently watched the first (and, ostensibly, only) season of the recent live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix.

It was okay.

I didn't love it. I thought it got a lot of things wrong, both as an adaptation and as a piece of art completely disassociated from the original piece.

But I did like it. I rooted for it.

Netflix (and the entire film industry) has, to my knowledge, never made a good live-action adaptation of an anime. And truthfully, I don't think Cowboy Bebop necessarily changes this rule. But I do think this:

The Cowboy Bebop adaptation might still be the best live-action retelling of an anime to date. Could (almost) every element of the show been better or truer to the source material? Yes.

But it did something almost no anime adaptation has done: it tried. It really, genuinely tried. They put real heart into it. They updated female characters. They tried to mirror the choreographic stylings of the original. They tried to build a world that was retro and campy and gritty in a clear, heartfelt attempt at homage.

It was respectful. Something almost no other adaptation of its kind has been.

Cancelling the show makes sense. Critics hated it. A lot of audiences hated it. I get it.

But cancelling the show does something else, too. It betrays your customers. Cowboy Bebop had so much marketing behind it. So many ads and hype videos and behind the scenes updates. To kill the show after what felt like a matter of days, it sends a message: Projects like this are Lesser Than. And if they don't success fast and wildly, they will be unceremoniously axed, even after years of marketing momentum.

It sends the message that your service is untrustworthy. That even the most promoted projects can be taken away in the blink of an eye. It makes it hard for viewers to continue investing in other shows. If Cowboy Bebop can disappear like that, what has a chance of lasting?

You don't need to cancel it. Just try to make it a bit better.

But even that isn't strictly necessary. Keep making it exactly as is. Make a sub-par, sub-performing show. Because making more Cowboy Bebop is actually making a promise. A promise of safety. A promise that Netflix is a place for strange, unique, and even flawed content. A promise that imperfection does not spell doom.

Even if you make a second season of Cowboy Bebop and nobody watches it, everyone will still see it. And they will know that Netflix made a courageous commitment to singular content. And they will know that they don't have to cancel their subscriptions for fear of available content becoming an increasingly homogeneous slush pile of safe and riskless stories.

Obligatorily,

You're gonna carry that weight.