Interview: ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Crew Talks Popularity, Live-Action Adaptations, and Corgi Love

Cowboy Bebop is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year, and the original crew behind the series came all the way to New York to celebrate the series with fans at the most recent New York Comic Con.

ComicBook.com was lucky enough to talk with the crew behind the series, and got to learn a little more about this quirky classic.

In attendance were series haracter designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, zcreenwriters Keiko Nobumoto and Dai Sato, and mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, who were all delighted to talk about why the series is the way it is.

In our interview, they spoke about Cowboy Bebop‘s surprising popularity, character design, ship and space designs, character backstories, sequel potential, live-action adaptations, and even discussed who came up with all of the bad food ideas.

But, most importantly, corgis. Read on for the full interview!

Lasting Power

ComicBook.com It’s been 20 years since Cowboy Bebop first released, how do you feel knowing it’s become such a huge hit after such a long time? 

Dai Sato: It’s quite surprising. 

Toshihiro Kawamoto: It’s very surprising to know that, especially in Japan, that this show is still popular after 20 years. People watch reruns and repeats on TV, and still like this show. It’s an amazing thing

Do you believe it’s because of the Western influences that it’s made such a mark here? 

Keiko Nobumoto: We’re also curious, what’s appealing to the Western fans? Do you have an answer for that as a fan? 

It’s really stuck around! I think it’s because of those down-to-Earth elements, especially in the characters. Fans seem to be drawn to the overall sense of loneliness in each of them, especially now. 

Sato: It must be because fans resonate with the character’s experiences. It wasn’t a conscious decision to incorporate those elements into the show, but growing up watching these Western movies, that just kind of embedded into our brains, and bones, and flesh. That just kind of came out of our brains as we wrote it.

Character Design

The character designs are all very distinct, and it’s one of the reasons it’s stayed so popular. Was this a decision made from the start or did it happen as part of the process? 

Kawamoto: It was an order from Director Watanabe to diversify the characters. For the characters, it wasn’t a specific order to make them diverse, just to match the characters. 

So the personalities of each character was developed after they were designed? 

Kawamoto: It was about the same time. It was a back and forth. I would begin developing characters, and they would write. And they would write. I would read their character descriptions, and I would draw. It was very back and forth. Because we knew they would be a unit from the beginning, so I was very conscious that they would all have different silhouettes. That’s how we developed with the director while composing the series. 

Cowboy Bebop is also remembered fondly for its dramatic and compelling backstories for the main characters, so was that a directive from the beginning too? 

Sato: One of the themes of the series is that it depicts a day in the life of these characters, but their “day in the life” is because of those past experiences. The director, usually, in his series depicts his character’s emotions through not just words but how they act in situations. It’s reflected through their past life, and how they act now. 

Ship Design

Was there any inspiration behind the concept of the main ship itself? 

Yamane: In the pitch document there was a basic functionality description. Based on that, a lot of designers submitted as a competition, and Watanabe picked mine. Yay! 

Was there competition for any of the other designs? 

Yamane: It was very, very unique way of picking the mechanical designer. I’ve never experienced that in my career. Normally the director picks the designer and works with that person, but competition is a very fresh, new, unique thing to go through for selecting a designer. Watanabe probably didn’t have an image of what he wanted the mechanical designer to be [laughs]. All of the spaceships, the Swordfish, Bebop, I designed. But [Takayuki Inagaki] actually did the more environmental design of the spaceships and things like that.

All That Bad Food Though

The characters eat a lot of bad food. Who’s idea was that? 

Sato: Watanabe and I would come up with those crazy ideas. Because they’re bounty hunters, there’s always a underlying idea that they have no money. They have to work for money, work for food. They are always hungry, therefore the hunger is always there. They are working to feed themselves, but that’s their lifestyle. They would eat anything. 

If you were put in that same position, would you eat those same foods? 

Kawamoto: In the movie, they eat cup noodles and we eat that a lot [laughs]. It’s important to depict the lifestyle of these characters. A day in the life. To coincide with that, there are a lot of scenes in Cowboy Bebop where characters use the bathroom. You don’t see that a lot in anime. There are lots of scenes in bathrooms. It’s pretty realistic. 

Sato: In the first episode, before the commercial break, Faye comes out of the bathroom and Spike asks if she washed her hands. That’s very like natural, like someone’s lifestyle.

Could a Live-Action Series Work?

Over here in the United States, there are plans to make a live-action Cowboy Bebop series. What would it need to do in order to succeed or be remembered 20 years from now like the original? 

Sato: [laughs] Very difficult. 

Nobumoto: If they write the characters as attractive as the original, I think that’s probably one of the main points they need to pay attention to.

The character design is part of why they’re so attractive to fans, do you think that’s even doable in live-action? 

Kawamoto: Personally, one of the more attractive elements of Bebop is [Composer Yoko Kanno]’s music. It’s one of the major reasons for the series’ 20 year popularity, so if that’s somehow reflected into live-action, if that’s possible, then I think it can probably go better.

Sato: [laughs] Me too.

Kawamoto: The music is a huge part of the show.

Wouldn’t Be ‘Bebop’ Without the Music

Speaking of the music, is that something that came together after the production of other elements wrapped or was that produced alongside the series? 

Sato: According to [Director Shinichiro Watanabe], normally the anime process is that you have to finish creating the episodes, whether it’s 13 or 26, and then add music to it. But Watanabe said that Kanno actually created music during the episodic productions. She was getting inspired by the storyboard, story itself, the script, as well as character designs, mechanical designs. She was taking inspiration from all of these elements and making music at the same time the production was going on. So that was pretty rare.

[laughs] This is kind of a joke, but not really a joke. She was making music that was not even ordered! She was getting so much inspiration that she made too much music! 

Are those unused compositions ever going to see the light of day? 

Sato: There are a few that did not make the cut. However, we did try and use all of the songs that she created. We purposefully made an effort to use all the songs that she created.

Is a Sequel Possible?

Cowboy Bebop came to a conclusive finish, but it has a fully fleshed out world. Is there any desire to return to it for a sequel or another adventure? 

Kawamoto: Are you familiar with Space Dandy? [laughs] Watanabe created Space Dandy for a sort of revisit to a similar world, but if you pay attention to the currency that’s used in Dandy, it is also oolong. There are a lot of small elements that are kind of similar to Bebop. You know, in that way, Space Dandy is a revisit to this world. 

What if they wanted to make a Space Dandy live-action series? 

Kawamoto: It might actually be easier to make a live-action Space Dandy. It’s very playful, light, and very free. Part of it is because Space Dandy has very self-contained episodes. Cowboy Bebop has the overarching arc over the 26 episodes, so I think it’d be easier to adapt Space Dandy into live-action over Cowboy Bebop. You can have more fun with it. 

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Anime adaptations in the United States tend to make major changes to the original property. Would that bother you if the same eventually happened to Cowboy Bebop?

Sato: We have to think about it as a totally separate thing. If they change it, yes, we will be curious to see that. 

Yamane: But anime fans probably would have a hard time accepting that. They would want something close to the original [laughs]. 

Nobumoto: The difficult thing would probably how to adapt Ed and Ein.  

Corgi Love

Did you expect Ein to be so popular? 

Nobumoto: [laughs] It’s full of his corgi love. 

Kawamoto: I now understand why Nobumoto picked a corgi, I own one now. 

Sato: Speaking to the diversity of the characters, the breed of dog was chosen from the beginning. 

Why was that? 

Kawamoto: It was love at first sight for me.