‘Space Dandy’ Staff Imagines A Live-Action Remake

Cowboy Bebop‘s character designer, animation director, and co-founder of Studio Bones Toshihiro Kawamoto attended New York Comic-Con for the series’ 20th anniversary, and ComicBook.com had a chance to talk with him about the prolific series.

Before too long, talk shifted over to its spiritual successor Space Dandy, and when asked whether or not it could work as a live-action series, Kawamoto believed it could be easier to do surprisingly enough.

We asked Kawamoto his opinions about the currently in the works Cowboy Bebop live-action television series in the United States, and when the subject of a live-action Space Dandy came up, he opined that it might actually be easier to make that series into live-action than fans would expect:

“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.”

When taking a cursory glance at Space Dandy, its outlandish setting and characters make it seem like a much tougher property to adapt into a live-action series than it would, say, Cowboy Bebop, but this perspective is an interesting one as fans would assume Bebop would be easier to make because it’s not as overtly “animated.”

But Kawamoto emphasizes how much fun the series would be to adapt into live-action, and that’s a crucial part of any adaptation process. While Cowboy Bebop might be the bigger and more enticing property, it might be less fun and therefore a more difficult process to actually produce. Especially when considering how fans of the series would react when the live-action series comes to light. That’s if it ever does, really.

Space Dandy is an original anime series produced by Bones in 2014. The story follows Dandy, who is a “dandy” alien hunter in his space adventures as he discovers unknown alien species with his robot assistant QT and cat alien friend Meow. The series was licensed for an English language release by Funimation and even premiered in the United States before its official Japanese broadcast. A manga adaptation ran in Square Enix’s Young Gangan and was licensed for an English release by Yen Press.